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Instead, he held me by the arms, looking frustrated.
“Thank you,” I said and whatever other words had been on the tip of his tongue vanished as I met his gaze.
For a moment he looked flabbergasted, then he straightened to his full height, towering over me to give me a disdainful glare.
“I did not do it for you,” he said firmly. “After all this, I would rather survive, that is all.”
I raised a brow, a bit confused because he seemed to be lying. I had gotten the impression he was occasionally frustrated by our group’s love making, but even then, I wasn’t convinced he would want to join. It had crossed my mind a few times that all of us on the tether were desperate to be physically together as well, but if Alhadya felt the same way, he had kept it to himself.
And he certainly did not like me as a person... so if not because he wanted to save himself, what other reason was there for him to save me?
Grumbling, he bent down and began grabbing at me again, suddenly pulling me toward him.
Confused, I looked back at the others who were all watching the scene curiously as Alhadya suddenly pulled me atop him, forcing me onto his back.
My jaw dropped as I was forced to ride him the way I used to ride my dearly departed horse.
When I looked at the rest of the group, they all had matching expressions of shock. Suffice it to say, I doubted that their former king had ever allowed himself to be ridden like a steed.
“What is happening?” I asked slowly.
“You cannot climb the rest of the way,” he grumbled. “It is too steep. We need to get to the temple by nightfall.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, giving me a heated glare that in this position I could not take seriously at all.
“Hold on tight,” he ordered.
The moment my arms went around his waist, two of his hands gripped them, holding them in place so that I would not slip and forcing me to press tightly to his broad back.
His bare skin was cool to the touch, but as he began to walk, our bodies heated each other and for the first time since this morning, my shivers were subdued, and the cold became more bearable.
The others didn’t say a word, but when we passed Bracken and Clem, I could see the small, pleased smile on Clem’s face.
I wanted to tell him to cut it out. This meant nothing.
Still, it was hard to imagine Alhadya–or Hadi, as the others would call him–trying to kill me in a few hours’ time. His body felt so warm and welcoming.
I shut my eyes, accepting the respite, my cheek pressed to his shoulder, lulled by the sway of his walk.
This doesn’t mean anything, I told myself. None of this did. We all had a common problem, and we were working on it together. That was all.
My eyes drifted open just in time to see Kiar hug himself against a gust of wind. Bracken lifted his wing to shield himself and Clem.
Soon, I would not care if they were cold, or hurt, or alive or dead.
Why did that thought make me feel so sick?
Chapter 20
Sun
Even on Hadi’s back, the climb was hard. My muscles burned from clinging to him. More than once, Kiar slipped, holding onto the mountainside with bleeding fingers.
Bracken’s wings were covered in frost. The sounds of our labored breathing were just as loud as the gusting winds and the chattering of Clem’s teeth was our percussion.
Kiar grunted, drawing our attention and for a moment my heart felt like it was about to stop when he slipped and kept slipping over the sheer ice.
“Kiar!” I shouted, just as he caught himself on the steep rocks.
