Page 125 of Blood & Claw

Unlike women.

His gut tightened.

Ailsa’s arms were wrapped around his waist, as they had been for days now, yet the contact meant something different now. He felt her everywhere. Her breath feathering against the back of his neck; the press of her warm, pliant body against his spine with every stride Rùn took.

Studying the trail ahead, he forced his mind back to the task.

Five sets of tracks.

Just four warriors left to deal with, one of them injured from a pitchfork to the thigh. Moving fast, but not fast enough. They were pushing hard. He could see it in the uneven depth of the tracks, the careless breaks in the undergrowth. Fatigue had made them sloppy.

Rùn was nearly treading upon their shadows now.

“We’ll catch them tonight at this rate,” he said, more to ground himself than anything else.

“How will we approach them?” Ailsa asked. “Fern said we should come up with a better plan, remember?”

He snorted, his gaze flicking to a snapped branch at shoulder height. “We observe first … if they’ve made camp, they’ll have a watch posted. We take that man before the others … quietly.”

“And then?”

“We focus on freeing Kayla … and put a blade in her hand.” He paused. “Three against three is a fair fight.”

She didn’t answer immediately. He could feel her thinking, the slight shift of her against him. “They’ll be on edge … expecting trouble.”

“Aye.” His mouth flattened. “And it’s coming to find them.”

Another silence stretched between them, this one charged.

They hadn’t spoken about the night before, but it was there, shadowing every conversation, weighing every glance. Aye, he’d withdrawn from her today, deliberately, but it didn’t change anything.

Shit.

He only had himself to blame for this. If only he’d kept his prick in his breeches.

If only he didn’t ache for her right now.

He’d fucked her three times the night before, and he’d have continued after dawn if they hadn’t needed to move on. His hunger for her still pulsed in his gut. He was keenly aware of her hand where it rested low on his belly, fingers curled lightly into his tunic.

Her touch made his body light up.

Concentrate, damn you.

They rode on through a shallow pass where the wind funneled cold and sharp between the rocks. By midday, the land softened slightly, opening into a scrubby hollow where blackthorn grew thick and tangled.

Darach drew Rùn up. “We’ll stop here,” he said, swinging down from the saddle. “Not long though.”

Ailsa slid down after him. He felt her presence at his back as he moved to the blackthorn, snapping off a branch heavy with dark sloes. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her.

She took one, eyeing it before biting in. Her face puckered instantly. “The Hag’s tits … those are sour.”

He snorted a laugh. “Aye. They’ll wake you up though.”

She shot him a look—half affronted, half amused—and his breathing grew shallow.

There it was again. That ember that glowed between them, threatening to catch alight again every time their gazes locked.

He popped one into his own mouth, barely tasting it. He should be focusing on the trail, on the mountains rising around them, but all he could see was Ailsa.