Page 12 of The Healer and the Warlord

“If she does turn against you for me, it’s simply because she has good taste in humans,” Alyx commented, seemingly unperturbed.

“Excuse me? What have I done to earn such insults?”

Alyx arched a silvery brow. “Besides kidnapping me in the dead of night and holding me for ransom against my will?”

I grimaced. “Actually, don’t answer that. I’d rather not know. I have my charms, though.”

“Really?” She cocked her head. “Where have you been hiding them?”

My lips twitched. “I normally don’t bring them on kidnapping missions.”

Alyx hummed noncommittally and turned her attention back toward the horse. While her father clearly saw the softness in her that endeared her to my mount, he certainly seemed to underestimate her resilience, if her willingness to verbally spar with me was any indication.

I also couldn’t ignore the way she soldiered on bravely, without complaint, day after day. After her admission that she had never slept outside, I expected the hard riding and days with nothing to eat but dried jackrabbit meat and dates to grate on her.

Instead, she seemed even more energized as time wore on. She appeared almost excited as she watched the landscapes shift around us from powdery dunes to rocky cliffs to baked earth dotted with hard scrub. I might have expected her brush with the riders of Clan Tibel to make her more skittish, but it was as if the proof that she was not completely helpless had only bolstered her confidence.

It only made her more beautiful.

As I watched her light the fire for us the third night—she had insisted on helping with camp now that I no longer kept her bound—a proud smile grew across her face. I had the sinking feeling that being my captive was the most freedom she had ever been allowed.

So, she bloomed like a flower in the rainy season, and I grew more exhausted and brittle by the hour.

Late afternoon on the third day, a splotch of green in the distance signaled an oasis. I reached forward and pointed so Alyx could see my hand where she sat in front of me.

“We can stop there for the night. It’s been too long since we have had shade and fresh water,” I observed.

Alyx nodded. “Dileas could use the rest.”

She patted the mare’s neck, and Dileas tossed her head as if in appreciation at the consideration. I squeezed my thighs around my mount, as if asking whose side she was on. After all, it was not like I hadn’t been checking her hooves and grooming her every night. Still, Dileas seemed to have decided Alyx was her preferred human at the moment.

In response, Dileas decided that this was her signal to break into a full gallop. My magical hand on her consciousness knew she could tell that wasn’t my intent, but she was willful.

I had always liked that about her.

I threw my arms around Alyx’s waist, afraid she might be unseated by the sudden acceleration.

I needn’t have bothered. She already leaned over Dileas’s neck, moving as one with the mount as if she were born on horseback.

She might not have fought like a clansman of the desert, but she rode like one. Better than most, in fact.

Despite her competence, I could not bring myself to let go of her waist, tucking my chin over her shoulder and holding tight as we hurtled toward the oasis in the distance. Her hair mixed with Dileas’s mane, tickling my face and smelling like freedom.

A whoop split the air, and it took me a second to realize that Alyx was laughing at the unrestrained joy of the sudden sprint. I couldn’t help the broad smile that split my own face. It wasn’t the self-assured smirk I wore so often when doing my Lord’s bidding—the one that was more practiced than I let on, crafted to give the impression of power and certainty.

This was a real smile, and a laugh of my own followed hot on its heels.

Too soon, we hurtled past the palm trees at the edge of the oasis, and Dileas slowed to a walk, and then a stop, pawing the ground happily at the edge of a crystalline pool.

I dismounted. Alyx hopped down after me unaided.

I turned to look at her, planning to compliment her riding in the face of Dileas’s free spirit.

My voice caught in my throat.

Alyx’s cheeks were flushed, and her silvery eyes sparkled with joy. I had the fleeting thought when I first saw her, sleeping in her father’s tent illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight, that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I had quickly shoved that thought aside, chiding myself for thinking such a thing about a woman I was about to hold for ransom.

Now, under the sun with her face split by a broad smile, there was no escaping the truth of the matter. She was the brightness and life and freedom of the desert, all encapsulated in a single person.