I couldn’t bring myself around to asking, to humiliating myself even further. Instead, I busied myself with Ailsa. Mathias settled Fife first with the bags as well as covering them back up with the tarp. Then, he came to me and for a moment we stood face to face as I stared up at him. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Lauren . . .”
“We, uh, we shouldn’t put too much thought into it,” I blurted out. My cheeks were heating again as I added, “It wasn’t anything . . . to think about, right?”
He didn’t respond right away, then he nodded. “You’re right. Although, I should apologize for teasing you. It was rather rude of me.”
I caught myself just before I protested I hadn’t thought him rude. With the way things had been going, I would have slipped up and said I would’ve liked his kiss. Things were awkward enough as it was without adding that to the mix. So, I only offered a little nod. “There’s nothing to forgive. It’s forgotten.”
I still caught my breath when he slipped his hands around my waist. For a moment, I imagined him tugging me closer and even kissing me . . . Then he stepped back, instead of pulling me toward him, and lifted me onto Ailsa’s saddle. Definitely no kissing here.
The entire second day was filled with silence. I was too embarrassed to even look at Mathias much less try to make small talk. And Mathias was . . . back to being cold. Maybe he regretted bringing me along. I couldn’t force myself to ask or to apologize for inconveniencing him. The second night we slept back to back, and Mathias was up before I was so I could only hope I hadn’t snuggled up to him in my sleep again. Even the glancing idea of asking him if I had was far too embarrassing. It was a relief when we finally left the blanket bog behind in favor of venturing into the moorland. If only because I hoped we would stop soon.
We were in the moors for three days before we entered a valley. About halfway down from its mouth, I could make out cairns and toppled stone walls that marked the perimeter of a tiny village. Mathias chirruped to Artair urging the stallion to move faster toward the haunting stone buildings. Some of which were tumbling down or covered in either grass or lichen.
It looked prime for haunting stories. Foreboding, gloomy, and a little creepy, there was a heaviness in the air. A sadness, almost. The same heaviness settled over me, and I knew one thing with absolute certainty — I didn’t want to stay here. But with Ailsa eagerly stretching her neck out and taking the bit in her teeth, I had little choice save to reluctantly follow Mathias.
He headed straight for the largest of the cottages in the center of the village. He was already off his horse when I arrived with the pack pony following behind me. He entered the cottage without looking back. I sighed knowing he wasn’t going in there just to get directions. There was no life in the ruined village, no sign of creatures either, which was rather odd.
Mathias came out of the cottage and strode over to me. He lifted me down from the saddle and released me almost as fast as he could manage without knocking me off my balance. I kept one hand on Ailsa’s neck as I watched Mathias stride away from me without even a single word. He pulled my crutches from Fife’s pack and brought them back to me. As he returned to unloading Fife’s bags, I looked around the desolate little village. It seemed we had arrived at our destination.
I watched Mathias striding back into the cottage, a bag in each hand. That man had some explaining to do as soon as I could pin him down long enough to even get the answers.
* * *
Chapter Seven
Mathias
The snow crunched beneath my boots as I continued my survey of the village’s perimeters. No one had followed us into the Flow Country or out of it. Thus far it appeared my plan was working. The glamour over the village had faded with time and disuse due to my people’s absence. But there was still enough here that most walking past would find it difficult to detect anything beyond tumbled ruins. As long as we didn’t stay too close to the village border, we should remain undetected. Lauren would be safe.
After finishing my sweep, I returned to the stable. The Fae ponies were munching on the flakes of hay I had carried with us and seemed content to huddle together for further warmth. The beasts had stout hearts and steady dispositions, just as their owner had promised. I stayed in the stable with the Fae ponies for a little longer attempting to gather my courage enough to go back to the cottage.
Lauren had been . . . annoyed with me when I didn’t take the time to explain things to her. Again. She didn’t understand that there was so little time left. Or, that every conversation threatened to strengthen the pull toward her due to both my misspoken vow and her own draw. Far better to risk her annoyance than to continue treating her as a confidante.
Although she had not acted nearly so annoyed the first night we camped in the Flow Country . . . A low groan escaped me as my mind easily offered up the memory of waking to find Lauren pressed so close against my side, offering a distracting and too soft source of heat that seeped through layers of clothing to burn my skin. I had considered getting up and moving, but I had selfishly wanted the experience to last as long as it could so I had stayed still. Other than wrapping an arm around her to keep her there just a little longer.
Fife whickered and I tried to refocus my attention on brushing down his shaggy winter coat. But, my mind flickered back to that night. A hint of a smile curled my lips as I recalled the way Lauren’s dark eyes had widened when her first attempt to keep me from freezing sounded like a rather tempting proposition. Recalling the way her green shawl haphazardly framed her face and the wavy hair escaping her bun, the way her lips had parted slightly as she realized what she had said, and the faintest darkening of her creamy tan complexion as she blushed, my smile widened. Lauren Hope was extremely beautiful when flustered. And when she had kept talking in a strained attempt to correct her mistaken offer, I had wanted nothing more than to silence her with a kiss.
My smile faded as I remembered why I had forced myself to sit still instead of kissing Lauren into silence. I wouldn’t have been content to just kiss her and let her go. Kissing her that night would have led to a confession I couldn’t risk. And, it would have cemented the pull I felt toward her to the point that I would have given into the instinctive urge to take her with me to my people’s ancient homeland to complete the rites.
That was something I simply could not do . . . not to Lauren. I clung to that knowledge with the desperation of a drowning man as I finished tending to the horses and finally left the stable. But thoughts of Lauren still filled my thoughts. The moment she had objected to riding when I first brought the Fae ponies to her, I had been certain she would accept my offer to take her to Wick and part ways. Then she had suddenly softened and concern had filled her dark eyes in the faint light cast by the moon and gas lamp. And, she had spoken of not letting me do something foolish.
The thought made me frown. Foolish was behaving as though Lauren had no effect on me. Of pretending that watching her expression change from soft as she reached out to touch me to a cautious wariness or even fear before she desperately tried to creep away from my side hadn’t cut me deeply. Acting on those same feelings that had prompted me to tease her about kissing her good night. All those things would have been foolish. Hunting down Weard’s hunters to pull their attention away from Lauren as she escaped on her own would have been . . . far less foolish. There would have been justice in hunting them. And, in protecting her that way. Even if it meant I would not escape the ice burning through my veins as I had hoped.
I shook the confusing thoughts away as I entered the cottage. I wanted to prepare myself for the onslaught of questions. No doubt, Lauren was more than ready for me to explain why I brought her to this place. Only the tide of questions never came. Instead, I was greeted by utter silence.
For one achingly long moment, I feared she had left the safety of the cottage. There were still protections forming a border around the village but if she crossed over them, it wouldn’t take much for one of the local predatory paranormals to dete
ct her presence. They always knew when someone was injured in the moors and glens. If not for the Fae ponies’ ability to follow the fae paths through the Flow Country, I never would have dared to bring Lauren that way. It would have been far too dangerous to risk attracting the various predators.
I was poised to run out of the cottage to find her when a slight noise broke through my rising panic. I turned and was greeted by the sight of Lauren huddled on a bench in front of the crackling fire. I drew closer and realized she was asleep. I rested a hand against her shoulder. “Lauren.”
She mumbled something in her sleep and tried to pull away from my touch. I barely kept her from rolling right off the narrow bench. It seemed I would not be having a conversation with her. Something that did not give me the relief I would have expected. Instead, there was almost a sense of . . . disappointment.
Rubbish. I forced the feeling away even as I moved away from Lauren. I checked the extra pack of supplies I purchased when bargaining for the horses. Food, fresh water, and plenty of blankets . . . ones Lauren probably would have preferred to use whilst we were in the bog, but I had only chosen the heaviest of our blankets to ensure we wouldn’t leave all our supplies behind should we need to escape any hunting parties. The fact that Lauren and I ended up sleeping so close together as a result had been an unexpected reward. I shook the distracting thought away as I looked over the extra pack once more. It would be enough to sustain us for a little while at least. Long enough to shake the hunters off our trail.
I busied myself with preparing the only bed left in the cottage. Tucked in the back corner of the house was a small room with a bed just wide enough for two. At one point there had been beds in the main room, which probably would have been warmer at the moment, but it was better to sleep in a defensible position. I added several layers of blankets to the bed to provide warmth beneath and then I went back into the main room. Digging further into the supplies, I extracted a warming pan. It would do. I filled the pan and then tucked it between the blankets as I added more on top.
Only when I was certain the blankets were comfortably warm did I return to Lauren. She was still curled up on the bench. I picked her up and carried her to the bed. Setting her down, I worked off her boot and then stepped back. When she still shivered despite wearing her coat, I unbuttoned my own coat and spread it over her before tucking the blankets around her. The cold no longer troubled me. Not when ice already flowed through me.
For the span of a single heartbeat, I considered staying with her. Allowing her warmth to reach past the cold and daring to hope . . . I leaned close to her wanting to speak but not even knowing what to say. Unable to fully stop myself, I pressed a kiss to her cheek and then forced myself to take a step back. Then another. Then another. Until I retreated through the doorway and shut out the sight of her.
Standing in front of the fire, I folded my arms over my chest as I struggled against the pull. The urge to go back in there and wake Lauren up so I could explain to her what was happening, what feelings she stirred in me, sharpened like a burning knife methodically slicing through me. But I couldn’t give in. I kept my silence forcing as much emotional distance between us as I could without physically separating myself. Yet the pull to complete the vow, to dare make Lauren my—
Biting back a groan, I couldn’t even permit myself to finish the thought. The pull toward Lauren grew stronger by the day despite my best efforts. Waking so many times to find her snuggled up against me, warming me as she clung to my coat, had certainly weakened my resistance to her. I would need to do something drastic soon to avoid coming too near disaster. Especially since every day spent resisting the pull also served to strengthen the cold’s hold over me. It was painful to feel pulled in one direction while struggling against the cold that hovered too close to the surface now and threatened to pull me under every time I fought. It would have been easy to give in to the cold and end the struggle. If not for the consequences, I would have been tempted to do just that.
Lauren. The cold. Both pulled me with equal strength and my attempts to resist the choice would eventually come to haunt me. Standing in front of the fire, I caught myself wondering if giving in to the cold would truly be so dire a decision. I shook my head. I knew it would be just that, if not worse. I needed to take one of the pills before I made a potentially deadly mistake.
I patted my pockets out of habit before I remembered with fresh clarity the fact that I had emptied the pill bottle days earlier. It was part of the reason I had brought Lauren here instead of to a different area of Scotland. I needed my cache.
I turned my back on the fire barely aware of the heat seeping through my sweater. Unlike the softer warmth derived from Lauren’s slender body, the fire held no distraction and couldn’t seep past the cold now filling my veins. I forced my mind away from thoughts of Lauren. I needed to concentrate. Where had I hidden the cache? It had been long enough that I could not immediately recall. I needed to find it. Now.
* * *
Lauren
The whiff of Mathias’ aftershave teased my nose. I opened my eyes, wondering why he hadn’t woken me up the moment the train stopped moving, only to gaze up at a dark roof. My fingers wrapped around something warm and soft. My gaze shifted to my surroundings. I was in a small room with stone walls and in a bed covered in blankets. Mathias’ aftershave still tickled my nose and I quickly looked around, but he wasn’t in the room with me. It was only then I noticed that more than blankets covered me. Mathias’ wool coat, which would explain why it smelled like him.
My head felt heavy and I almost went back to sleep but then something broke outside the room and I jolted upright, heart pounding against my ribs. Where was Mathias?
I pushed the blankets back with trembling hands and found my boot on the floor. I tugged it on and then leveraged myself up. Bracing one hand against the wall, I grabbed Mathias’ coat and clutched it to me. Then, I hopped over to where my crutches were leaning in the corner.
Another crash followed by a thump. My heart was racing, a low ringing filled my ears, and panic made it difficult to breath but I still hobbled toward the door. I opened it a crack and peeked out into the main room. Mathias’ long lean frame was nearly folded in two as he crouched at the base of the far wall. He was muttering under his breath as he shoved a hand and half his arm into what looked like a cubbyhole.
I opened the door further and made my way into the main room. I shivered. The fire had died and the room was freezing. If not for a lantern balanced on the table, there would have been no light to see by at all. As I got closer to Mathias, I could see sweat beading his brow and scruff covering his jaw. “Mathias? Are you all right?”
He didn’t respond. If anything, his movements only grew more frantic and jerky. He looked like he was in withdrawal.
I frowned debating whether I should actually attempt to approach him. “Mathias?” I hobbled a little closer, but kept a good foot between us as I asked once more, “Are you all right, Mathias? Do you, umm, do you need help?”
Mathias suddenly sprang to his feet with a guttural yell. I screamed and stumbled back, barely keeping myself from falling. He still didn’t even spare a single glance for me. Instead, he raced outside, the cold air biting me before I hobbled over and shoved the door closed.
For a moment, I stood there panting with a hand braced against the door. This was a new wave of erratic behavior even for Mathias. I drew a shuddering breath and then hobbled over to the fireplace. There were still a few embers glowing in the ash. I focused on building the fire again even as my mind raced. I hadn’t checked the species list for the number scale. I never had a chance to go back and sneak another peek at Mathias’ book after we left Altnabreac. But now . . . I could certainly guess his species. One of the paranormals that tended to be notoriously unpredictable, especially when they got agitated.
Once the fire was burning cheerfully, I gathered my resolve and Mathias’ coat then hobbled out of the cottage. There was no sign of him outside. I bl
inked against the blinding sleet. “Mathias!”
No answer.
I hobbled forward. “Mathias! Where are you?”
Lord have mercy if that man ran off into the moors. How was I supposed to track him down?
I had no idea, but the thought of leaving him out in the cold while he was suffering from . . . something was unbearable. I couldn’t leave him to suffer or worse die. Just imagining it dropped an iron weight in the pit of my stomach.
A check of the stable confirmed all three horses were still there, which was a small comfort. But I still couldn’t find him. I hobbled past the tumbled stones and abandoned houses, calling “Mathias!”
Still no answer.
I was starting to panic when I heard something crash in one of the smaller houses. Gripping Mathias’ coat more tightly, I cautiously moved toward the open door. Mathias was in the middle of the house. Relief changed to concern as I realized he had been prying stones out of the fireplace. “Mathias.”
He didn’t respond, his breath coming in pants, but his frantic attempts to pry the stones out stilled. I made my way closer and reached out to touch his bruised and bloodied hands. The contact finally pulled Mathias’ attention to me and his blue-green eyes fixed on me. I kept my fingers on the back of his hand. “Mathias, it’s time to come back to the cottage. Where it’s warm. Aren’t you cold out here?”
“Ice does not feel cold.”
The way he was sweating I wasn’t as surprised by his answer as I might have been under other circumstances. I slid my hand down his arm from his wrist to his elbow. His gaze fell to follow my movement, giving me a little hope that I could still reach him. Moving slowly, I took his coat and wrapped it around his shoulders before steadying myself with a hand on his arm. “Mathias, I feel the cold. I’m worried about you. Won’t you come inside the cottage with me? So I don’t have to worry about you?”
Flight by Numbers Page 8
