Page 73 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

Emotionally and physically, she’s dancing a fine line of complete burnout.

Still, she pushes on.

Never complaining.

Hiking through the dense, treacherous foliage. Climbing over fallen trees and weaving around trunks bigger than her as we follow the river up the mountain.

She scans the bank intently, the same way that I have over the last two weeks, every damn day I have been able to get up here, hoping to find something I missed before.

And it is wearing on her.

We can’t go on much farther, or she’ll drop.

I trail behind her, watching for any signs that she’s too wiped to continue. “Anything yet?”

She glances over her shoulder at me and gives me a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes before she shakes her head. “Nothing new.”

“I figured you’d tell me, but…”

I had hoped.

Prayed that being up here might trigger something for her that could end this ordeal.

A sigh slips from her lips filled with the frustration I share with her—though, what she’s feeling must be a thousand times worse than what I do.

She reaches back to adjust her ponytail to keep the hair off her neck, now matted down with sweat, the physical toll of the hike hitting her hard.

We used to go on hikes far harder than this regularly, but this type of exertion after what she went through borders on torture. It doesn’t matter that she asked for it and wanted this, or that we both had hoped it would offer her something she couldn’t get anywhere else.

She can’t keep going.

Any pain she’s feeling now will be ten times worse tonight and tomorrow.

“It’s getting late, Honeybee. We should probably set up camp soon.”

We didn’t get nearly as far as she had wanted to, but given how slow she has to move and the late start we got after spending time packing up what we needed to spend the night and talking to Raven, Connor, and Liam about our plans, that’s to be expected.

At least I expected it.

But given the way Willow now looks at the water, she apparently never counted on this being so taxing. “How much farther until we get to where you found me?”

I motion up the bank. “Another half an hour or so.”

Her lips twist as she contemplates the bubbling waters flowing beside us and the heavy brush we have to move through. “I want to keep going.”

“Willow…”

I grab her wrist to stop her progress, and just like every time I’ve touched her since her return, heat flares through my body at the simple contact.

She allows me to pull her to a stop. With a gentle tug, I turn her toward me. Restless gray eyes plead before she even says a word. “Please don’t, Killian.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t try to stop me from doing this.” She swallows thickly, as if she’s trying to keep something down. “I have to.”

“I think you’ve done enough for one day. There’s a place just up here where we can set up camp. We can start up again tomorrow.”

I hold my breath.