Chapter 15 Scarlette
Scarlette
We tumbled into the cave like beasts who’d forgotten what it was to be human.
The world outside was a smear of frost and shadow, the woods hollowed out by the kind of fear that made even the birds keep their beaks shut.
I hit the stone floor first, wet and sharp against my shoulder blade, then rolled onto my back and just lay there, naked and shuddering, chest heaving with the shock of sudden air.
Moab landed half a second later, knees buckling, hands clawed to catch himself.
The bones in his arm cracked back into place with a noise like green wood splintering.
He didn’t scream, didn’t even swear, just let out a sound that started as a growl and broke apart in the dark.
For a moment, neither of us moved. My ribs still vibrated from the run, and every joint screamed bloody murder at the abrupt change.
The cold of the cave seeped up into my spine and across my ass, a meaner cold than any winter wind because it was so slow, so final.
I pressed myself to the far wall, knees tucked to chest, arms curled tight across my body as if I could still feel the fur that had just a second ago been my whole world.
My hands trembled so badly I couldn’t tell if the air was moving or if I was.
The grief was worse, though, the rawness of it, the memory of my mother’s face, the way her hands shook as she worked the keys, the blood that left her lips when the arrow found her back.
The world spun in tiny circles around that memory.
If I had a voice, I would’ve howled again, but now it just stuck in my throat, a pebble lodged forever.
Moab shook himself off like a dog, but slower.
He was already on his feet, and there was a single-mindedness in the way he moved, scanning the cave’s rim for threats or tools or both.
His nakedness didn’t seem to matter. Even shivering, his body looked built to frighten the cold away: all rope and scar, with the wolf tattoo on his arm an angry blue in the moonlight.
He kicked at a heap of moldering leaves, then bent and fished out a handful of brittle sticks from beneath a tangle of roots that laced down through the rock.
His voice when it came was so flat and ordinary, I almost laughed. “Stay there. I’ll start a fire.”
I wanted to ask if he’d done this before, but the question felt stupid on my tongue.
I pulled myself tighter, pressing the small of my back into the moss, watching as he crouched in the shallow bowl of the cave.
He worked with his hands, fast and careful, breaking twigs into neat lengths and piling them between two rocks that served as a crude hearth.
The pile was so small, so laughably fragile, that I almost told him to forget it, that there wasn’t enough wood in the world to melt the ice inside me.
He ignored my stare and grabbed a sliver of steel and a flint someone had left behind, which he struck against the rock until sparks tumbled into the waiting nest of dry moss.
It caught on the third try, a tiny pop of yellow that flickered, failed, then flared back to life as he coaxed it with a whisper and a careful breath.
The fire was not warmth at first. It was a color, a light that made our nakedness obvious, our bruises and blood, and the shivering seams where skin met skin. But it gave the cave shape and boundary.
Moab sat cross-legged by the flame, head bowed so his hair covered half his face. He looked at his hands as if he didn’t trust them, then held them above the fire, flexing the fingers until the shaking stilled.
I tried to speak, but the sound was more of a gasp than a word. “She’s dead,” I said, not knowing if I meant my mother or myself or something larger.
He didn’t answer right away. Just kept feeding the fire, bit by bit, until it was the only thing in the cave that didn’t shudder.
After a long time, he said, “She did what she had to.”
I almost spit at him for saying it so plain, but the fire had dulled even my anger. I curled in, bone on stone, and let the heat crawl across my shins.
“You think we’re safe here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “For now. If they catch our scent, I’ll know.”
The way he said it left no doubt. There was a comfort in that, but also a kind of terror.
I looked at him, really looked, and for a second I couldn’t see the difference between the man and the wolf.
The firelight painted his chest in gold and blue, the tattoos shining like runes.
There were scratches all up and down his ribs, a fresh bite on his shoulder—mine, maybe, from before I remembered how to stop.
He caught me looking. “You hungry?” he asked.
I shook my head, though the truth was the cold had curled around my belly and squeezed the hunger out.
“Get closer to the fire,” he said, and when I didn’t move, he stood, crossed the cave, and scooped me up with arms too gentle for their size. I didn’t fight. I let him carry me to the fire, and let him curl his own body around mine until the shaking stopped.
We sat like that, side by side, our skin prickling in the heat and the chill. The cave was a womb, but a bitter one.
My voice came back as a whisper. “What do we do now?”
He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched, only the crack of twigs breaking it.
Finally, he said, “We wait for the sun. Then we run again.”
“Is that all there is?” I said. “Running?”
His hand closed over mine, callused and so warm it hurt. “It’s better than burning. Tomorrow, we find the oak circle and go home.”
I pressed my face to his chest, let the old salt and sweat and the faint, acrid stink of fur drown the rest of the world. I didn’t cry. Not then. I just let myself remember how it felt to move through the woods, to leave pain and men and memory behind. Even if it never lasted.
The fire burned low. The cave walls sweated, the drops making tiny rivers down the stone. Outside, the world kept turning. But in that hour, in that dark, there was only the two of us, shivering together in the animal dark, waiting for the next run.
***
The fire was almost dead when I crawled into his lap, desperate as a wounded animal seeking warmth.
The stones under my knees pressed bruises into the skin, but pain felt like the only thing tethering me to this world.
My mother's face floated behind my eyelids each time I blinked.
I just wanted to feel something—anything—that might drown out the howling emptiness in my chest and the memory-frost that crept up my legs, turning every thought to ice.
Moab didn’t say a word. He parted his knees, gave me space, and let me burrow in.
I pressed my face to his chest, the black hair coarse and singed at the edges, the skin beneath hot as fresh blood.
His arms went around me, heavy and sure, drawing me in until the whole world was the box of his ribs and the thump of his heart.
I cried then, really cried, my face mashed into the hollow below his throat so the tears pooled there and ran together with the sweat.
I didn’t sob. I just let the water out, salt and loss, and everything that had built up since the first time Brother Tomas whispered my name as a curse. I let it all run.
He didn’t try to stop me or tell me it would be fine.
Instead, he lifted my chin, wiped a thumb across my cheek, and just looked at me.
His face was raw, the wolf close under the surface, his eyes a muddy gold in the firelight.
There was blood on his lip, mine or his, I couldn’t tell.
He sucked at it, then let his hand fall back to my hip.
My legs ached from the run, and my body was a patchwork of bruises, but there was a hunger in me that had nothing to do with food.
Maybe it was the cold, maybe the memory of the run, maybe just the way he held me together when everything else wanted to come apart.
I slid my arms around his neck, pulling myself up so I could breathe the same air, taste the smoke on his tongue.
He met me halfway, kissing hard, teeth knocking together, his hands locking behind my back. I could feel the want in him, hard and hot against my belly. It scared me how much I wanted him back, how the need grew with every second I let myself be less than afraid.
I dragged my mouth down his throat, bit at the skin where the tattoo met the collarbone.
The ink was alive, dancing with every twitch of muscle.
I traced it with my fingers, the shapes blurring under the sweat and the faint lines of old scars.
He tilted his head, exposing more, his breath rough and uneven.
My hand slid between us, palm flat against his chest. I felt the heart hammering, felt the way his whole body vibrated when I dug my nails in. I kissed him again, deeper, tasting blood and spit and the burnt tang of fire.
I wanted to speak, to say her name, to make it mean something, but the words turned to vapor in my head.
So I settled for action. I reached down, found him, and stroked slow, then faster, loving the way he bucked into my hand, the way his fingers dug into my hip like he was afraid I’d slip away.
I pressed my thigh between his, braced myself on his shoulders, and rocked against him until the ache in my core drowned out the grief.
“Scar,” he whispered, rough as gravel, “you sure?”
I nodded, mouth on his ear. “I need you.”
He lifted me, not gentle but not rough either, just determined. He laid me out on the fur, the fire painting my body in flicker and shadow. He knelt between my legs, hands running up my calves, thumb tracing the purple line of the bruise on my ankle.