Free Seeing is Believing by Sasha L. Miller Page A

announced after a few hours of solid silence. He didn't sound too pleased by the prospect, and Ty didn't blame him. The horse had already been beleaguered enough without supporting both his and Reid's weight.
    The poor thing was going even slower now, and Ty thought he could probably have walk faster than it was if his side wasn't throbbing fiercely in time to the horse's step. Reid lapsed back into the unsettling quiet he'd been maintaining all afternoon, but Ty just wearily accepted it, focusing on sitting carefully and not jostling any of his aches more than necessary.
    It was a short amount of time later that Reid halted the horse in a tiny clearing, just wide enough to let sunlight through during the day.
    "Good enough," Reid muttered half under his breath. Ty sighed, wondering if he'd be able to get down without falling on his face. After a moment, Reid twisted to look awkwardly over his shoulder at Ty. "I know you've been enjoying being pressed up against me, but you should get down now."
    Ty glared, hooking his fingers in the back of Reid's shirt for balance before stiltedly dismounting. His legs nearly crumpled beneath him, but Ty steadied himself with a fresh grip on the horse's rigging.
    Reid swung down after him, looking only a little less worn than Ty felt. He ignored Ty, focusing on the horse. The poor creature looked about ready to fall over itself, and Reid was murmuring to it softly under his breath as he worked on divesting it of saddle and harness.
    Ty dragged himself a few feet away before collapsing down to the ground with a groan he couldn't quite stifle as his aches protested the movement vehemently. He fell back flat against the ground, not bothering with the effort of sitting up. The ground was hard and uneven beneath him, but Ty thought he could probably fall asleep easily anyway.
    Reid snickered from somewhere nearby, but Ty ignored him, keeping his eyes shut and his limbs motionless. Everything hurt less when he didn't move.
    "You're going to hurt worse in the morning if you fall asleep like that," Reid advised, practically right next to Ty and much closer than he had been a moment ago. Ty jerked in surprise, strangling a pained yelp at the protest his muscles made. Reid raised an eyebrow, smirking knowingly as he straightened from his crouch. At least he was moving a little stiffly too, Ty noted with a bit of satisfaction.
    "You should eat something, too," Reid said, dropping one of the saddlebags in front of him. "We should be out of the forest sometime tomorrow, provided we haven't gotten too far off track."
    "Good," Ty muttered, dragging himself up into a sitting position as Reid walked away.
    Reid set about stretching out their one remaining bedroll on the opposite side of the tiny clearing from the horse. Reid probably expected to repeat last night's presumptuousness, and Ty couldn't really protest—they both needed to sleep, since Ty didn't think he could travel much further without resting and Reid was the only one capable of mounting any sort of defense if they were attacked again.
    Reid finished with the bedroll and settled down next to Ty. His features were almost indistinguishable in the dark. The moon was still mostly full, but not a lot of its light made its way through the trees. The only thing clearly visible was the thick scar, and Ty wondered for a moment what could cause such a large wound and not kill a man.
    Perhaps the wound had cause Reid's obvious lack of mental faculties. Only no, that was rude. Even if Reid had been nothing but rude to Ty, he wasn't going to stoop to the same.
    "So, has rescue been everything you dreamed it would be?" Reid asked, smiling widely. He took the unopened saddlebag from Ty's fee, pulling it open to root through it.
    "I didn't dream of rescue," Ty replied absently, without thinking.
    "Really?" Reid drawled, leaning closer. "What did you dream about?"
    "Certainly not you," Ty retorted, and then his brain caught up with his words and his cheeks