Free HuntressTakesAll by Ali Atwood Page B

thoughts. Was she regretting the episode already, or was it something else?

Chapter Ten
    As Brig and Duncan mounted their horses, ready to ride back to the palace, she sensed he was thinking about them, maybe wondering how to distance himself now that he’d had her. She reminded him again, “You’d better alert your guards that we’re on the move.”
    Cameron met her gaze for a moment, then pulled out his com-link, frowning as he looked down at the screen. “That’s odd. There’s no signal.”
    Simultaneously, Brig’s parasenses lit up like a beacon. Instantly, she comprehended that Duncan’s guards were lying dead in a clearing about seventy meters ahead. Although her mind couldn’t bring the picture fully into focus, she could sense shapes moving away from the scene. Adrenaline surged. “Your guards are dead,” she hissed.
    His gaze snapped to her face. “What?”
    “Don’t ask me how I know. Choose another route and ride like hell. I’ll be right behind you.”
    “No.” Before she could argue, he grabbed her mount’s reins, pulling her horse into a gallop beside his. “They must be jamming my link.”
    “Yeah, we’re on our own.” She looked behind, saw nothing. “How long will it take going this way?”
    “Roughly forty minutes, but there’s cover if we need it.”
    For several tense minutes, they raced over rough ground toward a forest area with a rock face on the right side. Brig was wondering why her senses hadn’t picked up on the danger while the guards were being killed. All she could think was the sex had temporarily dulled her receptors. Let that be a lesson to you, Monroe.
    “Rocky ground ahead,” Cameron said as they neared the bluff. “We’ll have to slow our pace for a few minutes.”
    Simultaneously, Brig felt a rush of malevolent energy hurtling toward her. “Get down! Take cover!” In a blur of motion, she was off her horse with twin blasters firing streams toward the bluff. A split second later, a quiver of arrows hissed through the air.
    Cameron was already off his stallion, using zigzagging motions as he moved to hit the horses’ rumps and send them out of harm’s way.
    Brig had no fear for herself, she could move fast enough to dodge the arrows, but Cameron couldn’t. Keeping her gaze on the ridge, she kept firing as she moved backward toward him, surprised when he passed her, as if to shield her again. “Get behind me, damn it, I here to protect you, not the other way around.”
    “I don’t see it that way.” He pulled her toward a large tree, and they crouched down behind it, breathing harshly with their gazes trained on the top of the bluff. “They’re using air-jet powered arrows instead of lasers.”
    She nodded. “So they won’t attract attention from the mining camp, or anyone else who might be around, and whoever’s up there didn’t kill your bodyguards.”
    He glanced at her. “I was thinking the same thing. They couldn’t have gotten here and climbed the bluff so quickly.”
    “Which means the person or persons behind this knew the routes you would take and had assassins waiting on both courses.” She looked up at the rock face again. “I reckon there are at least six of them up there, maybe more.”
    Cameron gave her a penetrating look. “How do you—”
    He broke off as another hail of arrows whooshed through the air, hitting their tree. Cameron pushed her behind him.
    “Will you stop treating me like a girl?”
    “Never.”
    “Okay, then we need better cover while we figure out a plan. You know the countryside, any ideas?”
    “Caves.” He pointed to an area in front of them, about two thirds along the rock formation.
    Brig narrowed her gaze and saw a small opening beneath a rocky outcropping. “Take my weapons,” she said. “I have a spare strapped to my leg.”
    “Hang on to them and cover us when we start moving.” He stood upright.
    “Get down! Don’t be—” She broke off, staring with gathering astonishment as the