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Relenting, Lila sunk into his arms, allowing him to hold her up. She hated that she kept being weak, she felt like she was letting him down. Feeling impotent and completely out of sorts, she fisted his jacket in her hands.
Cold, tired, hurting, suddenly it all felt like too much.
“What’s going on?” Christian asked. His hands smoothed down her back, and his breath was warm across her forehead.
“I don’t know. I just feel … unsettled.” It maybe wasn’t the right word, but she was too tired to think about how to explain what she was feeling.
“I know what’s wrong.”
Lifting her head, Lila looked hopefully at him. Needing answers as to why she felt so out of sorts this morning when she’d slept well in Christian’s arms. It was still reasonably early, and while her energy was flagging, she shouldn’t feel this out of sorts this early in what was going to be a long day of walking.
“It’s your gut.”
“My gut?”
“Telling you something is wrong.”
Lila stiffened. “Is your gut saying the same thing?”
“Yeah, honey, it is.”
“Ross and Zara?” She looked around, expecting one of them to jump out from behind a tree, laughing and mocking them as their men surrounded them.
“I don’t think so.”
“Someone else?” Who else could be out here? There were a few remote towns in the area, and she supposed there could be a few tiny houses hidden away in the forest. But if there were, why would anyone care about them?
“Just got this feeling of being watched. Hunted.”
The fact that Christian’s gut—which she trusted a whole lot more than she did her own—was also saying something wasn’t right made her a whole lot more edgy.
If someone was out there and didn’t mean them harm, then surely they would come to see if they could offer help. It was pretty clear with her hobbling along using a branch of a tree as a crutch that something was wrong. If they were being hunted as Christian put it, then another threat was out there.
As if they needed that.
“We should get going,” she said, shivering, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
“First, you take some painkillers.”
Because she knew Christian wasn’t going to budge until she agreed, she nodded, took the bottle and water he offered, and quickly swallowed two pills. She didn’t think they were going to do much. Walking on her ankle like she had to was too much for it. But the only alternatives were to take the morphine and make Christian carry her, or hide somewhere and let him go on without her.
Neither of those worked for her.
Once she’d taken the pills, Christian stood, pulling her up with him. He kept his hands on her until she got her balance, then passed her the crutch.
“We’re getting closer now. Today and then tomorrow night we should hit the house,” he assured her, leaning in to drop a quick kiss to her lips.
Pasting on a smile to reassure him that she could do this, Lila followed after him when he started walking.
She knew she could do this. It was mind over matter, so long as they kept their speed relatively slow, and she was careful that when she put her bad foot down it wasn’t on anything that would make her roll her ankle again then she could do this.
Only seconds continued to tick by.
Turning into minutes.
Each step got harder and harder to take.
Despite the chill in the air, sweat was dripping off her. In theory, the body heat she was generating should help stave off hypothermia, but in reality, it helped only temporarily. The sweat against her skin and the moisture in her clothes left her icy cold.
