Free Defiant by Kris Kennedy Page B

muscular straight down through his wrist. Or how his broad hand was clamped around her wrists, his fingers encompassing her arm like an iron band. She might be able to dislodge herself if a comet exploded overhead and knocked him senseless.
    They hit the bottom stair and turned for the back door. Ry put a palm on it, then glanced at Jamie, who had pinned his back to the wall and was pushing Eva likewise with arm and elbow. Jamie gave a curt nod.
    Ry nudged the door open, peered out, then kicked the door wide and leaped out into the yard, sword out. He looked to his right, his left, then gestured without turning. “Come.”
    Jamie herded her through as if she were a sheep, he a silent watchdog.
    “Are you expecting an attack?” she asked, slightly breathless.
    “Always.”
    This was even more disquieting than all the previous unquiet thoughts. Surely, though, she could get away. She was alwaysable to get away. Getting away was her pennant, her battle standard, her coat of arms. No one was better at escaping than she.
    She looked down at Jamie’s hand, locked around her wrists.
    He might be better at keeping one captured, though.
    “Did Roland give you any descriptions, Ry?” Jamie asked in a low voice as they crossed a stableyard raucous with an inordinate number of chickens. Eva saw no sign of Roger, and they did not seem to either. She felt a small rush of pride.
    Jamie’s companion, brown-haired, brown-eyed, as tall as Jamie, leaner than Jamie, but looking almost as dangerous as Jamie, shook his head as they drew near the stable doors. “Nay,” he murmured. “He said he saw only their dust.”
    Jamie released her when they were through the stable doors, into the dusty warmth. Eva backed away, resisting the urge to rub her wrists, for she would not have been rubbing away pain, as Jamie had not hurt her. She would have been . . . touching where he had touched.
    Morning light rayed in through slats between the boards. Horses and hay were illuminated by thin strips of bright light, so they glowed golden and brown and chestnut red. The horses shifted in their stalls, turning to peer at them with liquid eyes, furry ears pricked.
    Jamie and his companion led their horses out, still saddled. Clearly, they had anticipated a short stop. Perhaps she should be insulted by this.
    Eva’s horse was standing down the row farther, a dim brown shape, her head half down, eyes lazily closed, a single spray of golden hay poking out from between her velvety muzzle lips.
    Jamie patted his horse in a distracted way and tossed the reins up. He grabbed hold of a stirrup and looked at her. “Up.”
    She blinked. “I, I—”
    “Are getting on.” Then he paused and glanced down the row,the very direction her surreptitious little glance had gone. They both looked at the sleepy brown mare. “Yours?”
    She opened her mouth, then closed it, suddenly unable to determine the need for a lie.
    Revealing she had a horse would betray nothing of her purposes. Jamie could easily assume she had a horse. She’d never have made it this far without. She could claim every horse in the stable and Jamie would know nothing more than he did right now.
    Yet notwithstanding all these sensible notions, Eva was engulfed like a wick by the bright, burning knowledge that the more Jamie knew of her, the more her life would become . . . irrevocable.
    Eva lived for revocability. Decisions were nothing but footprints in the sand; everything could be washed away. At need, Eva revoked opinions, plans, pennies, entire personal histories.
    But Jamie . . . Jamie was more the edge of the cliff than the shifting sand. No going back.
    That thin scar carved through the corner of his lip and up over one high cheekbone, but did not detract a whit from the beautiful masculinity of him. Hands, blades, wits: everything Jamie bore was a weapon, and a blind man would see he was a thing to avoid. Right now he was watching her, his eyes never leaving hers throughout the lengthening