My scream of surprise was cut off when his warm hand covered my mouth.
“Shh, you don’t want to wake the ones whocansleep.”
I pushed myself away from him, turning to glare at Nicco.
“What thefuckare you doing, sneaking up on me?” I hissed at him, my voice low.
His wraps were around his mouth, but I could see his eyes, and he was laughing at me. He tugged his wraps down, and I wished he hadn’t. His smug smirk just made me dislike him more.
“Thought someone with your hearing would know I was coming up behind you.” He picked up a stick, inspected it, and with a grunt, tossed it away. “Amateurs.”
“I didn’t hear you,” I muttered, as I crouched down to the fire.
Why? Why hadn’t I heard him? The night was quiet apart from the low murmur of the soldiers awake on guard.
I looked behind him and saw that his companions weren’t back.
“Why are you awake?” I avoided looking at him as I sorted through the collection of firewood.
“Why are you awake, Trailfinder?”
I raised my eyes to meet his, and he grinned again. “I’m an early riser.”
He laughed at me. “Or the gossiping soldiers are too loud to let anyone actually sleep well.”
He hadn’t whispered it. He had spoken at full volume, and the rest of the camp went quiet, as the ones awake shut up, and their sleeping companions were roused.
I shook my head as I heard the grumbling protests. “You’re a dick.”
He looked down at me. “Yeah.”
He left me there as several pairs of eyes, mostly unfocused, found me by the fire, and assumed I was the reason they were awake.
“Asshole.” I pushed to my feet, threw some wood on the fire that would actually catch and burn properly, and headed out of the camp.
I jumped when a shadow broke away from the trees, and Baxley revealed himself.
“Where are you going?” he asked me gruffly.
“For some privacy,” I whisper-hissed at him. “Why are you...lurking?”
Even in the dark of the night, I saw a flash of his white teeth. “Keeping watch.” He pointed to the left of us. “Rana went there earlier.”
Blushing, I scurried to the thicket of gorse and bushes, carefully making my way around it. It was a good spot, but the way they could blend into the night like that left me unsure where Nicco orRanawas.
I hurriedly took care of my business and washed my hands in the snow. I watched every shadow as if it were one of them. I wasn’t worried about the soldiers. They sounded like a herd of wild caribou.
When I returned to camp, more than half the soldiers were awake, and most of them were glaring at Nicco and Larana, who were both back in their spots.
Baxley followed me out of the trees, and I saw several soldiers quickly reach the wrong conclusion, which was quite insulting.
“Women pee,” I snapped at them all. “Get your heads out of your breeches and have some respect.”
That outburst woke the captain, who sat up, shook his head, and looked around, wondering why everyone was awake.
“What is happening?” he asked, and if I weren’t so pissed off, I would have appreciated that he looked quite adorable, freshly woken.
“Your men put two and two together and got six,” Nicco drawled from where he was relaxing against a tree as if we weren’t in subzero temperatures, and life was his for the taking. “They thought the trailfinder was getting busy with my good friend.”
