Read Online Rebel: The Blades of the Rose by Zoe Archer - Free Book Online Page A

the box. Eventually, she seemed to make a decision, and put what looked like a field compass into her coat pocket. Odd that she’d hesitate over something so ordinary. She took a few more small objects from their hidden places around the cabin, also stuffing them into her pockets. She wavered over the pile of books—books he’d thrown to the ground when refusing to believe her claim that he was a shape changer—then decided against them.
    â€œI made a mess of your place,” he muttered.
    She dismissed this brusquely. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not coming back here.”
    The implications hit him. Her cabin had been her refuge, though from what, he still didn’t know. And now she had to abandon it. Because of him.
    â€œNo time for apologies,” she said, seeing he was about to offer exactly that. “We must leave now.”
    Easier for him to find shelter in movement and action than dwell upon what he had just done, what he had now become. She headed for the door, a revolver in her belt, rifle slung across her back, and he followed, but not before taking the trapper’s fallen revolver and tucking it into his belt. She gave an approving nod. He found a gleam of satisfaction in getting her approval.
    Once outside, sensations battered him. The sound of the wind in the pines. Trails of scent telling thousands of stories. He tasted the deepening afternoon. Everything had become too sharp, too present. Somehow, he must find a way to navigate this new world, or else risk being drowned by his senses.
    She watched him struggle, her own expression remote. This was a battle for her, he realized, as much as it was for him.
    It shook him that he could read her so intimately, and that she, too, could see into him. No one, especially no woman, had ever done the same. He’d never let them and never wanted anyone prowling around the inside of his mind. But he and Astrid Bramfield shared a connection. Whether either of them wanted to.
    â€œTake Edwin’s horse,” she directed. “And we’ll keep the mule, too.” She didn’t look behind her to see if he did as she bid him. Instead, she trotted toward the corral and readied her own horse. The trapper’s animals seemed indifferent to their change of owner. He smelled the horse’s and mule’s momentary confusion and then acceptance.
    In moments, she saddled and mounted her horse, then joined a mounted Nathan in front of her cabin.
    â€œTheir scent’s growing stronger,” Nathan said. “The men who took me.” A coil of fury unwound within him, strong and fierce. He wanted to hurt those men as they had hurt him.
    â€œYou and I can’t fight them,” she said, somehow reading his thoughts. “I know those men, and we could not defeat them on our own.”
    He wanted to press her on how she knew those bastards, but she had already set her heels to her horse. Nathan followed her lead, spurring his horse into motion.
    They plunged their horses into the woods bordering the west end of the valley, and then up steep, forested hill slopes. Nathan was no stranger to riding, but he would never have found the route on which she led them, narrow passes between rocky ridges all but invisible to any but the most experienced mountain dweller. She never stopped to look back, not at him, and not at her now-abandoned home. He didn’t ask where they were headed. All that mattered was moving forward.
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    The mountain’s secrets she knew well. They slid up between the hills, barely a notch, and then they rode downward, putting the valley behind them. Dense stands of spruce trees kept them in lengthening shadow. Nathan watched her watching, her eyes constant in their movement, assessing, thorough. What manner of woman was she, to carry herself like a veteran?
    She sat tall in the saddle, moving easily with the horse. He followed the golden rope of her braid hanging down her back and thought of what