Chapter Nine Willow #2
He moves me into a more comfortable position, resting my back against his chest as Ronan explores the cave. Bo stares out the narrow entrance as I wait to find out what happens next. Nerves have me holding my tongue even though I’m dying to find out more about what’s going on here.
When Ronan finishes inspecting the cave, he moves to the entrance with Bo, and they exchange a few quiet words before he comes over to us.
“I’m going to get us some food. Bo and Hawk will stay with you while I’m gone.
” He presses his lips together as if stopping himself from saying more, then, with a nod, he turns and leaves.
“Shouldn’t someone go with him?” I ask Hawk quietly.
“No, he can take care of himself. And we won’t leave you with any less than two of us for protection.”
“From the other men?” I ask for clarification.
“Yes. But there are many dangers in these woods.” There are? I hadn’t considered that. If this were my world, there could be bears or maybe even some sort of large cat, depending on our region.
“What’s the place called?” I ask, wanting to put a name to this world.
“The cave?”
“No, the country.”
“Country? I don’t know that word,” Hawk tells me.
“It’s like a region or a kingdom.”
“Ah, I see. Well, our kingdom is called Dyconia. There are towns and villages scattered throughout the land. Currently, we are high on the cliffs on the Southern end of the continent.”
“And where is your village?” I ask, trying to picture what he’s saying.
“We come from an island off the Southeast called Redmere.”
“Oh, right. The woman had said something about that, and that you’re—” I cut myself off, my eyes widening as I realize what I almost said.
Unfortunately, I seem to have piqued his interest. “That we’re what?” he prods.
“Nothing, never mind,” I say quickly as my hands start to shake with worry.
He leans over my right shoulder and uses his large hand to gently turn my head to face him. “Tell me. What did they say about us?” he presses, his deep hazel eyes boring into me.
“That you are cannibals,” I whisper, praying he won’t be upset.
A loud laugh comes from Bo, making me jump in surprise, but Hawk wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. Bo glances back at me from the entrance, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“People like to make up stories about things they don’t understand.”
“So you don’t eat people?” I ask, wanting a direct answer.
“No,” Hawk says. “We have never eaten a human, and we never will.”
I wonder what he did with the bodies from last night but decide not to push it too far. Instead, I ask about where they’re from.
“If you’re from an island, does that mean you took a ship to get here?”
“No,” Bo says, shaking his head. “We flew.”
“Flew?” I ask in surprise. “There are planes here?”
Bo frowns, shaking his head. “I’m not sure what a plane is. We took the skyreachers.”
“What do they look like?” I ask, wondering if it’s a different word for airplane.
“Large birds, with a wingspan of over fifteen feet.”
My eyes widen in shock. “You rode birds to get here?”
“Yep,” Bo says with a nod before looking back out into the forest. “You’ll get to ride on one too, when we leave here in six days.”
Right. Because I’m their prize for winning the Mating Hunt. I’m still not sure what that means, and before I can gather the courage to ask, Bo lifts his sword and changes to a defensive stance as Hawk’s arms tighten around me.
After a minute, when Bo lowers his sword and relaxes, the tension leaves me too, knowing it must be Ronan. And a moment later, he steps inside carrying a dead carcass of some sort that he’s already skinned and prepared.
As I watch the blood drip slowly from the bottom, I come to the realization that they’re planning to eat it raw.
That’s probably where the cannibal rumor came from.
Even if I could somehow manage to eat it uncooked, there’s a decent chance I’ll get sick from it.
There’s a reason meat has to be properly cooked to a certain temperature at home.
He places it gently on the ground near the cave entrance, then takes Bo’s position as Bo steps out of the cave.
Although I want to know what they’re doing, I decide to hold my tongue.
If they wanted me to know, they’d tell me.
I’m just glad they’re not slicing up that raw meat yet.
Even though I’m hungry enough to eat pretty much anything.
On queue, my stomach lets out a loud rumble, and Hawk moves his hand to gently rub over it, trying to soothe the small pang of hunger. “Apologies, my angel. It won’t take long to get a fire going and cook our meal.”
Relief fills me, knowing they don’t eat their meat raw. Hawk starts to move around a little behind me. “Here, I forgot I had this,” he says, handing me a familiar-looking bundle of leaves.
I glance back at him in surprise. “You left me the food and water.” He nods, reaching around to help me untie the bundle.
“Yes, you need nourishment.” He picks up a berry from the pile and surprises me again by lifting it to my lips. “Open,” he commands, and my jaw parts on instinct, letting him push the berry inside. I close my mouth and chew it, my eyes glued to his.
Something warm blooms inside my chest as we stare at one another. Silently, he lifts another berry, and I open my mouth, letting him continue to feed me. He does it twice more before I start opening my mouth before he’s even picked up the next piece.
I have no idea why I seem to be enjoying being fed. I would have thought it strange before, but as he presses piece after piece into my mouth, his eyes darting between my lips and my eyes, I find myself lost as a strange warmth flows through my body.
I feel a drop of juice on my lip and use my tongue to lick it clean. He watches the action as his own large tongue darts out to mirror the motion on his own lips, and that warmth inside me starts to spread between my thighs.
Even through his beard, I can see his lips, and I get a strange urge to know what they’d feel like pressed against mine. Looking back up at his eyes, I see them darken with something that doesn’t scare me, but does make me nervous.
A loud thump has me jolting as my attention snaps to Bo. He’s tossed a bundle of wood on the cave floor, and now he’s kneeling beside it as he starts to lay a fire.
“We can build it in here since there’s a hole in the ceiling to vent the smoke,” he tells me when he sees me watching him.
“Can I help?” I ask, feeling like I need to do something.
“No,” all three of them say at once, making me lean back against Hawk. Even though I’m not looking at him anymore, he continues to feed me the rest of the berries and nuts until the leaf is empty.
“Thank you,” I whisper. He doesn’t say anything, so I continue talking. “Not just for that snack, but for the other ones, and the water, and protecting me. And the flowers,” I add quickly, remembering how I’d accidentally smooshed them inside my dress.
“It’s my pleasure,” he says before gently wrapping his arms back around me. The position is strangely comforting. Not just because he makes a way better chair than the hard cave floor, but because it feels protective, strong, and yet gentle. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
Sure, my sister tried to protect me, but there was only so much she could do at the compound. This protection feels impenetrable, as if no one can pass him to get to me, and even though I’m wrapped in his arms, I’ve never felt more free.
We watch Bo set the wood out and light the fire, then as if in a pre-planned synchronized movement, Hawk stands with me in his arms as Bo comes over, and I’m passed to him.
Hawk moves to the entrance to stand guard, and Ronan moves to the meat and starts slicing pieces and placing them on wooden skewers he’d been making as he stood guard.
Bo takes a seat, with me in his lap, the way I’d just been wrapped up in Hawk.
“Huh. That’s strange,” Bo says, making the rest of us look at him in question. He moves his hand to a small spot of grass beside us, barely bigger than his palm.
“It’s just grass,” I say, unsure why he thinks it’s weird.
“Yeah, but I don’t remember seeing it there before, and why just in this spot?”
I glance up at the ceiling. “Maybe there’s moisture coming from below in that spot, and the sun hits it for a longer duration throughout the day?” I guess. I’ve read some horticultural books, but I’m not exactly well-read on caves.
“Perhaps,” he says, running his fingers back and forth between the soft blades.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Ronan says. “Because there is a lot of meat here.”
“Starving,” Bo says with a nod.
“Me too,” Hawk agrees.
Ronan looks at me in question, so I nod. Then I get to play musical chairs as Ronan comes over and sits down beside Bo, and reaches his hands out to me. “Come here, my tiny treasure.” He called me that before, and I’m not sure what it means, but I like it. It makes me feel… treasured.
I place my hands on his large biceps, and he easily lifts me into his lap, settling me sideways as Bo tends to the meat that’s cooking on the fire.
“I don’t like to see these bruises on your skin,” Ronan says, lifting my arm gently to look at the black and blue marks.
“They are pretty ugly,” I agree sadly.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Nothing about you could ever be ugly. I just hate knowing that someone hurt you, that even now you are still hurting.”
“But…” I start to respond, but end up trailing off, knowing I shouldn’t be speaking unless asked a direct question. I’m finding it too easy to forget myself around them and let my tongue slip too often. I’m lucky I haven’t upset them yet.
Ronan’s fingers trail down my arm to my hand, and he gently takes it in his much larger one as his warm green eyes look at me in question. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Stop yourself from speaking. You’ve done it several times now.”
I bite my lip, turning my gaze down to our hands, unsure what to tell him.
“Willow, look at me,” he says with a small bite of authority that makes me lift my gaze to his. “I know we haven’t fully explained what’s going on yet, but know that you can speak freely with us.”
I hesitate before whispering, “I don’t want to make you mad.”
His brows furrow as he asks, “Are you planning on trying to leave us?” His question surprises me, and I’m unsure why I haven’t even considered trying to run from them. The whole reason I had run and hidden in that tree was because I didn’t want to be caught by the men in this game.
My eyes bounce between his as I try to figure out why these three feel different. They make me nervous, sure, but it’s not fear coiling in my belly; it’s something else entirely.
“Willow?” he questions, making me realize I haven’t answered his question. Both Bo and Hawk are watching me now. All three of them are staring at me with a mix of worry and hope.
“It hadn’t crossed my mind,” I tell him honestly.
His shoulders relax, and I see some of the tension fade. “Good. Forget I ever asked.”
“Why would you even put that in her head?” Hawk asks angrily before turning back to watch the forest.
Ronan ignores him, his eyes still on me as he prods further. “I want to know why you think speaking will make us mad?”
Something about his energy has me wanting to tell him the truth, as if lying to him would physically cause me pain. “My father told me not to speak unless asked a direct question.”
His jaw tightens and he glances at the others before lifting my hand and pressing my fingers to his lips. The action is so intimate, it shocks me, making me inhale sharply as my belly coils with that unfamiliar need again.
“Willow,” he says calmly, his eyes burrowing into mine. “If there is one thing you need to know about us, it’s that we will never harm you or be upset if you speak your mind. We want you to tell us what you’re thinking and feeling.”
“Here,” Bo appears beside us with some skewers full of meat. Ronan takes them and pulls off a small piece, popping it into his mouth and chewing, his brow slightly furrowed.
“A little too hot for you, still. We’ll let it cool down a bit so you don’t burn your tongue.” Bo hands Hawk some skewers, then comes to sit in front of us with his own meal.
While I stare at the cooling meat, I think about what Ronan said, that I’m allowed to speak, to ask questions.
There are so many things I don’t know about this world, but one thing sticks out as the most important to ask, so I take a deep breath, lift my gaze to Ronan, and ask, “What are you going to do to me?”