touch a hair on your head, Nayla. Have faith.”
“No.” She thrashed harder. “I don’t like.”
“Then we’re even. I—”
Something huge slammed into his side.
Torn from Nayla’s side, he flew through the air and hit the ground hard.
27
The gentle rocking lulled Grif. The shift of solid brawn beneath his belly steady and sure. The slow scroll of a massive paw and blurred cracked dirt soothing. Even if the claws at the end of the paw were kind of big and sharp and looked lethal glittering in the moons’ light.
He rocketed awake, and blew a feather out of his mouth. What in the hells? He lifted his head for a better look. His wrists were tied at his back, his ankles, too—with what felt like his own rope, no less—and he was slung over a familiar-looking feathered beast, catching an unrequested ride.
Last thing he remembered… “Nayla!”
“You awake. Good.” She twisted from her bareback perch at Sharluff’s front, reigns clutched in her hand, her relieved face peering down at him, those tiny lines at the bridge of her nose smoothing out.
Grif stared up at her, his voice a dangerous rumble. “Why am I tied up?”
Her expression shifted, sliding from worried to defiant—and pleased. “You my prisoner now.” She tapped her thigh, where one of his smaller daggers was now sheathed, before facing forward once more. “I in charge.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. She’d confiscated his weapon and, if he wasn’t mistaken—though it was a little hard to see from his limited vantage point—the clattering of metal against metal suggested that his pack, the rest of his weapons, and the harness that held them, were strapped to the beast’s side too, everything clanging together with each of the musty animal’s rolling steps. If his crew were around, he’d never hear the end of it.
On the other hand, she’d also taken his shirt—one he’d found while rummaging through an old Council drop capsule, and wrapped it around her, the too-big sleeves rolled up fifty times while the ends rested on her thighs, shifting with every sway of the beast’s tread.
He definitely liked her helping herself to his stuff. A lot.
Sharluff headed up a rocky red cliffside and the angle sent him sliding back a few inches. He wrestled with the binds at his back. Tried to roll himself off. Whatever she’d done, she’d secured him tight.
“I good with knots, too,” she observed.
Payback was a bitch.
“What happened?” His head pounded with every step.
“Sharluff come.” She patted the feathered beast’s thick neck sending the stink of animal winding through his lungs. “Afraid for me. Knock you out.”
No wonder it felt like he’d been crushed by a mountain. He had.
The creature brayed as if pleased with himself. Turning forward once more, Nayla muttered soft, cooing sounds to the beast.
They reminded Grif a little too much of the sweet, sexy moans she’d once made for him.
“I need you to let me go.” He used his most calm and commanding tone. He couldn’t have been out too long. The moons were still high in the sky.
Back high and proud, she pretended not to hear.
“My team is not far behind. I don’t want them to get the wrong idea and attack you.”
This time, the look she threw over his shoulder was pure outrage. “Worry for you. I just fine.”
“This is not going to help our argument that you could be an ally, not an enemy.”
She shrugged.
He buried his growl deep in his throat. Channeled harmless. “I need to take a look at that ankle. It looked bad.”
She gave a small sniff—she could say a lot with a single dismissive sound—and rode on.
“What’s the plan here? Taking me will only make my crew more prone to attack, and they’re already distrustful enough. They don’t like that you sent a spy to observe the settlement. It’s making them itch to go to war, and can you blame them?”
“A pack spy? In your territory?” She didn’t bother turning around. “No.”
He scowled at her anyway. “What do you mean no? The evidence of an observer is unquestionable.” He might not like Malin, but he didn’t doubt the male’s skills.
“May be an observer, but not pack.”
His silence said it all.
“It true.” She whipped around, her expression confident. “Talg rule: pack forbidden from entering Other territory.”
“You did.”
“I not real pack.”
If he wasn’t tied up, he probably would have felt like an ass for reminding her of her pain. But he wasn’t in the mood to play nice. “That Ramm guy was in Other territory,” he pointed out. “There may