Page 119 of First Light
“She’s growing…” Carys bit her tongue. “Okay, sure. So you want me to ride behind you?”
“No. I am too heavy for this animal to carry me and another.”
In one movement, Darius scooped her off her horse’s back and set her on the ground. He murmured something to the mare in a language Carys didn’t recognize, then took the reins. “You will ride with Duncan.”
“No.” She looked at Duncan, then back at Darius. “I’ll do better.”
“Not without practice on flat land.” Darius looked amused. “Ride with the human, Carys. He doesn’t bite, but this horse will.”
Carys walked back to Duncan on his horse. “Apparently my horse didn’t like me.”
Duncan tried to hide his amusement. “Give me your hand.” He held his out and showed Carys how to mount the horse behind him. Then he scooted forward, keeping her hand in his and brought it around to rest on his stomach. “Scoot forward.”
Her breath caught as she bumped up against Duncan’s back, his firm butt resting right between her open thighs.
Her heart raced. “Okay then.”
“Comfortable?”
“Yep.”
Fine. It was fine. She was definitely not thinking about Duncan’s hard abdomen under her hands or their legs pressed together or the warmth of his back or those very, very firm thighs.
None of that.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Are you cold?”
“Nope.” Cold was the last thing she was.
Darius and Duncan guided the horses though the narrow trails that crisscrossed the highlands, climbing higher and higher as the hours passed. Duncan rewrapped his great kilt to cover Carys and protect them both from the mist. She hid her face against his back, drifting off to sleep more than once from the rhythm of the rocking horse and the long trail.
She woke from a dream of fog and whispers when she heard the cry of a hawk nearby. “How much farther?”
Darius answered her. “The Crow Mother lives on a mountain you will see when we ascend this ridge. There will be fog; you cannot see the top.”
Crow Mother? Carys’s mind whirled with the possibilities. Crows were associated with so many things in mythology, and most of them weren’t good. Bad luck, portents of death, general dark deeds. They were also messengers, so she tried to keep an open mind.
“Will Darius go with us?” she asked Duncan.
“I will take you as far as I can,” Darius answered. “She alone decides who may climb her mountain.”
Carys’s arms tightened around Duncan’s waist. “So she might not let any of us up there?”
Duncan kept his voice low. “She’ll want to speak to you.”
She remembered the warning Dafydd had given her. “Because I’m from the Brightlands?”
“Yes.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll be with you.”
The unicorn slowed his horse to walk beside them. “You savedmy child, Carys Morgan, so I will protect you as much as I can. But know that my powers are limited in fae strongholds. Just as the fae are less powerful among my people, I am less powerful among theirs.”
“Got it.” She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” Darius looked to the sky. “And definitely don’t thank her should you meet.”
“I won’t.”
Carys peered around Duncan’s broad shoulders as the hills around them gave way and the sky cleared for just a few moments. Below them was a wooded valley with a river running through it, and beyond the river rose a rocky hill. The summit was covered in fog, and a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.