AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When Raider’s darker red kaffiyeh was thrown back, his wavy dark hair, curling against his nape, made a striking contrast to the colors. And when his head turned as he tracked a sight or sound, his unsmiling profile was a sudden shock of beauty.
Even when they camped, Raider didn’t speak much. He answered questions, but mostly he just did his work—and he worked hard.
It surprised Seth, shamed him a little after his harsh assessments. But Raider hunted and gathered fuel for a fire anywhere that deadfall existed. He looked after the horses. He was knowledgeable about flora and fauna and shared information freely.
And, gods, he was attractive.
Not just his striking face, not just his gorgeous body. His gestures. His voice. His laugh, when he’d let Seth hear it these last few days.
Seth wished Raider would resume his teasing so Seth could resume fighting him. He wished Raider would make himself aggressively irresistible again—so Seth could resist him.
Seth had a harder time resisting the impulse to watch Raider. He had a harder time fighting himself.
It was that damn quiva incident. The kiss. The hot press of Raider’s sensual body. The erotic words and the images they had conjured.
But similar things had happened in Shalaa without Seth reacting this way.
No, it was something else.
It was that moment in the tent when Raider had been out of his head, when he’d said, Please. When he’d said, Don’t.
It was Raider’s voice when he’d said he didn’t remember how he’d ended up with quicksilver in his body, the way he’d looked after.
Vulnerable.
Even, Seth had thought, afraid.
Seth didn’t know what to make of that. He tried to tell himself that Raider was a liar, but … was he?
And was he really a rogue, as Seth had argued?
A little, maybe. Something of that was in him. He was reckless, certainly, but he might not be quite the rake that he pretended. Not when there were so many other facets to him.
Like the way Raider had risked himself with the jackals. Seth still didn’t like what Raider had done and didn’t want him to do anything like that again. But the fact was inescapable: Raider had put himself at risk to protect Seth.
It pissed Seth off because …
Because that was his role. To take risks. To protect others. It felt wrong to have someone do that for him.
Yet, there was truth in what Raider had said about being able to absorb more damage. His body healed amazingly. Seth envied him. Seth didn’t mind pain, but he hated the tedium of recovery, the weeks or months of limitation.
But why didn’t Raider know more about his healing ability? Why did he not remember anything about his quicksilver implantation?
Seth needed to ask him. He hadn’t yet because … he was afraid. To open that door. To talk to Raider that earnestly.
Seth knew, deep down, instinctively, that once that door was open, once he walked through it, he wouldn’t be able to walk back out. He didn’t know why that was the case, but he was damned sure of it.
Seth had said they were a terrible match. On a certain level, it was true. They clashed. And yet—
“Watch out.”
Seth jerked to attention, startling his placid gelding into darting up beside Raider’s chestnut mare. In response, the mare sidled, dancing her haunches into Seth’s horse. Seth’s knee banged into Raider’s.
“Wool gathering?” Raider inquired.
Seth scanned the flat, barren landscape. The rocky hills they had traversed the first few days had crumbled into nothing. Now, it was just dull, hard-packed earth here in the last stretch of the borderlands. Seth was almost looking forward to the rolling sand dunes of the Kesh.
“What am I watching out for?”
