Page 112 of The Last True Hero

So much had changed in the space of a week. Mia looked down. She'd washed herself in the creek and wore clean clothes—her last set—but she still felt dirty somehow. Rust City wasn't going to leave her alone just yet. She wore its ghost inside her skin. Best to keep her hands busy. Keep checking on the former captives. It gave her something to do.

As for the other cause of her distress, McClain was off hunting with Johnny Colton, and returned with two wild deer about ten minutes later. She didn't ask how they'd tracked it.Supersenses, remember?

How could she forget?

She'd thought she was hiding her dilemma well, but after a few minutes of awkwardly trying to find something to do, Zarina stepped into her path. "What's going on?"

Mia shook out the dusty blanket she'd found in the back of one of the jeeps and examined how clean it was. "What do you mean?" The blanket was riddled with holes, but there were no signs of blood or filth like she'd expected. Probably lice though. Reivers weren't the cleanest people. "I'm waiting for dinner to cook."

"Yeah, right." Zarina squatted by the campfire. "You're very carefully avoiding a certain warg three fires over."

Mia's gaze flickered up. McClain stripped the deer with efficient strokes, his back to her as he knelt by another fire. The firelight gilded his close-cropped hair, turning it molten and almost touchable. Mia tore her gaze away. She couldn't help feeling that little twist in her chest every time she saw him, even though they'd barely said a word since she woke up in the jeep that afternoon.

He could probably hear every word they said.

"That's really none of your business."

The words soured the expression on the other woman's face. "Yeah. Okay. I probably deserve that. I get it. We're not friends."

"Zarina," Mia said with a sigh. "It's got nothing to do with who you are, or what you've done. And... I wouldn't say we're not friends. You came with me when I needed you. That earns you some rights." She glanced across the distance again. McClain had gone. Mia's voice dropped. "I just don't want to talk about it until I've got it clear in my own head."

"Talk or not," Zarina pointed out, "if you don't make your move, one of these others will. That's a fine-looking man, and he just helped rescue some of those women from slavery."

"You're not helping."

"I'm not trying to." Zarina's dark eyes gleamed in the firelight. She stabbed a stick into the fire, toying with the hot coals. "We did it. We actually escaped Rust City. And my mother's dead, and...."

And Zarina needed to talk to someone. Anyone. Mia put the blanket down. "You'd be welcome in Salvation Creek."

"I don't think so." Zarina cast a haunted glance around the clearing at the people her mother had taken as slaves. "I'm the warlord's daughter and these people know me. They're never going to forgive me."

"Are you going to forgive yourself?"

Zarina looked away. "It doesn't matter."

Yeah, right. Mia recognized guilt when she saw it. "You're no longer a warlord's daughter," she pointed out. "Some things are going to have to change. Maybe it starts here?"

"Maybe. I'm going to move on I think, Mia." She shrugged, and graced Mia with a careless smile that rang false. "See a bit of the world."

Mia sighed. If Zarina put a bit of distance between herself and the ghost of Rust City, then maybe she could start to work past it all. Mia knewsheneeded the distance. "Here's to new beginnings... for the both of us."

That roused a genuine smile. "To new beginnings."

"And regardless of what you decide to do, you'll always be welcome in my home," Mia said, but her vision caught on something that stole nearly all of her attention.

Sage had returned to camp, and from the look of her eyes, she'd been crying.Hell.

"Go on," Zarina muttered. "I don't know the full story, but I can see that something's going on with her and her husband. She needs her sister right now."

That was if Sage still considered her a sister. Mia swallowed.

* * *

"How couldyou not tell me?"

Mia kicked the toe of her boot through the creek's water. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"And do you think this doesn't hurt me now?" Sage demanded in a hoarse whisper. "My entire marriage has been a lie—"