Page 76 of The High Mountain Court

Hale moved to his sleep roll across the fire. They had added enough logs for a few hours’ worth of sleep before they would need to add more.

Remy was about to move to her bedroll when a shrieking snarl tore through the forest. She spun so fast for her bow she nearly toppled over. She nocked an arrow and froze, staring into the darkness. The sound was like that of a house cat, but deeper, louder. The trees shook with the reverberations of the far-off growl. Remy ground her teeth together. She would not be getting much sleep.

She hefted her pack and bedroll. Walking around the fire, she dropped them directly in front of Hale. Setting her bow and arrow in precise grabbing distance, she lay back down.

Hale smothered a laugh behind her.

“Shut up.” She scowled, but he did not make fun of her for wanting to sleep closer to him. With her bow at her front and Hale at her back, she would be safe.

“You ready for tomorrow?” he whispered.

“No,” Remy rolled over to meet Hale’s stare. His eyes had disappeared into the shadows, but she saw his faint grin in the firelight. “You?”

“Probably not.” Hale chuckled. That smile made her stomach muscles tighten. His chestnut hair tossed across his forehead. Remy remembered how she had brushed it back in the gardens of Saxbridge. She knew exactly how it would feel, how silky soft it would be, how her hand would smell like the waves rolling off the ocean.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Remy asked instead.

“Vostemur has the Immortal Blade,” Hale said like she didn’t already know. “And in order for the last High Mountain fae, Prince Raffiel, to stand a chance in reclaiming it, he will need his ancestor’s talismans.”

“The Shil-de ring and the amulet of Aelusien,” Remy whispered.

A vision of the prayer tree in the Southern Court flashed through Remy’s mind, all those ribbons flapping in the breeze. How many more people would have to mourn their dead if they did not succeed? She thought to the severed heads on the Eastern palace’s floor. Vostemur grew bolder by the day. He was pushing into the Western Court. Hale’s soldiers, Remy’s friends, were helping aide in the Eastern Court’s retreat as well. They needed this ancient magic if they had any hopes of defeating the northern threat.

Remy sensed the ring’s red magic, the power of the High Mountain fae and the red witches. Her hand skimmed over the lump where her totem bag rested. “You should wear the ring tomorrow, Hale.”

He smiled as she said his name. She did it so rarely, she realized. He seemed to cherish the sound.

“That would defeat the purpose of obtaining the ring,” Hale said. He couldn’t put the ring on and then give it to another.

Anyone could use the Shil-de ring, unlike the Immortal Blade, which was tethered to the High Mountain fae by red witch blood magic. But once the ring was on its wearer’s finger, it was there forever or until they took it off, and then . . . all the deaths the ring had saved them from would reclaim them. The ring only protected from violent deaths, though. Age and time would reclaim the ring bearer, eventually.

“Besides,” Hale said softly, and she felt his eyes searching her own in the darkness, “if anything, you should be the one wearing it.”

“Why?” she asked. Her heart began pounding louder, and she hoped he could not hear it.

Another hissing growl shook the earth. The horses whinnied. Remy flipped over, trying to search in the sound’s direction, but the wild noises were still far away in the night. How long until the lions caught their scent and came prowling this way?

Remy flopped back down in frustration, feeling like lion bait. She reached out for Hale’s muscled arm and pulled it around her. He chuckled, wrapping her in his warmth, one arm snaking around her side and splaying across the rough fabric of her tunic.

“Quiet,” Remy growled again. She pulled the fur blanket over both of them. Yanking her bag to her front, she wedged herself between her pack and the prince.

Yeah, that would protect her from a horse-sized mountain lion with a taste for human flesh.

She still felt Hale smiling into her hair.

“Go to sleep,” she ordered.

He pulled her back until she was flat against his warm front. The rise and fall of his chest was a comforting rhythm to her now, after days of riding with him. She knew the sound of his steady heartbeat as easily as she knew her own.

* * *

Remy woke in the night. Had she imagined the snarl of a lion? She didn’t know if it was a dream. She looked at the fire. It still blazed strongly. She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep. Both horses were still there, calm. She scanned the night for any large reflective cat eyes, but there were none. She had rolled more onto her stomach in her sleep, lying halfway across her pack. In doing so, she had trapped Hale’s arm under her and where his hand rested . . .

She had pinned his hand between her pack and the apex of her thighs.

Going rigid, all at once Remy was not sleepy at all. That hand. That Gods’ damned hand was right there. She felt the heat emanating into her, that perfect spot. Hale’s deep sleeping breaths rolled like waves from behind her. His perfect ocean air scent wrapped around her entire body, making the sensations coursing through her even sharper. She wasn’t sure where her scent ended and his began.

And that hand.

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