Page 28 of A Hunt Bound in Blood
Such an abridged version of the worst experience of my life. As if it meant nothing. As if it hadn’t changed the course of my future and left me scrambling to pick up the pieces in a country where I had little in common with most of the people I interacted with. The meals were slightly more substantial—feeding from other demons was never filling, and our prisoners always came with an underlying bitterness of fear that tainted the rest—but the connection with my neighbours ended there. That was what had sent me travelling in the first place. Anything was better than trying to fit in and failing at every turn.
“I’m sorry.”
Glory’s voice was so soft, I might have missed it if the breeze hadn’t picked up at just the right moment to carry her words to my ear.
“It’s in the past. After we finish here, I’ll have the evidence I need to clear my name, and then I can leave this place and return home the victorious son.”
She tilted her head to watch me. “You’ve been here for ten years. That’s not long enough for Golthwaine to be your home now?”
I snorted a laugh. “You wouldn’t understand, mage. These are your people. You move among them and know what to expect. They know what to expect from you. You can relax around them. No one trusts a demon.”
Her cheeks flushed, and an emotion I couldn’t name floated around her. Embarrassment at being called out? I ignored it. Her opinion of me meant as much as that of the hundreds of other people I passed on any given day. It was the situation that rankled me, not her specific reaction to what I was.
We fell silent, the conversation at a blessed end.
But then she asked, “Is that why you accepted this mission?”
“What do you mean?”
“Helping King Evaniel. Did he offer to help you clear your name?”
The woman was quick, I’d give her that.
“He did. If we can save this princess, I’ll get the chance to grind my siblings beneath my heel. It was a fair deal.”
Glory dropped her chin in a nod. “Good.”
Curiosity bade me inquire. “Good?”
“You have a strong motivation to get us to the final landmark. That’s good to know.”
I grinned. “Does it make you trust me a little more?”
A faint smile played at the corner of her mouth. The first one I’d earned from her. “I won’t go that far, but up until now, I’ve assumed this was a regular job for you. The adventure was the point, win or lose. Maybe I won’t argue with you so much over your interpretation of Tersey’s poems now that I know you’re as driven to reach the goal as I am.”
We stopped for our late midday meal next to a narrow creek, but after letting the cool water soothe what was left of my rash, I didn’t let us linger. We were making good progress, so I wasn’t concerned about getting past the halfway mark to the next signpost, but a faint whiff of something in the air nagged me to move faster.
Glory grew increasingly out of temper at the quickened pace, her feet slipping and sliding over the rocks as we made our way back to the road. I tuned her out and focused on our surroundings.
I had no proof that we were being followed, but I kept catching the scent of something that hadn’t been with us when we’d entered shifter territory, and I suspected our journey hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Though if someone was tracking us, they didn’t make themselves known for the rest of the day, and by the time we reached a good place to set up camp, I was ready to relax and put my concerns behind us. We meant no harm to this place, so the shifters had no reason to bother us.
Glory huffed and muttered under her breath as she put up her tent. Her bun was an unmitigated disaster, her shirt had become untucked on her right side, and I couldn’t help but notice the way she limped as she passed back and forth to get the rods in place.
“You all right, Buttons?” I asked from my bedroll by the fire.
She shot me a look that could have frozen the hells. “I don’t see why we had to run all the way here. I checked the map. We’re barely farther than we would have been at the pace we were going this morning.”
The rod she was working on flexed and flew back, smacking her in the head. “Olodin’s cock!” she shouted, rubbing her crown.
I pressed my lips together to hide my smile, and a touch of guilt over being the cause of her bad mood and aching heels compelled me to show some compassion.
“Let me help.” I rolled to my feet and took the rod out of her hands. That she let me do it without argument was proof of how finished she was with today, so I said nothing as she staggered across camp, kicked off her boots, stripped off her waistcoat, and dropped onto a log I’d dragged close to the fire.
“I wouldn’t have taken you as the religious sort,” I said over my shoulder as I worked, doing my best to distract myself from my body’s reaction to her. Though the tent did a good enough job on its own. It really was the worst design I’d ever seen and reinforced my opinion that I was smarter to travel without, even if I had to suffer the occasional water-logged morning.
“Hm? Oh, you mean Olodin?” Glory shrugged. “I’m not the praying sort, it’s true, but he and I have enough in common that I feel a sort of kinship with him.”