Page 37 of Mastering their Maiden

But I also knew that animals fought harder when they were facing death, and that made me wary. It should make Kaiden wary, because he too knew how dangerous men could be when they were at risk of losing power.

I didn’t relax after Umber’s explanation, and I watched his casual expression turn to one of confusion. “We’re also stopping to give Frayne an update on when he can expect Quade and the other masters to arrive. He lets them camp near his hut. It’s safe territory.”

“Not lately,” I countered. “There are Skepna near the creek. Zander and I encountered two of them a few days ago.”

Umber smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “We don’t have anything to fear from Skepna.”

“You do.” I pulled back from him, narrowing my eyes. “Caught off guard, they’re not hard to kill, but I’ve seen them fight, Umber. They slaughtered us during raids when I was a child.”

“You’re not a child anymore. And with the way Zander has been working you, I bet you could kill them all if you wanted.”

He grinned teasingly, but I shook my head. “For once I think you are overestimating me. And maybe yourselves. And Skepna aside, do you think it’s wise that all of you go? The Elders—”

“The Elders know the rules we’ve established. It’s one day they have to run the market without our guidance. I don’t think they’d be foolish enough—”

“You’d be foolish to underestimate them, too. A lot can happen in a single day.”

I pressed my lips together, thinking again about how easily Zander and Dex had softened my barriers, and Kaiden had all but torn them down. Now here I was, pleading with Umber to have someone—anyone—stay with me when I could handle this. I could.

I didn’t need them. I didn’t. I never had. I never would.

“Do all of you have to go?” I heard myself ask the question, though there was a part of me screaming in anger. But the words wouldn’t stop. They just kept coming, sounding more pathetic by the second. “Maybe you should stay. Or Zander. He doesn’t say much during your meetings with the whole squad, when he does it usually angers someone. He’d be better off to stay—”

“Kaiden wants us to be seen as a unit and show that we’re loyal to one another and to our whole tribe.” Umber began smoothing his hands up and down my back. “There will be soldiers here. You won’t be alone.”

I scoffed. “I trust Ryne’s men less than the Elders.”

Umber hesitated, rolling his lips together before shaking his head, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. He quickly schooled his features to hide his concern and kissed me on the nose to distract me from my own. “They wouldn’t dare defy Kaiden. Kaze and Ellis will be here. You’ve seen how they are with your friend and her baby. Do you really think they’d let anything happen to either of them?”

I swallowed, knowing he was right. I’d seen how the two Kavari interacted with Summer. She’d even let them hold Lucan and she barely let anyone else touch him.

But still, they might be able to keep her safe, but the rest of the women? “They’re two men, Umber,” I pointed out. “Against twenty others, the odds—”

“Aleria.”

Umber’s expression was soft, filled with so much affection I felt my cheeks flush with heat. “Is this your way of telling me that you worry for us? That you, perhaps, trust us to keep you safe?”

I scowled, pressing my lips together. Maybe I did trust them, but I didn’t trust that because the men were cowed in front of Kaiden and the others that they would stay that way. Children didn’t sneak out when their parents were watching. They did it when their backs were turned.

This was what I wanted to say. What I should have said. But under Umber’s soft gaze, his gentle hands sliding up and down my back, the threads of anxiety eased, and my beating heart went one way while my thoughts tried to run in the opposite direction.

I trust you, but I don’t trust things are peaceful here. Even if right now they look that way.

“If you want to see it like that,” I murmured, tamping down the sentimental words before they moved past my lips. I’d let far too many simpering thoughts slip out recently. “I’m telling you, one of you should stay. I know how treacherous Hoval and Micah can be.”

Umber tilted his head. “You are worried.”

I scowled at him. Yes, I was worried. I was worried they were underestimating the danger we were still in, and how conniving and manipulative the Elders could be.

But I was also worried because of where my heart was leading me. The direction my thoughts were taking.

What. Was wrong. With me?

Why was I acting the same way I did when Esme left? Meek and worried, so dependent on her when I should have been able to stand on my own.

I was able to stand on my own.

I twisted out of Umber’s hold, folding my arms over my chest. This… whatever it was… it was worse than the lust they’d made me feel when they kissed and touched me. Lust was just that—a physical desire. This feeling surging through me…

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