His hands tightened on the reins reflexively, and the horse tossed his head, sidling a few steps sideways toward the edge of the narrow track. Cameron loosened his grip and pressed with his leg to guide the beast back to the center of the path. The last thing he needed was for the fool creature to go lame again.
Twisting in the saddle, he checked on Lady Sophia, following behind him. She looked down when their eyes met, mouth flat, and Cameron bit down a curse as he turned back. Now she couldn’t even look at him. Royally fucked up didn’t begin to describe the situation. And if he felt this way, he could hardly imagine how she must have felt. After all, she was the one who’d been, um, deflowered in a fairly unusual fashion. He’d never actually slept with a virgin before, but he imagined there were better ways to introduce women to lovemaking than the frantic coupling they’d shared. She was giving no sign of discomfort—at least no more than she had previously—and she’d claimed, when he’d inquired, that he hadn’t hurt her, but he couldn’t imagine that was true. And now he was making her ride miles and miles on a horse.
No wonder she couldn’t look at him. She probably thought him the biggest bastard in the kingdom right about now. But if that were true, then he was just going to have to live with it. Her safety—and his—took precedence over a few physical aches and pains. She could at least bathe when they got to Alec’s holdings and, if luck decided to be in their favor for once, Alec might be able to summon a temple prior or devout to perform whatever could be performed in the way of Ais-Seann rites for her. Even if it wasn’t the full panoply of whatever ceremonies royal witches underwent, there must be something that could be done to at least help her manage her power—for it was evident that she had plenty of that—a little more easily.
His horse snorted and tossed his head again, and Cameron realized that they’d come to the fork in the path he’d been looking for. If his mental map of the area—memory for such things a gift of his blood magic—was right, there was a small clearing a few hundred feet up the right-hand path. There was a stream there, and they could leave the horses and then come back and take the other fork. The one to the portal. Either someone would come across the horses, or, perhaps, Alec would be able to spare someone to come back and collect them and take them to the nearest small town to be sold.
He turned back to Sophie and pointed to the right-hand path. She nodded and then fixed her gaze where he’d pointed, deliberately not meeting his eyes again. Cameron sighed and turned back to the job at hand.
Two hours later, they emerged from the portal on Alec’s land, having taken another two quick stops on the way to help confuse any followers. Sophie was slightly green in the face again, her expression set as she followed him out of the portal and onto the road that led up to the house.
“Do you need water?” he asked.
She shook her head. “How far is it?”
“Not far. Maybe fifteen minutes’ walk.” At least she hadn’t thrown up at each portal this time. Maybe her magic was shielding her a little from the effects of the transfer.
She nodded and hitched the saddlebag that held her gown and cloak higher on her shoulder.
Cameron took that to mean that he should get on with things. He gestured toward the road and started walking, still keeping a safe distance between them now that he didn’t have to touch her for the portal transit. Each time he touched her, it became harder to move away again, his senses drawn to her in the same way she was drawn to the ley lines they passed. At least the only ley line here at Alec’s was a minor one, and it looped around the other side of the portal and in a different direction to the road, so he wouldn’t need to shepherd Sophie away from temptation. No, all he had to do was shepherd himself. Even now he wanted to turn and look at her. Not to make sure that she was following—he could hear well enough the crunch of her footsteps on the gravel road—but just to watch her.
He didn’t like it, this growing urge to be near her. He hoped it was just some strange effect of her newborn power spilling out onto him rather than something more tangled than that born of their ill-advised activities of the morning.
It wasn’t as though she had suddenly become beautiful overnight. Magic didn’t work that way. Royal witches could work small spells to make themselves more attractive, but true glamour and illusion was more the province of practitioners of the Arts of Air, and there was no reason why Sophie would have had any training in those.
So anything he saw in her now had been there, still the same brown eyes and dark hair and slim build. So why the pull?
Because he had no explanation, he was determined to ignore it. So he kept walking, the weight of the saddlebags he carried with the remains of the food he’d bought and his uniform pulling at his shoulder. They weren’t particularly heavy, but he was growing tired after two days’ travel and portal hopping and sleeping out in the open. He was reaching the limits of how far the power of fear and worry could drive him without more sleep and a few meals containing food more substantial than half-burned fish, day-old cheap bread, and cheese and ham. Lucy, Alec’s wife, was a good cook, so unless the house was in an uproar due to the problems in the capital, that problem should be solved sooner rather than later. Sleep would have to wait until he knew what was happening and what their next steps would be.