“The only lesson anyone could take from the saddle is how to spread her legs.”
My shoulders stiffen, and all of my previous ease leaves me as several of the soldiers bark out laughter.
“I’ll volunteer for that lesson!” someone else calls out. More snickering.
“Aye, me too. Let’s see it!”
My spine goes rigid. Keg frowns.
Then, a dark, foreboding voice answers from across the campfire. “What ‘it’ would you like to see, exactly?”
Chapter 10
AUREN
My heart leaps into my throat. The soldiers all go still, the mood gone from mocking to uneasy in a single second.
I find the source of the voice, gaze jumping to the figure on the other side of the fire. Commander Rip is standing there, arms loose at his sides, spikes jutting from the middle of his forearms like curved fangs in a wolf’s mouth.
For all his easy, relaxed posture he seems to import, there’s menace rising off him like steam.
He looks so different from when I left the tent this morning. All traces of the mellowed, softened look that he had while he slept is gone. Right now, that recollection is so foreign, s
o ill-fitting, that I doubt whether he really looked like that to begin with. How could I think for a single second that this male was anything but sinister?
In the dappled gray lighting of an almost-dawn, Rip is formidable. The last remnants of night cling to his jet-black hair, to his depthless eyes, the shadows of otherworldliness splashed across his cheeks.
His is a presence meant to chill, to frighten. To take one look and want to run the other way, and I must not be the only one who thinks that, because the soldiers go tense, as if they want to flee.
He’s wearing the same black leather outfit as before, the same contorted branch sword hilt hanging at the belt on his waist. Simple soldier’s clothes that do nothing to hide the threat beneath. A hush weighs over everyone—even Keg falls quiet.
I’m so focused on Rip that I don’t even notice the soldier with him until they both begin walking forward. A foot taller than the commander, bulky chest, mean eyes, pierced lip, long brown hair. The soldier who approached me when I was snooping around the carts.
Great.
No wonder he’s such an observant asshole. It looks like he’s Rip’s right-hand man.
The two of them stop in front of the line of soldiers, homing in on a pair in particular. “Osrik,” Commander Rip says, his tone gruff. “I think these men said something about wanting lessons.”
“I heard that too, Commander,” Osrik replies, a wicked smirk tugging at his lips.
The two soldiers shift on their feet. One of them seems to have gone pale.
Rip stares at them without a hint of emotion. The edge in his eyes is sharp enough to cut glass. “Go ahead and teach them one, Captain Osrik.”
Osrik’s smile is not a nice one. “Gladly.”
Both soldiers blanch, one of them swallowing hard enough that I can hear it from where I stand. “Let’s go.” Osrik turns and the soldiers follow after him, everyone watching them go, including me.
Well, everyone except…
“Come, Auren.”
I startle, Commander Rip suddenly right beside me.
“Where?” I ask warily.
“The carriage,” he answers. I don’t know which I’m more surprised by, the destination, or the fact that he actually answered me.