The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(41)

She laughed.

Quietly, he said, “I was afraid when I came to the stable and saw that Javelin wasn’t in his stall.”

Startled, she turned her head, catching a glimpse of the line of his jaw and the shadows of his throat. She returned her gaze to the road. Lightly, she said, “Worse than spiders?”

“Ah, much worse.”

“If I ran away, I wouldn’t get very far.”

“In my experience, it’s a very bad idea to underestimate you.”

“But you didn’t try to ride me down.”

“No.”

“You wanted to.”

“Yes.”

“What stopped you?”

“Fear,” he said, “of what it would mean for me not to trust you. I saddled a horse. I was ready to ride . . . but I thought that if I did, I’d be nothing more than a different kind of prison to you.”

His words made her feel strange.

He changed his tone. There was mischief in it now. “Also, you’re a little intimidating.”

“I am not.”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t think you’d appreciate being followed. I’ve seen what happens to people who get on your bad side. And now you know my weakness, and will drop spiders down the back of my shirt if I cross you, and I’ll have a hard life indeed.”

“Hmph,” she said, but she had calmed. Her bones didn’t feel so jammed up against each other in tensed certainty of a blow about to fall. There was the day. It was green and blue and gold. There was the powerful slow horse. His steady step. A murmur in the trees. Branch and twig. Arms on either side of her. Roots buckling up and disappearing back into the ground.

Words clogged in her throat. But there was a soft feeling in her chest, a warmth that gave her courage to speak. “You said that we don’t know the reason I stopped Javelin from taking the path to my house. What do you think is the reason?”

He hesitated. Finally, he said, “I have no thoughts.”

“You always have thoughts.”

She felt some quality of surprise in him. He’d been surprised by the familiarity of her tone.

“Tell me,” she said.

“I’m thinking that I don’t want to assume anything. It’s—” He broke off. “Dangerous for me. Where you’re concerned.”

As they neared his home, they had an easy rhythm in the saddle. He rode one-handed now. She was a bit sorry for Javelin, who had to bear both their weights. She’d make it up to him. She knew where the carrots were kept.

But eventually her mental list of which treat to offer and which curry brush to use came to an end. She was left with images that wouldn’t go away.

The fork in the path. Arin by the creek. That brief memory of the first time she’d ever seen him. His refusal to look up. His face bruised, armored by hatred.

She said, “Was I horrible to you when you worked for me?”

“No.”

“Did I hit you?”

“Kestrel, no. Why would you ask that?”

“I remember you bruised.”

“You didn’t do that. You wouldn’t.”

“Well,” she pointed out, “I have hit you in recent memory.”

“That was different.”

She remembered how powerless she’d felt when she’d struck him. She thought she understood what he meant. “How was I, then, when I owned you?”

There was no sound but the leaves and Javelin’s hooves on the dirt. The trees thinned. Arin’s house rose into view.

Kestrel said, “You hated me.”

He stopped the horse. “Please look at me.”

She turned in the saddle and did, meeting his gaze.

“At first I hated you,” he said. “It was for what you were, not who you were. I didn’t know who you were. And then I did, a little. You seemed kind. Kindness isn’t good in a master. Not to me. It’s another way of making you beg. You become grateful for things you shouldn’t be grateful for. When I was a child I was so grateful for it. Then I grew, and I almost preferred cruelty because it was closer to the truth, and no one hid behind the lie of being nice. I broke rules. Especially with you. I kept pushing for you to punish me. I tried to force your hand. I wanted you to show your true self.”

His expression was difficult to read. The crook in her neck was painful. She dropped her gaze to Javelin’s mane.

“But this was your true self,” he said. “Intelligent, brave, manipulative. Kind. You made no effort to hide who you were. Then I found that I wanted you to hide it. This was the luxury of your position, wasn’t it, that you didn’t have to hide? It was the doomed nature of mine, that I did. And that’s true. Sometimes a truth squeezes you so tightly you can’t breathe. It was like that. But it also wasn’t, because there was another reason it hurt to look at you. You were too likable. To me.”

She wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’m trying to be honest,” he told her.

“I believe you. But it’s hard to believe you could have really known me. Some of what you say doesn’t make sense.”

“Which part?”

“My character seems contradictory.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think you can be manipulative and kind at the same time.”