The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford

Chapter Nineteen

They rode through the day, only breaking along streams to refill their water supply. The paths through the pine forest ended after an hour of riding uphill, and then they were freely navigating through the cool forest, trees towering above them. But the Easterners clearly planted the pine forest for logging, so it was easy to navigate with the trees separated at regular intervals. Plenty of room for the horses. It was another story when they reached the top of the hill.

The pine plantation gave way to undulating woodland, growing steeper and wilder until it reached the Eastern summits of the High Mountains far in the distance. In the middle of those snowy-capped mountains rose a black jagged monolith: Mt. Aelusien, the Rotted Peak.

The peak was like a guiding star, drawing them closer, demanding to be noticed in the skyline. Far to the east through the forest, smoke swirled from smokestacks toward the sky, towns and villages dotted along the main highway. But no towns were between them and those haunted slopes. The promised stench of rotten death wafted toward them even from a considerable distance, and Remy knew in a few more hours she’d be gagging on the reeking odor.

“That smell is . . .” Remy wrinkled her nose, pulling her tunic up over her face.

“You can smell it already?” Hale mused. Remy didn’t reply. “We’ll break camp for the day at that clearing up ahead. We need to get a fire going before sunset,” he said with an edge of urgency.

“It gets that cold so quickly?” Remy asked. The snowline of the mountains was still high above them and the air still clung to summer’s warmth. But autumn evenings were deceptive, plummeting into a frost.

“The fire is not for the cold—it is for the beasts who roam these woods,” Hale said.

“Beasts?” Remy looked out over the woods: aside from a few songbirds and rabbits she had seen no other creature on their ride. She had heard no tale of these Eastern beasts either.

“The one to worry about is the Eastern mountain lion, tigris galanthicus,” Hale said.

Remy snorted. “We have mountain lions in the West too. They catch livestock sometimes, but they fear magic. We shall be fine.”

“We are not in the West,” Hale said with a hint of annoyance. “Are your mountain lions the size of horses in the West?”

Remy chewed on her lip. It couldn’t be the truth.

“They’re really that big?” she asked.

Hale’s guffaw pushed her forward.

“They say the lions lived on deer and smaller game for centuries, but when the ancient High Mountain fae hid their precious amulet in the mountains here, it drew magic out of the mountain itself. Towns sprang up along the Eastern slope. And the lion’s food became food for the townspeople, and so the lions hunted people too. There are no towns this far inland in our Court now, but the lions still remember what the humans did to their forest . . . and how tasty they were.”

“Great,” Remy grumbled.

“They are nocturnal hunters, using the element of surprise. They don’t like the firelight,” Hale said. Remy looked to the sky, the sun lowering into the tree line. Long shadows were being cast through the forest already.

A mountain lion the size of a horse? She shivered.

“Nearly there.” Hale laughed.

When they reached the clearing, Remy frantically collected firewood while Hale coaxed a spark to life from his piece of flint. They were both practiced in the art of making quick fires. It wasn’t until the flames were blazing high in the sky that they brushed down the horses and set up camp.

Remy had gotten used to this nomadic way of living by now. She knew precisely where each piece of gear was, which pocket carried her rations, and that her bedroll and blanket always sat at the top of the bag and her clothes below to prevent getting wet. Remy had brought some of the clothing that Bri had purchased for her in Ruttmore but most of it she left behind at Morgan’s house in Wynreach. They were fine clothes, and Morgan deserved them more than her. Plus, it was impractical to wear such attire in the middle of the forest, let alone if she had to fight off a horse-sized mountain lion.

Remy pulled out her change of clothes. She turned her back to Hale as she undressed. She had gotten used to changing in front of the others too. Bri had no problem getting buck naked in front of everyone, but Carys had a method of changing that Remy copied. She used her tunic to cover her lower half as she changed her trousers, then turned her back to swap her tunics. Even though Hale turned in an act of modesty, she still sensed his awareness tingling across her naked back.

Remy took her dirty, sweat-crusted clothes and hung them on a branch above them, careful not to step beyond the fire’s light. The horses seemed to know instinctively to keep to the light as they grazed.

Hale unpacked for the night as she changed. She assumed he was taking out provisions for dinner, but when she turned, he had unpacked an array of weapons: daggers, throwing knives, an extra quiver of arrows, and a hand scythe.

“Seriously?” Remy balked. “You think you will need all that?”

The prince still wore his two swords on his hips as well. Remy had only brought her one dagger from Bri and her bow.

“I wanted to be prepared.” Hale shrugged. “Most will be too heavy to haul to the peak, but once we get the amulet, we will head into the Northern Court . . . and we will find no friends there.”

Remy frowned at the display of weapons. Climbing a rancid-smelling mountain was going to be the easy part of this journey, it seemed.

The Eastern Prince had enough food for a few days in his pack, but they ate lean just in case, always preparing for stretching their rations beyond their intended length. The journey had taken its toll on Remy. She was tired and sore from riding and had to climb a mountain in the morning.

Hale moved to his sleep roll across the fire. They had added enough logs for a few hours’ worth of sleep before they would need to add more.

Remy was about to move to her bedroll when a shrieking snarl tore through the forest. She spun so fast for her bow she nearly toppled over. She nocked an arrow and froze, staring into the darkness. The sound was like that of a house cat, but deeper, louder. The trees shook with the reverberations of the far-off growl. Remy ground her teeth together. She would not be getting much sleep.

She hefted her pack and bedroll. Walking around the fire, she dropped them directly in front of Hale. Setting her bow and arrow in precise grabbing distance, she lay back down.

Hale smothered a laugh behind her.

“Shut up.” She scowled, but he did not make fun of her for wanting to sleep closer to him. With her bow at her front and Hale at her back, she would be safe.

“You ready for tomorrow?” he whispered.

“No,” Remy rolled over to meet Hale’s stare. His eyes had disappeared into the shadows, but she saw his faint grin in the firelight. “You?”

“Probably not.” Hale chuckled. That smile made her stomach muscles tighten. His chestnut hair tossed across his forehead. Remy remembered how she had brushed it back in the gardens of Saxbridge. She knew exactly how it would feel, how silky soft it would be, how her hand would smell like the waves rolling off the ocean.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Remy asked instead.

“Vostemur has the Immortal Blade,” Hale said like she didn’t already know. “And in order for the last High Mountain fae, Prince Raffiel, to stand a chance in reclaiming it, he will need his ancestor’s talismans.”

“The Shil-de ring and the amulet of Aelusien,” Remy whispered.

A vision of the prayer tree in the Southern Court flashed through Remy’s mind, all those ribbons flapping in the breeze. How many more people would have to mourn their dead if they did not succeed? She thought to the severed heads on the Eastern palace’s floor. Vostemur grew bolder by the day. He was pushing into the Western Court. Hale’s soldiers, Remy’s friends, were helping aide in the Eastern Court’s retreat as well. They needed this ancient magic if they had any hopes of defeating the northern threat.

Remy sensed the ring’s red magic, the power of the High Mountain fae and the red witches. Her hand skimmed over the lump where her totem bag rested. “You should wear the ring tomorrow, Hale.”

He smiled as she said his name. She did it so rarely, she realized. He seemed to cherish the sound.

“That would defeat the purpose of obtaining the ring,” Hale said. He couldn’t put the ring on and then give it to another.

Anyone could use the Shil-de ring, unlike the Immortal Blade, which was tethered to the High Mountain fae by red witch blood magic. But once the ring was on its wearer’s finger, it was there forever or until they took it off, and then . . . all the deaths the ring had saved them from would reclaim them. The ring only protected from violent deaths, though. Age and time would reclaim the ring bearer, eventually.

“Besides,” Hale said softly, and she felt his eyes searching her own in the darkness, “if anything, you should be the one wearing it.”

“Why?” she asked. Her heart began pounding louder, and she hoped he could not hear it.

Another hissing growl shook the earth. The horses whinnied. Remy flipped over, trying to search in the sound’s direction, but the wild noises were still far away in the night. How long until the lions caught their scent and came prowling this way?

Remy flopped back down in frustration, feeling like lion bait. She reached out for Hale’s muscled arm and pulled it around her. He chuckled, wrapping her in his warmth, one arm snaking around her side and splaying across the rough fabric of her tunic.

“Quiet,” Remy growled again. She pulled the fur blanket over both of them. Yanking her bag to her front, she wedged herself between her pack and the prince.

Yeah, that would protect her from a horse-sized mountain lion with a taste for human flesh.

She still felt Hale smiling into her hair.

“Go to sleep,” she ordered.

He pulled her back until she was flat against his warm front. The rise and fall of his chest was a comforting rhythm to her now, after days of riding with him. She knew the sound of his steady heartbeat as easily as she knew her own.

* * *

Remy woke in the night. Had she imagined the snarl of a lion? She didn’t know if it was a dream. She looked at the fire. It still blazed strongly. She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep. Both horses were still there, calm. She scanned the night for any large reflective cat eyes, but there were none. She had rolled more onto her stomach in her sleep, lying halfway across her pack. In doing so, she had trapped Hale’s arm under her and where his hand rested . . .

She had pinned his hand between her pack and the apex of her thighs.

Going rigid, all at once Remy was not sleepy at all. That hand. That Gods’ damned hand was right there. She felt the heat emanating into her, that perfect spot. Hale’s deep sleeping breaths rolled like waves from behind her. His perfect ocean air scent wrapped around her entire body, making the sensations coursing through her even sharper. She wasn’t sure where her scent ended and his began.

And that hand.

Remy shifted her hips to unpin him but stopped the second she moved. Gods. That delicious split second of friction was enough to set her on fire. The prince’s hand twitched in his sleep. With a shuddering breath, Remy bit her lip.

“Do you like that?” A rough, sleepy voice sounded from behind her.

“You’re awake.” Remy could feel her cheeks heating. She made to move, but Hale rolled so his front was half on top of her back, holding her in place.

His lips slid up Remy’s neck to her ear. “Your scent could wake a male from the dead.”

Remy trembled as thousands of tingling lightning bolts shot through her body. She tilted her hips forward again as his breath whispered into her ear. His hand moved, pressing in, and Remy gasped.

She had never felt this aroused before. Never. She had a few encounters with a boy in one of the tavern towns they were in. They were fun and quick, but anticlimactic. This was something entirely different. Hale’s hand alone through the fabric of her trousers had liquid heat pooling between her legs.

“Do you want me to keep going?” he whispered into her ear again. His voice alone almost had her coming undone.

Remy breathed without thinking, “Yes.” She was lost to the sensation of his body pressed against hers.

Hale pushed his hand against her as she ground her hips forward, stifling a moan. Shifting her onto her side, Hale slid his hand up to the waistband of her trousers and inside. His calloused fingers dipped down until he found that hot, wet button between her legs. Remy turned her face into her arm as his fingers slid against her, moaning into her sleeve.

“That sound,” Hale said as he moved his fingers again, “is my undoing.”

Remy felt him harden against her backside. She reached her hand back to palm him, and he growled.

“Not tonight,” he ground out. “There are beasts in these woods, and there will be nothing quiet about the first time I have you.”

As those promised words skated across the shell of her ear, he dipped one finger into her wet core. Remy bit into her shirt to keep from crying out. Hale snarled, skimming his teeth across her neck.

It felt so good. Too good.

Hale groaned as he added a second finger, making Remy writhe.

“Are you always this wet when you think of me?” His fingers paused, waiting for an answer.

“Yes.” Remy’s voice sounded nothing like her own, filled with a feral pleading for those fingers to move faster.

Hale obliged, pumping them in and out of her as the heel of his hand pressed down on that tight bundle of nerves. His other hand drifted up, languidly circling her nipple. She arched into his hands, her panting breaths the only sound. His heady scent enveloped her, bringing her higher to that edge. Remy ground herself harder into his fingers. Harder, faster. It was all she could think to do. Moving. Demanding more.

Hale nibbled her ear as she cried out again.

“Remy,” he whispered.

At the sound of his voice, she shattered. Biting down on her arm, rolling waves of ecstasy overcame her. Hale massaged her until the last of her moans turned into heavy breaths.

Remy had never in her entire life felt that way before. Echoes of that ecstasy shot across her body as her breathing slowed. Hale slid his hand out of her trousers, pulling her back across his broad chest with satisfaction.

His lips brushed across her temple.

“Dream of me,” he whispered smugly, and she did.