Baring the Thorn (The Mountain Tribe #3)

Chapter 14

Samara

I rise from a troubled night of sleep, and only find some comfort in the fact that, as I glance over to his rigid spot across the fire, Thorn looks just as miserable as me.

His eyes are rimmed by deep, dark circles, his mouth a grim line, and for a moment, I have to fight the swell of concern that rises in me at his unhappy appearance.

But the memories of last night come back with a vengeance, and I don’t get my quiet minutes of warm silence where I can pretend I’m back home, or even that I’m back in the camp.

I’m here, and I know the truth, and I know that no matter how upset Thorn looks, he deserves every bit of misery.

For a moment, I don’t let him know I’m awake.

I stay wrapped in my furs and fight the current of tears that rises in me at our new situation. This time one day ago, the forest hadn’t felt so frightening, this world so vast, and my future so empty.

Yesterday morning I had thought that we would figure it out together, that Thorn and I could share something fragile and brief before the threats of this time inevitably claimed us. Yesterday morning the future had stretched out ahead of me not as something to be feared but as exciting, comforting.

Now it’s as bleak as my first week here.

After I’m certain I won’t begin to cry the second I open my mouth, I sit up and pour myself some of the tea that rests against the fire. I might be furious with him, but I’m not going to starve myself just to spite him.

I drink and chew on the roots we have stashed away, and I’m grateful that Thorn doesn’t talk until I’m ready to.

“I’m going to keep going,” I tell him finally, finishing my meagre breakfast and tightening my boots and my layers.

The morning is cold with a bite of wind that burns my cheeks, and I’m certain I have another long day of walking ahead of me.

Thorn’s head jerks up, and I find myself wondering if he’s eaten anything yet. He looks pale in the early morning light, but I cut these thoughts off quickly.

I should not care if he’s eaten.

“What do you mean?” He asks, his voice hollow but strong. He’s such a stubborn man that I’m certain he’ll fight with me no matter how I say it, so I decide to just force it out.

I take a readying breath. “I’m not going back to the camp. I’m going to follow the trail and try to track down the medicine. I’m not ready to give up.”

He stiffens, and his eyes are wild, alight with a mixture of fury and panic. “You will not seek him out, Samara. You cannot.”

“I can,” I cut in. “You taught me how to track animals, Thorn, and he’s left a very clear trail for me to follow. That medicine could mean the difference between saving someone and letting them die. Besides, you should be happy that your secret will be kept for a little while longer since I won’t be going back to the camp yet.”

Thorn drops his head, as if exhaustion has weighed out over anger, and he releases a long sigh.

Still, his hands are tense against his lap, and his jaw is firm.

“I know that you are angry with me, and I know that you do not understand my feelings towards the… others in the forest. But you must believe me that it is dangerous, and that I cannot let you go near him for your own protection,” he insists, his voice urgent.

I consider these points, but they still aren’t enough to change my mind.

“You lied to me. How could I believe anything you tell me? You could just be saying that so that I don’t look for him.”

At least he’s more reasonable today.

I can see Thorn warring with his emotions and his exhaustion as he considers what I’ve said. He looks truly terrible, and I’ve never known him to not have the energy to bicker.

Did he sleep at all? No, I push that thought away.

I have to stop caring.

“But what if I am right? What if he is dangerous and tries to hurt you? You are taking that risk by seeking him out,” he argues.

I chew my bottom lip, looking out into the grey forest, the silence seeming to stretch on forever, the endless green like an ocean that I’m stranded in the middle of.

Other people could be dangerous, of course, the man who took the medicine could be desperate enough for women that he’d force me to repopulate. Or he could be more advanced than Thorn’s tribe could ever imagine of, he could have a whole working village where he came from.

The only way I can find out is if I go, and even if it means putting my own life on the line, I can’t turn away from the medicine.

It’s too important to walk away from.

And with more time for backup, or maybe to learn some self-defense, the trail might go cold, and the cache will be lost. It has to be me, and it has to be now.

“I can take that risk,” I say with finality. “We need that medicine.”

“Yet I am not willing to take that risk,” Thorn growls impatiently.

I laugh, cold, hard. “I’m not asking. I’m telling. I’m going to keep going, and short of physically restraining me there’s not much you can do about it. So, are you going to tackle me or are you going to help me?”

He shoots up to his feet, and I watch as he begins to pace, his hands balled into fists and his expression thunderous.

Thorn is not the type of man who likes to be told what to do, and he’s certainly not the type to be put in a less than optimal position. I know that it’s torture for him to give in to me.

His bizarre morals allow for lying to all his people, yet I know that he would never hurt me, and that’s just what it would take for me to not keep looking for the medicine.

What probably bothers him the most is that the decision isn’t his.

Thorn has to come with me, even if he doesn’t believe in the cause, because his backwards chauvinism demands that he protects me from any danger.

As furious as he is, I know that he’d never take it out on me, so I actually find a bit of pleasure in his discomfort. Let him see what it’s like for someone to decide everything for you, I think with an internal smile.

After some stomping, he turns his head and gives me a scathing look. “You… are the most impossible female I have ever met.”

I rise to my feet. “As far as I know you’ve only met seven - or was that a lie too?”

We meet each other in the middle, glaring, heaving breaths, our bodies a mere foot apart and his heat surrounding me like a heavy cloud of steam.

He smells like the fire, like the leaves on the trees with their frost-bitten tips and the stony sides of the cliffs we’ve been skirting all week.

I’m so angry, so frustrated, so exhausted, that it clouds my mind. With him this close, his gorgeous scowl bearing down on me, desire only becomes another ingredient in the heady swirl of emotions within me.

It’s dizzying, these feelings of fury and of hunger, strong enough to knock me over backwards or pull me against his broad chest.

How can I still want him after yesterday? How can I still desire this man that has hurt me more than any other in my life? How can I want him with the same intensity that I want never to see him again? How can I stare at him now and feel equally drawn to shoving him or kissing him?

What would it be like to give in to those thoughts?

To tumble him down to the ground and come together in a clash of bitterness and longing, to let him fuck me hard and stubborn and angry?

I know what it would feel like after, the stinging shame that would fill my body once he retreated from it, and I know that I would be angry with myself for not being the strong, single-minded woman I know I am.

Yet I cannot help but entertain the idea, imagining his searing skin and the taste of his lying mouth.

Thorn releases a breath, and I blink back my thoughts and realize that his cheeks are burning as if he’s fevered, that his lips part to allow for a soft, barely audible groan.

God, he’s thinking exactly what I am.

The idea is startling, and it adds fuel to the fire in my belly.

“You will forgive me, little healer,” he says, and his voice is low and gravelly, like nails scraping teasingly over my skin. “And when you do, I will tear the furs from your perfect body and give you pleasure until you scream.”

I suck in a breath and hold it so that I don’t release the moan that’s on the tip of my tongue.

Fuck him.

Fuck his sureness and his certainty and his filthy words.

What other man would take such liberties with a woman he knows is furious with him? What other man would speak those thoughts aloud to the person who vowed to hate him forever?

Only Thorn would be so infuriatingly bold.

“I will not,” I have to force the words out, and they’re breathy, tangled in the mess of my conflicting feelings, “forgive you…I will- I will never be… able to.”

Thorn lifts his hand, and though he doesn’t lay it on my skin, he might as well have. Instead, he hovers it an inch away, floating up my side and to my face, cupping my cheek with the ghost of a touch.

“Then let me touch you and your anger. Let me prove to you that I did this for you. Let me show you what our bodies need, even if our minds disagree.”

“I… no….” I want the word to come out forceful, but it comes out on a gasp instead, as that hand hovers over my chest, maybe my heart or maybe my breasts, the only way to find out would be to say yes and let him touch me. The words come out at the same time I think them, “I can’t.”

I stumble backwards and welcome the cold air on my fevered skin as soon as I’m away from Thorn’s warmth and from the tempting hand that he’s extended.

He watches me steadily as I take a couple of deep breaths, and in the returning chill the desire dies away, and the hurt is what remains.

This is all I have to do, I decide, keep my distance and keep reminding myself how important it is to not give in.

If I can’t trust Thorn to tell the truth, I certainly can’t trust him with something as precious as my body, naked and tender. And in this time without birth control, sex brings the risk of children.

It’s too important to do on a whim, with someone that I should hate.

Once I’ve regained control over myself, I cross my arms over my chest, “Some ground rules before we keep going.”

Thorn releases a hard breath. “What is it you wish?”

“I ‘wish’ for you to back off,” I bark out. “No touching, no sleeping beside each other, no talk of…tearing off furs or bodies or pleasure. And no more lying. Don’t bother trying to lead me in the wrong direction, because I know what the human tracks look like now and I’ll figure it out.”

“Fine,” Thorn agrees. “I promise that I will watch over you while you search for the medicine. I will not touch you or speak of these things-” he pauses “-until you let me.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Until then, I will follow your rules,” he finishes.

Perfect. I spin around to pack up my things and put out the fire, and Thorn does the same. I’m sure he’ll follow most of my rules, contradictory as he is, because of that strange moral code that all the men in his tribe follow.

Now I just need to make sure that I follow them.