His Regret: I Am Not Your Mate

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Flora's POV

"You absolute asshole," I hissed against his back, still slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain, the world bouncing upside down with every stride he took toward the stables.

"Noted," he said, entirely too cheerful about it.

"I mean it, Eric. Asshole. Complete and utter—"

"Keep going," he said. "I'm enjoying this."

I gave up on words for a second and just pounded my fist against his back instead, which did absolutely nothing except make my knuckles hurt.

When he finally set me down by the cart, I expected some flicker of shame on his face, at least a little. Instead he looked far too pleased with himself, practically glowing, like being cursed out was some kind of gift I'd handed him.

I climbed into the cart myself before he could try anything else, and he swung up right after, settling in beside me with far more room than necessary between us and yet somehow still managing to take up all of it.

I rolled my eyes at him. He grinned back like that was exactly the reaction he wanted.

A few minutes into the ride, he pulled a wrapped sandwich from his pack and held it out to me.

"Eat," he said.

"No."

"Suit yourself." He unwrapped it and started eating like a man who hadn't touched food in a week, entirely unbothered, tearing off bites with obvious enjoyment while I stared straight ahead and pretended he didn't exist.

A crumb landed on my sleeve. Then another, right on my knee. I glanced down, frowning.

"Are you doing that on purpose?"

"Doing what," he said, the picture of innocence, chewing.

I brushed the crumbs off my clothes, annoyed, and before I could even finish, his hand was there, plucking a stray crumb off my sleeve and popping it straight into his mouth.

"What are you doing," I said, half horrified, half something else I refused to name.

"Waste not," he said simply. "Shouldn't let good bread go to the dirt."

"You're disgusting."

"You're welcome."

"That wasn't a compliment, Eric."

"Hmm," he said, entirely unbothered, brushing his hands off. "You discovered one of my virtues, then. Resourcefulness."

"You have an inflated ego the size of the entire southern border," I said.

"That counts as a second virtue," he said, so pleased with himself I almost laughed despite myself. Almost.

I let out an exasperated breath instead. "Has no one ever spat on that arrogant face of yours? Truly? Not once?"

He actually paused at that, like he was giving it real consideration, which somehow made it worse.

"No," he said finally. "You've discovered my most important virtue, actually. My face is too handsome to bear spitting on." He tilted his head toward me, way too satisfied with himself. "Speaking of which. Have you been secretly studying my face this whole time? You seem to have found an awful lot of my virtues rather quickly."

"I am not speaking to you anymore," I announced, and turned to stare very deliberately at the passing trees.

"You're speaking to me right now."

"I am ending the conversation."

"Ending it with words is still speaking, technically—"

"Eric."

He held up both hands, finally relenting, though the smug look didn't leave his face for a long while after. I kept my eyes fixed on the trees rolling by, refusing to give him the satisfaction of another reaction, no matter how many times I felt him glance sideways at me like he was waiting for my resolve to crack.

It didn't crack. Not for the rest of the ride, not through the long stretch of quiet that settled between us after, not even when the silence started to feel less like anger and more like something else I didn't want to look at too closely.

I focused instead on the herbs in my satchel, running through the calming blends in my head, half out of habit and half because it gave my mind somewhere to go besides the warmth still lingering where his hand had brushed my sleeve.

The cart rattled along the border road, the trees thickening on either side as we moved further from camp, the afternoon light dimming under the canopy overhead. I caught myself glancing at him more than once despite my best efforts, at the easy way he sat, alert even while relaxed, his eyes tracking the treeline out of some soldier's instinct I doubted he even noticed himself doing anymore.

Maybe Daisy was right. Maybe there was something underneath all that arrogance worth knowing.

I shoved the thought down hard the second it surfaced.

We'd gone maybe another mile when Eric's whole body went still beside me, his easy posture snapping into something rigid and alert in half a heartbeat. I felt it before I understood it, the sudden tension radiating off him like a struck bell.

"Eric?"

"Quiet," he said, voice low, already reaching for the blade at his hip.

The forest had gone silent. Too silent. No birds, no rustling, nothing but the creak of the cart wheels and our own breathing.

Then the first arrow hit the side of the cart with a splintering thud, so close to my head that I felt the wind of it against my cheek.

I screamed before I could stop myself. Eric moved fast, shoving me down flat against the cart floor with one arm, his body angling over mine as more shouts erupted from the treeline, rough voices closing in from every direction.

"Stay down," he snarled, already pulling his blade free, his whole body coiled and ready. "Don't move."

Another arrow whistled past, closer than the last. The horses screamed and reared, the cart lurching hard to one side, and somewhere beyond the trees I heard the unmistakable sound of more than a dozen wolves shifting at once, claws hitting dirt, snarls rising into the darkening air.

We were surrounded.