Fuck my life and give me a shot of whiskey. I needed a drink.
The sound of Shem and his horse racing into the night faded and a sudden spurt of energy flowed through me. “We go now. Those fucking dogs will be on us in no time.” Like their counterparts, werehyenas had noses that outstripped just about any other animal.
Lila squeaked. “We barely survived that storm! And I want to stay warm for a little while.”
“And if whoever it is that sent that storm thought they hurt us, they won’t expect us to move.” Damn the Emperor and his games. He was almost as bad as Ishtar. I could see why they’d been a couple. I strode into the cave, found my boots and yanked them on, along with a cloak that I cinched around my waist with a thick leather corset belt. That would keep it from flapping and give Lila a place to hang onto if she needed it.
“You’re letting fear rule you. We need to be smart about this,” Maks said.
I shook my head. “Nope, this is not fear. This is understanding my enemy. Behind and in front.”
“Yes, you are letting fear rule you,” he repeated; his voice had an edge to it. “You could have died out there. We all could have.”
I turned to him. “Yeah, that’s the thing, Maks. We are going to face death over and over. It’s not going to end for us for a long time if even a small portion of what Shem said is true. Whether the Emperor is dealing in this or not, we have to move and move now. I know what Ishtar showed me whether she meant to or not. The werehyenas won’t wait for light.”
Lila’s claws dug into my shoulder. “Don’t the horses need to rest?”
“We aren’t racing through the night, but we’re moving now. We have close to three weeks before we hit the desert, and now we have dogs on our asses. You want to wait and fight them here, stuck in a cave with limited resources? If the pack is half as big as they can get, we’ll be wishing for a herd of gorcs.” I scooped up my saddle in one hand and my gear in the other. With a flick of my head and cluck of my tongue, I had Balder follow me out of the cave.
Once outside, I quickly tacked up. I was in the saddle before I realized that Maks and Batman had not followed me.
“Maks?”
“No,” he called from inside the cave. “This is a bad idea, Zam, and as your second, I am putting my foot down.”
My jaw dropped. Was he serious? Lila tightened her hold on me. “Zam, why is he doing this? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Was it possible that the Emperor had dug into his mind, too, in a different way? Was it possible that something had happened and I’d not noticed in my own self-absorbed state as I searched for the rest of my pride? No, he’d seemed totally fine earlier.
I hopped off Balder and ground tied him. “Lila, stay here, please.” I looked up at her sitting on Balder’s neck. She bobbed her head.
“Okay, but if you don’t come out in five minutes, I’m coming in.”
I gave her a thumbs-up and ducked into the cave.
The fire was still going, and it lit Maks from the far side, his back to me. I bit my lower lip and approached him with caution. Just in case. The cave around us glittered with light from the cut walls. The stone held flecks of reflective glass that caught the light and threw it in a wider arc. I’d not noticed them before, but here and there I could see designs etched. The language of the Jinn.
I shivered, pulled myself together and put a hand on his shoulder. Moving with care, I walked around him until I was looking into his face. “Maks, talk to me. What is really going on?”
His eyes were closed and his body shook as though he were indeed fighting something. His throat bobbed up and down as he struggled to speak. “I can’t do it, Zam. I can’t go back to the desert. This cave . . . I should not have brought you here.”
No other words could have rocked me so hard. “What?”
He reached for me, pulling me into his arms and burying his face in the crook of my neck, his lips against my skin. The trembling in his body slid through mine, scaring me in a way I’d never felt before. To know such a strong man, one who’d faced down the biggest and ugliest of our world, was afraid . . . it cut my own strength. I held him tightly while he shuddered.
“Maks, talk to me.”
He did a hell of a lot more than talk to me.
He lifted his head and kissed me, salt on his lips, heat in his mouth as he took the kiss without asking, demanding that I give over to him. I slid my arms around him and hung on while he plundered my lips and mouth with his tongue. His hands clenched me, to the edge of pain but not quite. I bit his lower lip, tugging at it as he moved his mouth away from mine to my jaw, down my neck to the top of my shirt. He pressed his forehead to the top of my chest and rubbed his face side to side . . . marking me as any cat would do to its mate. A flush of warmth spread from my lower regions all the way up to the tips of my ears. “Maks, much as this is hot as hell, I need you to talk to me.”
He kept his head down, his breathing ragged as he rubbed his face against my bare skin. No lips, just that smoothing motion side to side, as if he could make the mark visible. I caught his face in my hands and tipped it up so I could look into his eyes. “Maks. Please. I know the Jinn are going to be tough to get by—”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m fine. I just . . . had a moment of weakness is all.” He smiled, but I saw the strain behind it and that set my alarms off. He kissed me gently once more, then turned away. “I’ll get my stuff.”
I stood there staring at his back as he grabbed his saddle and gear, took Batman by the reins and led him out. He didn’t look at me again.
Moving on autopilot, I put the fire out, kicking dirt over it. The darkness that fell as the flames died was heavy as if eyes were in the shadows the light kept back. I shook my head, knowing my imagination was running wild.
My eyes adjusted to the dark—perk for being a cat shifter. I made myself stand and stare into the void of the cave. “I’m not afraid of you, whoever you are.”
The words echoed and bounced as if the individual letters were rearranged as they moved.
You will fear me. The voice was a whisper, a ghost of a man’s voice as if coming from far away, and I knew without a doubt who it was.
That fucker Marsum. I wanted to say it was all my words jumbled up inside my head that gave me the voice speaking to me, but that was a lie. Son of a bitch, this freaky ass shit was not the way to start the night after losing Shem. After seeing Maks lose his courage.
I stumbled back. I couldn’t help it and reached for the flail before I even thought of grabbing a weapon.
The handle warmed, but I knew there was nothing to fight even though my senses were screaming like crazy that I was in danger. There was nothing in the dark.
I kept my ass moving toward the opening and my eyes on the back of the cave . . . just in case I was wrong and there was something or someone sitting in the depths of the darkness. I slid out, and the second I was free of the cave the words faded from my ears.
As if they had never been. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. Maks was already on Batman, his face flat of any emotion.
Lila cocked her head to one side. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I forced my fingers to let go of the flail as I walked to Balder. “Nothing.”
Maks did look at me then and I couldn’t meet his eyes. Maybe he had his own secrets, maybe I had mine.
Long as they didn’t end up getting us killed, did it really matter?
We got the horses moving at an easy trot, following the natural flow of the hills around as we headed straight south. At some point, we’d turn east again, but not for a long while. Not until we had to.
Silence ruled the night air and we made good time. Hours slipped by in complete silence. Maks and I had ridden like that before, on our first trip into the Witch’s Reign. But that had been a comfortable silence of people who didn’t need to talk to each other, but could if they wanted to. I wanted him to talk to me. To tell me what was freaking him out.
Lila slept as we rode, curled in between me and the pommel of the saddle with a chunk of my cloak covering her. I kept one hand on her tiny body, making sure she didn’t fall off.