“What are you hiding? What are you keeping from me?”
His head cocked to the side as he studied me. “Why do you think I’m hiding something?”
Because you are,is what I wanted to say. Instead, I kept silent. Nicco’s look turned calculating.
“What have you been listening to?” he asked softly, moving his horse closer.
I hated that he suspected. I hated that knowing look on his face as he considered what I could have overheard.
“What won’t I question?” I asked him quietly.
He looked away, a small smile on his lips. “I never took you for one who would be eavesdropping, bunny.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
He looked back at me. His eyes shuttered, but still, the look made my stomach swoop. “I know you well enough.”
He did? I looked away from him, knowing he probably did. “Are you going to tell me?”
He thought about it, and I genuinely thought he wouldn’t, but then he seemed to decide otherwise.
“We’re being followed.”
I looked behind me and saw the road empty in the gently falling snow. When I looked back, he was giving me that flat, unimpressed stare.
“What?” I demanded. “You said follow, so it’s natural for someone to look back.”
“If we were being followed soobviously, do you not think I would have dealt with it by now?”
I considered that. “Then how do you know?”
“Because someone is putting out feelers, looking for a girl with long dark hair, traveling with a woman and two men, heading south.”
I didn’t like that. “Me? Who would want to follow me?” And then I knew who, and I closed my eyes in understanding. “Vorn.”
“Vorn,” Nicco agreed.
“Shit.” I looked over my shoulder again. “He’s a long way south just for me,” I murmured, more to myself than to him, but he snorted, and it sounded loud in the quiet.
“Makes you wonder what he’s so desperate to get back.”
I turned back and saw the cool assessing stare. “You mention one word about bed or sleeping, and we’re going to fall out.”
He held his hands up mockingly in defense. “I never said anything.”
“With you? You don’t need to.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. The sound of horses coming our way made us both turn to look up the road. Baxley and Larana were heading back.
Nicco moved forward, and since he still had my horse’s reins, she went with him.
“All done,” Baxley said. The look he gave Nicco told me more than his words.
“What went wrong?” I asked them both.
“Why do you ask that?” Larana asked me.
“Because you have blood on your dagger that you haven’t wiped clean.”
