I jumped, craning my head to see over my shoulder. “Where?”

“On top of the bookshelf.”

I looked up and up and up, the shelves blurring until I saw the wildcat. Its ears twitched in sleep, and one paw hung off the edge, relaxed and almost as large as my fist. When I looked back at the Huntress, I could have sworn I saw her hide a grin.

“The lynx didn’t come out of my hand.”

“Luckily for both of us.” She tried to tug the collar of her shirt back over her shoulder, then cursed in pain as it caught on a thorn and tugged at the wound.

“You deserved that,” I said, feeling a little more like myself.

“Perhaps. Seven hells.” She cursed again as the fabric caught a second time.

“Let me.” I brushed her hand away before she undid whatever it was I had done in the first place and pulled the cloth up and over the thorns. As I straightened the collar of her shirt, the tips of my fingers slid along the smooth skin above her collarbone, and this time the hiss of breath took me by surprise. Her hand shot out, stopping mine, and something that wasn’t pain moved behind her eyes.

“Don’t,” she said. Her voice was lower than I had ever heard it, more growl than speech, and the world narrowed down to a single pair of green eyes.

I felt my breath catch. “I’m sorry,” I said, but my fingers burned where they still touched her skin, and I found myself wondering what I would have thought if my father had betrothed me to this woman instead of Avery Lockland. I had a vivid image of the Huntress lounging inside the Lockland lodge, polishing her hunting horn. It was ludicrous, and yet there were similarities, of a sort, between this woman’s arrogance and Avery’s.

Except her arrogance made my heart beat a little faster, and I would never have willingly stood this close to Avery. I pulled my hand away slowly. She let me go, but I found I could not step away from her.

“Do you miss the ocean?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say to that, and so I said nothing, looking up into her eyes while something that might have been distant surf or my heartbeat thundered in my chest. I nodded, mute.

“Good.”

•   •   •

At the far end of the library, tucked in an alcove I had overlooked before, was a small table. The Huntress piled several scrolls on top of it, and I tore my eyes away from the muscles in her arms as she spread the first across the table.