Page 11 of Remmen

“There.” He nodded out at a far ridge, gone gold in the light. “The steads are past that. What you wanted to see.”

I looked at the ridge for maybe a second.

Then I looked at him, and he wasn’t looking at the ridge either.

He’d turned toward me with one arm along the back of the seat, and it pulled his shirt tight across a chest I’d been trying not to think about since roughly the town limits. There was a whole meter of bench between us. It didn’t feel like anywhere near enough.

His eyes moved over me and came back to my face, slow, and everywhere they touched went warm. By the time they reached my face, I’d stopped breathing.

I could lean in. That was the honest, stupid truth of it. A few inches and my hand would be flat on his chest. A little more and I’d know for sure.

I curled my fingers into my own leg so they’d stop offering to help.

No touching.

The rule sounded very sensible and very far away with him looking at me like that.

He moved closer. Barely. It could have been the wind rocking the truck, except his eyes dropped to my mouth and stayed.

My heart was beating hard enough that he had to be able to hear it. Did minotaurs have good hearing? That would’ve been a useful thing to know before I climbed into a truck with one I wanted to climb.

I leaned in.

The gap closed. I could feel the heat coming off him. I tipped my chin, already most of the way into the kiss.

Something slammed into the side of the truck.

I jerked back and clocked my head on the window. “Ow. Damn it.”

A face filled the glass. Huge, wild, bigger than Remmen even, and one horn snapped off short with the stump gone rough and scarred. The whites showed all the way around his eyes. He hit the door again with a hand the size of my head and the cab rocked on its springs.

“Mayor.” The voice came through the metal, gravel dragged over gravel. “Mayor, I need some fucking help.”

His eyes landed on me and snagged. Then he looked back at Remmen.

“Mestyn’s hurt. Bad. Otho won’t come to us. You have to come.”

Beside me, Remmen went cold.

A second ago his stillness had been the warm kind, and I hadn’t wanted to break it. What came out of him now was low and flat, from somewhere I hadn’t heard him go before.

“Rauf. You know to stay out of trouble.”

“I got nowhere else to take it.”

There was history here and I didn’t have a second to spare on any of it.

“Is someone bleeding?” I asked.

They both looked at me like they’d forgotten I existed. Lovely.

“His belly.” Rauf swallowed. “There’s a lot of blood.”

I was already twisting around for the first aid kit I’d seen behind the seat. “How long ago?”

“I don’t know. Not too long. He’s still alive.”

Not useful, but the man was out of his mind with panic, and I’d get better answers moving than parked. “Then quit talking and take me to him.” I shouldered the door open into the wind and dropped down onto the road. It was a longer drop than I’d judged, and it jarred both knees. I didn’t care.