Bounty Hunter (The Black Tulip Chronicles #1)

28. Ikar

Chapter 28

Ikar

“ H and over hand,” I yell when she doesn’t move. We have a ways to go, and I don’t know how long she can hold on with this wind.

She finally starts moving, sliding her hands rather than releasing one, but I don’t care, as long as we’re making progress. We’re currently hanging from the most violently swinging portion of the bridge—its center. The sooner we move toward the other end, the better. It’s a good thing the shifter is behind a locked gate and a flipped bridge, or I’d be on my way back to finish whatever game he plays. There’ll be time for that later, after I’ve restored my kingdom. Also, this bridge will be covered at the next King’s Council.

We are three fourths of the way across when Vera stops again.

“Keep going!” I shout through the wind.

She shouts something, but I hardly hear her words. I can see the way her hands are beginning to slip and tire.

“We aren’t dying in this muddy canyon today. Move!” I yell harshly .

I treat her as one of my soldiers, but it seems to work, and she begins moving once again. Even my arms begin to burn, so I can’t imagine how hers feel. We finally reach the edge, and I continue to coach her through the tricky process of half-climbing, half-pulling herself up onto solid ground. Once there, she falls back with gasping breaths, clutching the short grass beneath her. Rupi darts from the trees and barrels into Vera, hopping over her chest and chirping until Vera lifts a hand to calm her. I make my way up, arms on fire, and feel as if my hearing is permanently muted from the intense volume of the howling wind in my ears as I crossed. When I look back along the length of the trembling bridge, I see the guard walk through the gate and proceed to work with the wind to restore the bridge to its upright and functional position. When he finishes, he gives me a mock salute, then exits through the gate once more.

Anger has me fixing my grasp around the hilt of my sword, but I know I can’t go after him right now. I reach a hand down to Vera, unwilling to let her wallow in her panic. “Let’s go.”

I want to pick her up and grasp her tight to my chest with relief that she didn’t let go, but I don’t want her to see how shaken I am. Or how much I care when I really shouldn’t. She knows I need her alive to get my magic back, but she doesn’t know I want her alive because I care. As she looks at my hand and then back at the bridge, then back to my hand, I see the resolve steel her eyes. She’s stronger than she thinks she is, and I’ll keep showing her until she believes it. She takes my hand, and I pull her to my side.

We find ourselves facing a rustic sign attached to a thick wood post with ‘Welcome to the Shift Forest’ scrawled across its front in a thin script. It sits a bit crookedly, but oddly, it does lighten the atmosphere after that cursed death trap behind us. I stretch my neck side to side, not liking the way our trip has begun, but I know we have no other option now that we’re here. Besides, this is still the fastest route—we just have to survive it.

“What do you think this mate bond does?” Vera asks, as we begin walking, holding up her arm and tilting her wrist this way and that to inspect the glowing dot.

“All that matters is that it will protect both of us from being tricked or forced into a mate bond with a shifter as we cross the forest,” I say, though I do wonder if I should have read the label first. But that mate bond licensing office… I cringe. My throat goes tight just thinking about it again. Stuffy, pink, uncomfortable. Vera’s face when she was reading the vials and blurted out reproduction . I stopped thinking and impulsively snatched the gold one just to escape the confines and awkwardness of the overbearing place.

Vera lips curl in amusement at my expression. “Thinking of that shop again?”

I give her a flat look, and she laughs, but my mood lightens. If my discomfort can make her laugh, I’ll do it over and over again—it’s like the warm rays of sunshine after a freezing rain. She’s a confusing one. Captor of my magic, and potentially my heart, if I don’t protect it better.