“I notice you didn’t ask for Salve to be saddled is all.”

“I don’t trust you not to do something drastic like taking off. We can double up on Vale. He’s rested, and we don’t need to go far.”

The groom brought out Vale, who sidestepped with frisky excitement, tossing his head at the sight of them. Despite her burning rage, fury, and despair, Nic couldn’t help smiling at the horse’s happiness. Oh, to be that simple and enjoy the moment. Gabriel grasped her by the hips and lifted her onto Vale’s back with easy strength, and with such speed that she gasped in surprise. Before she’d come to terms with the rapidly evolving situation, Gabriel had swung up behind her, caging her in the stalwart protection of his big body, and urged Vale into a lunging leap of a gallop that had bits of mud and grass flying up behind them.

The precipitous departure and increasing speed gave her no time to catch her breath or equilibrate. Gabriel leaned low over her, cutting the drag and forcing her to lie low also or be crushed. Vale stretched out, reaching a velocity she’d never experienced with him, which made sense, as both Vale and Gabriel had been injured in the battle with the hunters just before she met up with them. Now, thanks to healing and rest, both man and horse were back in top form, and they hurtled down a road Nic hadn’t yet seen, going flat out so that tears streamed from Nic’s eyes from the wind of their passage, Vale’s mane stinging her cheeks.

To her surprise, the blistering speed, the feel of the horse’s muscles bunching and stretching beneath her, the furious cadence of his all-out gallop, even Gabriel’s body against hers as the misty world streamed past them, helped release something in her. That leaden ball of dizzying despair that had congealed in her at the sight of Alise’s ill-advised, criminal companions melted ever so slightly.

By the time Gabriel reined up on a hillock, indeed only a short time later, she felt a little bit less like she might shatter. He swung down, then offered hands up to her, expression composed but eyes dark with a challenge. No doubt if she was huffy and refused, he’d just pull her down. She braced herself on his forearms and let him lift her by the waist and set her on her feet.

He stepped back a careful distance, as if she were an improperly balanced fire incantation that could erupt if jostled. “You were saying?” he inquired. When she stared blankly at him, thoroughly disoriented by his unusual behavior, he raised one dark brow. “You are so angry at me…”

He’d employed a dramatically unfair tactic. Somewhere in that headlong race to nowhere, she’d lost the fiery impetus to rake him over the coals for his idealistic nonsense and shortsightedness. Raking her fingers through her hair, she found it damp with condensed mist, the low-lying area below filled with fog, like a shifting grey sea. “Why here?” she asked.