Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(126)

Her heart would not stop aching. “Do you not know what this mark means, you god-swived scut of a horse? You will be forsaken, too. Danger will come into your path. Your fortunes will turn.”

He blew air at the back of her neck and shook his head.

Oh, Temra. Why had that goddess not given this horse sense? She couldn’t bear to see him hurt. But she didn’t know how to send him away without hurting him herself.

Shim’s sudden snort had her reaching for her sword again. His ears pricked forward, he faced the darkness behind them.

“What is it?” Gripping his mane, Mala prepared to haul herself onto his back. Not riding together again—she would defend him. Then when the danger had passed, she would make him go.

A rider crested the low hill. Mala’s heart constricted. At this distance, he was nothing but shadow, but she couldn’t mistake him. Kavik.

He’d pushed her away. Why come after her now?

But it mattered not. “Shim,” she whispered. “Let me mount the mare. Please.”

He only lifted his head and whinnied loudly. Kavik’s horse answered. All part of Shim’s little herd.

Heart racing, Mala drew up her hood and swiftly struck out north again. Dead grass crackled under her boots. Shim and the mare plodded along behind. And the pounding of the gelding’s hooves was growing ever louder.

Abruptly the gelding slowed. She heard Kavik dismount. Moments later, the crunch of grass under his boots caught up with her own.

“You must go away from me.” She did not shift her gaze from the path ahead. “I am forsaken.”

“So am I,” Kavik said softly.

No. Not like this. “Danger will come into your path. Your fortunes will turn.”

“Danger has always come into my path. And how could my fortunes be worse, little dragon?”

“They will be.” Pain swelled in her chest. He had no more sense than a horse. “Please, Kavik. I could not bear being the one responsible for the hurt this will bring you. How can you not understand this? To protect your people from Barin, you haven’t allowed them to help you.”

“If I choose to stay, then I am the one responsible for any hurt this brings me. Not you.” His voice roughened. “You once helped me despite my warnings. You called the sweetest touch torture. I would torture you the same way, if you believe it would save me from Vela’s wrath.”

With his fingers sliding beneath her belt. With his hands gripping her ass. Then telling her how much he wanted to taste her.

She stared ahead without answering. A heavy cloud passed in front of the moon and the moors darkened. Kavik was only a shadow beside her.

“Now she won’t see me walking with you and know to punish me,” he said. “You could touch me without fear.”

“I don’t wish to touch you.”

“Then why do you care what Vela will do? Already I suffer punishment beyond bearing.”

Her breath hitched. “Why have you come? It is still not my moon night—and there are many sheaths in the city.”

“But I do not love any of the women who possess them,” he said gruffly. “I only love you.”

“And what of it?” Teeth clenched, she looked into the sky, at the silver-laced clouds with the moon lit behind. Why could she not breathe again? “You think I am so desperate for your heart that I would let you stab mine?”

“What I did wasn’t meant to hurt you. I was a stubborn fool.”

Just as she had already told him. So she said nothing.

“I dreamed of you,” he said. “For so many years. Every night, Vela sent me visions. I didn’t know your name, but I knew who you were. My little dragon, the High Daughter in a hauberk of green scales. I was earning coin to build my army, and fought amongst giants, yet I measured every warrior I met against you because I loved you even then. And I wanted to come for you. But how could you love a man who’d abandoned his people in favor of his heart? So I built my army, and planned to go to you after I killed Barin. But Vela sent you to me first.”

To tame him. Mala could not halt her laugh. “She can be cruel.”

“I believed it was cruelty, too. When I pissed in her offering bowl, she told me that I had to wait for the woman in red. That when that woman came, I would be on my knees, and it would be the end.”

Mala’s heart clenched. She stopped walking and her gaze flew to his face, but the darkness hid him from her. “Your end?”

“It must be mine” was his bleak reply. “At the labyrinth, when I saw your red cloak at a distance, I knew it must be coming. I didn’t know the woman in red would be my dragon. I had not dreamed of you since your mother’s death.”

Shards of remembered pain pierced her chest. “That was when I took up my quest.”

“Then that is why my dreams ended. I would have seen you wearing the red. I would have been prepared. Instead I learned when I met you that the woman I love would be my end.”

Mala wouldn’t be his end. But it might not be her choice. “Perhaps because you walk with me when I am forsaken, warrior. She will be cruel.”

“Not in this.” His response sounded raw and thick, as if he’d choked down sand. “She sent you here. I had you, even if only a short time. She is more generous than I knew. If simply walking beside you is all that I will ever have, I will thank her for every moment, no matter how painful it might become, and no matter how it might hasten my death.”