RiftBorn - 2 #2
“Thanks? But that’s not what it says on my ID. Baker, not hunter.” I grabbed the icy cold metal tag hanging from my neck and hold it up as if he could read it at that distance. Baker. I was a baker, not a hunter. But bakers from bigger cities didn’t kill riftwolves with ease.
Even I knew that and I didn’t know much.
His eyes flicked to me and away again. “You’re a survivor, Mallory. We all are. Just because your life was one thing, a long time ago, doesn’t mean it is still that same thing.”
He winced and touched the side of his head as if the memory of the past physically hurt him.
“You’re welcome to stick around camp. Like Red said you could, while he’s out…
well while he’s out his asshole brother is in charge but he’s sleeping off his indulgences.
You probably won’t have to deal with him for a day or two. ”
I wrapped the towel around my upper body, feeling the broken ribs again, reminding me that it is still a literal pain in my side.
Dakota turned and gave me full privacy as I stripped out of my wet underclothes and pull on the dry ones.
The new jeans are loose in the waist, but the boots fit, and the bra is close enough that I won’t end up stabbing myself with the underwires.
Last, I shimmy into the long-sleeved shirt that smells of lavender, wring my wet clothes out and roll them into the towel.
“Are you sure you want me around? I heard Red…he was worried about me climbing up out of the seam. I showed up and then those riftwolves right behind—”
He glanced over his shoulder, saw me dressed and turned.
“If you hadn’t been here those riftwolves could’ve taken us all.
We’ve lost too many of our best fighters in the last couple of weeks.
” Dakota motioned for me to walk with him, and I fell into step at his side, glad for the clean clothes.
“I talked to Red before Helayne dosed him with a sedative. We’d like you to stay, at least until we get to Underfall in a few days—we’ll clear out day after tomorrow—long enough to let Red’s wound heal some.
Much as we wanted to stay here till after Harvest, truth is…
that Rift will keep spitting out things. ”
“Underfall? Is that a town?”
“It’s a rough trading post, the kind of place where you barter blood or bread, weapons if you’re real lucky, but safer to stop in there, than drifting alone. Red…he asked if you’d stay at least till then.”
I want to argue with him again that the riftwolf had followed me up, that I was the reason that Red and his little girl had been injured, the reason Dakota had been thrown into the tree.
But I wasn’t stupid. While I might not remember everything about this world, there could be safety in numbers—sometimes.
For now, I would stay with them until I knew more about who I was, and where I needed to be.
“A few meals for keeping everyone safe? Is that the deal then?” Being clear was important to me, what was expected from me, and what was expected in return. “And I’d like to see whatever maps you have.”
Dakota stopped and looked me up and down, squinting one eye and then flinching as he brushed a finger over the purpling bruises. “If you don’t want to fight, a gal like you with those hips, well she could have more than meals if she wants. There are men that would offer to look after you.”
His words hit me harder than the freezing river water. There was a flicker of amusement, and maybe a spark of outrage, but I found myself more amused than anything. I was not the woman who needed a man to save her.
I might not know my name, but I knew that much about myself.
I give him the same look up and down he’d given me, as if assessing him right back.
Before I can say anything, he holds his hands up, a spark of horror whipping across his face.
“Not me. To be clear I am not looking for company.” His eyes closed and he takes a shuddering breath, his next words echoing with a grief that was raw, and consuming and that swift change fucking terrified me. “My wife she—”
She was gone. Whether she’d bled out, or sickness had taken her, or something worse — it didn’t matter. He’d lost her, and he’d been front and center to watch it happen.
That grief that had clawed at me before tried again to remind me of things I’d lost but didn’t remember.
You’ve lost your heart somewhere, Mallory.
Nope, not going there. Cutting him off, I held out my hand to shake his, grabbing it roughly and squeezing it hard as if that would help to keep him from speaking more.
“I’ll help keep the group safe, take the meals, and then figure out where to go from there.
Maybe I’ll take my own path from Underfall, maybe I’ll stay with the group, I don’t know. No promises there. Fair?”
He tightened his fingers around mine, his voice still rough, but he cleared his throat and pretended as I did, that he hadn’t been close to crying. “Right. Of course, that’s fair.”
I let his hand go like it was a hot coal. I had no space in me for his grief; it was too big, too raw and it made me want to run. Loss like that, so strong it tangled up his throat and made his words sound as if they were being torn out of him?
It echoed my own—a grief I could feel and yet did not fully understand because I had no idea what I’d lost.
No, I was not the person for him to unburden himself on.
He cleared his throat again and touched a ring dangling from a chain around his neck.
A tiny ring, for a delicate finger that was no longer on this side of the dirt.
I looked away pretending not to notice the moisture in his eyes.
I had to move this along, or I was going to be trapped holding him while he sobbed.
“There is something I need, if I’m going to stay.”
“What is that?”
“A weapon. If you want me to fight for you all, I’m going to need a weapon that’s not a pair of gardening tools.”