against me, her breathing still heavy. The escape from the inner bailey had been too easy. And so had the run from the castle. Something wasn’t right. Though I had a thousand questions, we had to speak sparingly. We were still in too much peril of being discovered and needed to use extra caution until we were well away from the city limits.
I slid my arms around Pearl’s waist and tugged her against me. For a moment, she kept herself rigid.
“Your back is hurt,” she whispered.
“It will be fine.” Though fire still burned over my flesh from my wounds, I ignored the pain and instead focused on the woman in my arms. I pressed my face into her hair and breathed her in.
She crossed her arms over mine and squeezed me as though she never planned to let go. I hoped she wouldn’t.
Chapter
25
Pearl
We traveled for over an hour without stopping. As uncomfortable and hot as the hay was, I relished resting in Mikkel’s arms, knowing how close I’d come to losing him forever. The bumpiness of the route and the noise from the wheels made whispering impossible. And even though we both had a great deal to say to one another, we rested quietly.
Finally, the cart rolled to a stop. A moment later, it bobbed as Irontooth descended. The rise and fall of Mikkel’s chest stopped. His body tensed around mine. And he held himself motionless.
Though some of the hay had fallen away, we were still hidden. No one would know we were underneath, not unless they’d followed us from the castle.
“You can come out,” Irontooth said. “We’re safe for now.”
I sat up and broke through the hay, shoving and kicking it away. Before I could crawl off the cart, Mikkel caught me and pulled me back. This time I landed on his lap, and before I could say anything, he cupped my cheeks and pressed his lips to mine, kissing me greedily, as though he’d been waiting for the past hour to do this very thing and couldn’t go another second.
I responded, letting my relief well up into the kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck, right where I wanted to be in a place I never wanted to leave.
“You can kiss later,” Irontooth said, his tone gruff but laced with humor. “This is as far as we can go in the cart. We have to keep moving in order to stay ahead of the queen’s soldiers. And we need to make it to the rendezvous spot, where we’ll meet up with Gregor and the others.”
I broke away from Mikkel. For a moment, we rested with our foreheads touching and breaths mingling.
Mikkel was the first to lean away. As he did, I became aware of our surroundings, the foothills rising in front of us, the boulders surrounded by yew and juniper, the dark forest of evergreens farther up the slopes.
I recognized the area north of Kensington beyond Wraith Lake. The terrain was rocky and rough but consisted of many hiding places. Clearly, Irontooth was familiar enough with Warwick to know where to go, or he’d gleaned the information while plotting the escape.
“We’re traveling by foot the rest of the distance,” Irontooth continued, “so we can move faster.”
I climbed down from the cart and brushed the hay from my gown. Mikkel crawled off and took the cloak Irontooth held out to him. He started to wrap it around his bare torso, but I grabbed it and forced it away. “I shall clean and doctor your wounds first.”
“We’ll have time for that later.” He started to drape the cloak again.
I wrenched it from his hold. “I shall do it now.”
“And risk capture again?”
“We have no need for haste.”
“Why not?”
“The queen’s soldiers will not follow us.”
“And how can that be when the queen has condemned you to death?” He crossed his arms over his bare chest, drawing my attention to his rounded muscles.
A flush moved into my cheeks, and I hastily returned the cloak. I waited for him to cover himself before continuing. “The queen no longer has need of my heart and has better use for me alive than dead.”
Mikkel’s light-blue eyes were intense, filled with all the fervor and determination I loved. “And why did the queen need your heart in the first place?”
I explained all I’d learned since arriving: how Mikkel had been right about Grendel, how the queen kept the monster for her own purposes, how she’d used the hearts of maidens in her alchemy to create