Page 10 of Fang & Fury

Someone like her couldn’t let anyone get close, ever again.

An ache rose under her breastbone then as she thought of Darach, and her step faltered.

She never brought him up with Kayla, yet she thought of him often.

Her mentor likely believed him dead, and she should too, but the flicker deep in her chest whenever he intruded told her he wasn’t.

She had no proof though.

Reaching up, she rubbed at her breastbone with her knuckles. She should cast the man from her mind. He was the manipulator—accusing her of deception when he’d been holding back information of his own. Maybe he’d thought she’d judge him for attempting to murder his brother in cold blood, but it didn’t matter. He’d hidden it from her, and then he’d treated her as if she’d been on a mission to seduce and kill him. She’d never forget the look on his face in that shieling.

Trust was a fragile thread. Hard to weave and so easy to break. She shouldn’t think about him, worry about him. Even if he was still alive, whatever had existed between them was over now.

Swallowing, Ailsa resumed her circling of the alcove.

Thinking about Darach was pointless. She had her own future to worry about.

She understood the desire to end Niall, though. After what she had witnessed here, she couldn’t imagine allowing him to continue.

She was still stalking the floor like an angry cat when the rasp of iron sliding free brought her to a halt.

The door swung open, and Kayla entered.

Ailsa caught a brief glimpse of big, leather-clad bodies in the shadowy passageway behind, and then the door swung shut.

The boom of iron against stone followed, reverberating through the alcove and then dying away.

And as it did, the two women eyed each other.

Ailsa knew that expression well. The pinched mouth and lowered brows.

Kayla was vexed.

“I’m not sorry,” Ailsa said, folding her arms across her chest. “So don’t start at me.”

Her mentor stiffened, her hazel eyes narrowing further. “That temper of yours, Ailsa,” she muttered. “It’ll get both of us killed.”

“You wanted me to submit to him then?” Her voice sharpened.

Kayla made a pained sound. Her mentor looked weary this afternoon. Ailsa had always thought of her as young and vibrant, yet this was her fiftieth winter, and in the light of the lantern burning on the table beside them, Ailsa marked the deep lines that now bracketed her mouth. Since her captivity, more gray strands threaded her curly red hair.

She still radiated strength, though, an indomitable spirit that Ailsa had always admired. She’d never met anyone with a backbone like Kayla’s.

Aye, despite that trust had been broken, she’d always respect this woman.

She wondered then about her birth mother. The bavaan who’d left her with a stranger. Had she thought about Ailsa over the years—ever wondered what had become of her—or had she walked away without a second glance?

“No,” her mentor murmured. “But did you have to get so savage? I thought you were going to start eating his hand.”

Ailsa snorted, even as queasiness rose once more. “I wasn’t.”

She didn’t admit just how good his blood had tasted, though. How she’d intended to go for his throat next.

From the way Kayla’s gaze now shadowed, she probably guessed.

Ailsa turned away from her then, avoiding her eye. It was time to withdraw, as she usually did.

“I hate what we’re helping them do,” Kayla said roughly. “I was always careful in the past … I never took things too far … but now I do. Every day.”