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“Why?”
“You must know why.”
This time he takes a step forward and he turns around, facing me. His blind eyes are fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “Taj…”
“Yeah?”
“Are we forming a clan?”
Ah, there is the snag, the thorn, the issue.
“Aren’t we?” I ask gently, perhaps afraid myself of his answer and my own unprecedented wishes and desires.
“Damn.” His jaw works. “Seriously?”
I try not to take it personally but my own jaw ticks. “That a problem for you, holy man?”
“Only if you change your mind and lead us back to the gallows.”
“You know I wouldn’t.”
“As you said, I don’t really know you. You really want me to believe you changed your mind all of a sudden and turned about to help us. Nothing comes from nothing.”
“You missed the part where I fought what I felt. Like you are.”
“Oh, fuck you.” He chews on something he doesn’t utter. Probably an insult. I wish he’d speak his mind, hash it out right now because…
Because this means something to me and it’s turning my beliefs and my entire life on its head. I’m doing my fucking best to be calm about it, but it’s a big mess in my head. How do I deal with it? I want to kick and punch something.
I want to grab him, wrestle him to the ground, demand… answers. Demand more.
But he shakes his head and stalks past me to pat the horse’s rump. “Camp, then, huh?”
“For the night, yeah.” Gripping the reins more tightly in my hand, I turn around to face him because I don’t trust him not to leap on my horse and take off, to look for Ariadne on his own in the dark.
“Fine. And if we’re forming a clan,” he says stiffly, “then you should be able to sense the south. Practice, practice, Taj. Practice makes perfect.”
I roll my eyes at him, and I think I catch the tail of a smirk on his handsome face, there and gone in an instant.
Damn him. Is he fucking with me? Is he just teasing me? Is he serious about all this at all or is he only interested in getting Ariadne back and leaving me behind?
Swallowing a curse of my own, I start looking for a place to camp.
The plain is scattered with standing rocks. It’s as if a god threw his dice from the sky and they remained at odd angles, reflecting the starlight. The moon peeks out of the clouds, silvering the steep hills rising over us.
“Here is a good spot,” I say.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Finn mutters.
“What crawled up your ass and died this time, huh?” I lead my horse to a small tree growing from a crack in the rocky ground and loop the reins over its lower branches. “You should definitely take my word, why the fuck not?”
His smirk had seemed to signify a truce but as he stalks off and stands apart, folding his muscular arms over his chest and dipping his chin, I wonder if I imagined it.
“Finn, dinner. Catch.” I open one of the saddlebags and prepare to throw him a piece of jerky—then remember he can’t see any of it, that I have to hand it to him myself. I clench the piece in my hand.
He says nothing.
He’s an infuriating man, too stubborn, too proud, too unpredictable. Too pretty by far, damn hot in his pigheadedness. Protective and fierce.
