Page 56 of Blood & Claw

“This is all we need.”

To her surprise, Dale kicked at a wooden pail next to him. “Fuck!”

It tumbled across the dirt and smacked into the stable wall.

Startled, Rùn snorted and tossed his head.

However, her bodyguard’s show of temper didn’t bother Ailsa. She just stared him down. “If they’re not stopping, we can’t either. We’re too close to let them slip through our fingers.”

“We aren’t following them,” he shot back. “Not tonight.”

She moved closer still, deliberately crowding him. Her chin rose so she could hold his gaze. Heat pulsed through her now—maybe he could rouse her ire properly, after all—and she ignored the warning glint in his eye. “We ride.”

“No,” he said flatly.

Her pulse started to hammer in her ears. “But—”

“You want to be outdoors when the Slew arrive?” His voice turned harsh now. “Or hiding in the woods when faerie creatures begin their hunt?”

Cold rushed through Ailsa’s chest, dousing her anger. “But Kayla’s out there … in danger!”

Dale glared back at her, immovable. “Aye, but you’ll be no good to her dead.”

An ominous red sunset painted the sky as they set off to find supplies for the next day’s journey.

Rhu was a small hamlet, perched upon a bluff that poked out onto Loch Lethe. They went door-to-door, haggling with women for a loaf of bread, skins of ale, chunks of cheese, and apples.

They didn’t converse as they shopped. Dale’s mood was black while Ailsa couldn’t stop thinking about the danger Kayla was now in. She imagined her outside tonight. No sheltering walls. No hearth. The worry lodged sharp and cold beneath her ribs. We were so close.

Gods. She just wanted all of this to be over.

She wanted Kayla back, to return to Braewall and pick up their life, to forget all of this.

But somewhere, deep inside, she was beginning to realize that there was no going back. Some things even rescuing Kayla couldn’t put right. What if those frightening changes in her didn’t go away? What if they worsened?

The thought made her feel sick.

The Sweeper had churned up the loch’s surface, and the wind pushed at Ailsa and Dale as they returned to the ale-hall, stinging their cheeks and making their eyes water. Dead leaves swirled across the dirt path.

They passed shuttered roundhouses where folk nailed boards over windows to protect their homes once night fell. Outside several doors, offerings of bread and cakes had already been laid out for the faerie creatures.

The people of Rhu were preparing to hunker down for the evening.

It was time to get indoors.

Within the ale-hall, smoke hung low beneath the rafters.

And despite that her mind was elsewhere, Ailsa looked around her with interest. She hadn’t visited a lot of ale-halls over the years. Farnoch had been an education, yet she noticed this one was the simplest she’d seen. Just a rectangular windowless room with two long benches furnishing it, a hearth in one corner, and a counter in the other with a narrow door leading through to the kitchen.

Dale approached the counter where the proprietor was pouring ale from a barrel into a large clay jug. “Evening,” he greeted the man tersely.

The man nodded in return. “Cutting it fine, aren’t you?” he grunted. “Gateway’s breathing down our necks now.”

Dale shrugged, as if he hadn’t given it much thought. “My wife and I will take a room for the night … and a meal.”

Ailsa bristled. Wife? They hadn’t decided that was the story they’d tell. He had a nerve.

“We’ve also got a horse stabled out back,” Dale added.