Page 16 of White Horse Black Nights

He hasn’t hurt me yet. Maybe he never will. Maybe his blind loyalty to my future husband will keep him from sampling the goods.

At least, that’s what I’ve told myself until now.

Steeling my nerves to mask my fear, I snap open my eyes and glower, “You promised you wouldn’t look.”

His eyebrows raise as his gaze drags from my legs to my face. A hint of amusement wrinkles the skin around his eyes. “I wasn’t looking at your ass, Lady Sabine. There’s a deathrattle snake curled up at your back.”

Oh.

My face flushes as I sit up. Twisting around, I spot the snake’s black-and-red pattern coiled against my flesh.

“Don’t move,” he orders, drawing his knife. “I’ll kill it.”

“Don’t you dare!” I gently nudge the snake awake with my bound hands. It raises its head, flicks its tongue at me in silent thanks for the good rest, and then slithers off toward the woods. “It was only seeking some warmth.”

As the venomous snake disappears into the underbrush, Wolf stares at me with that same gobsmacked look as when I fed the hungry mouse. Finally, he pinches the bridge of his nose, mutters something under his breath, and then starts kicking dirt onto the fire.

“Get up. It’s dawn. Time to move.”

I hold out my bound hands pointedly, and he uses his knife to slice through the ropes on my wrists and ankles.

Rubbing my wrists, I make my way to where Wolf tied Myst to a tree. She tosses her head insistently.

Worried for you,she says.

“I know, my brave girl,” I whisper, running a calming hand down her velvety muzzle. “We’ll both be okay.”

Leave now? Run?

I sigh, glancing over my shoulder at Wolf packing his rucksack. “It still isn’t time.” She knows about my plan to run away with Adan to the extent that a horse is able to comprehend complex ideas. She wasn’t fond of Adan any more than she is of Wolf, but that’s only because she’s overprotective of me and generally distrustful of men.

I wonder who she learned that from, I think wryly, remembering all the times I complained to her about my father.

“Soon,” I whisper.

Escaping will be trickier than I thought, now that Wolf has determined my aims. Of course, Lord Rian’s stipulation that I ride with no lead or bridle is actually a godsend; Myst and I can bolt whenever we like. But we have to be smart about it. I didn’t anticipate my future husband would send a godkissed huntsman to escort me.

Myst and I can run, but Wolf can track us anywhere. A few hours’ lead on him doesn’t mean much when we’ll have to stop eventually for rest and directions. I have to figure out a way to run so that he can’t follow us.

After combing my fingers through the knots in Myst’s mane and tail, I feel Wolf move up behind me.

He says almost apologetically, “My shirt, Lady Sabine.”

My hand falls on the rough linen collar that smells like him. Of course, word cannot get to Lord Rian that I broke a single one of his rules. No one can know that I was clothed for even a second of this ride.

Keeping my back to him, I start to tug his shirt over my head, but before it’s over my shoulders, he takes ahold of my braid like seizing a stallion’s reins. He coils it around his fist and then yanks my head back.

Gasping, I cry, “Don’t touch me!”

“Quiet,” he orders, low and hard. He moves his hand to feel along my back ribs, prodding and testing the skin gingerly, with a heightened sense of touch that seems to tell him cryptic details about my body.

He grunts low in his throat. “You have a cracked rib.”

I try to look at him over my shoulder, but he still has my braid in a fist. I hiss, “It’s fine.”

His grasp tightens on my braid. “It’s an old wound. Five weeks and a day. There’s still some bruising.”

He finally loosens his hold, and I twist away, tugging the borrowed shirt back down so I can face him clothed. Tipping my chin up, I snap, “I said it’s fine! It’s almost healed, anyway.”

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