Chapter 13 #2
It had been a while since they had gone hunting as a group.
This was likely Odessa’s attempt at an olive branch.
As the middle child, it had often fallen to her to bridge the gap between the three of them.
She had no stake in following the dictates of their family’s traditions and, as such, posed no threat to Ben.
And Cal supposed he had looked up to her when she was younger.
After his encounter with Nadine, he welcomed the opportunity to blow off some steam. Even if his brother was part of the bargain. Blood ran high before the festival. If he was going to keep a cool head when he came to Nadine’s bedroom tonight, he needed release, first.
His sister was already waiting on the porch, dressed in fitted pants and a blouse and vest. Her favorite gun was strapped to her back, the wood polished to a gleaming shine.
“Saw my note?” she said cheerfully, upon seeing him. “Ben didn’t seem to think you’d come.”
“A strange observation for him to make, given what he walked in on last night,” said Cal.
Odessa laughed delightedly. “And here I thought you were keeping her all to yourself.”
“Why should I wait until the festival to claim what is mine by right?” Cal fingered his own weapon, still slippery from its last oiling, before handing it off to his sister to carry. “Our great-grandfather isn’t the only one who believes in the right of the lord.”
“Did someone call for the lord of the manor?” Ben stepped out onto the porch wearing jeans and a pleased smirk, but there was a heaviness about his brow that hinted at dissolute chaos and his gaze, when he approached, was flinty and hostile.
Odessa rolled her eyes. “Don’t spoil the morning with your ego. Otherwise, there won’t be any room in the woods for the game.”
“Not that you appear to have any trouble when it comes to bringing in outside game,” Ben responded. “Or are we pretending ignorance about your herd of imported deer?”
“You sound jealous.” Odessa marched over the soggy grass at the edge of their property with a bounce in her step that belied the sharpness in her tone. “You should be.”
“Just as long as you don’t drag them into the house like Cal did, I suppose.”
“If I had to drag her,” said Cal, “it was only because she didn’t have the wits to stand.”
“You’re in irritatingly good spirits this morning,” said Ben. “Does that have anything to do with why your so-called sparrow is refusing to come out of her room?”
“She is rather endearingly timid, isn’t she?” Cal kept his voice level, easy. “If she sought me out after the festival, I wouldn’t say no. I think I could have her begging for my arrow.”
“Are you sure you didn’t already strike her with it? I thought I saw blood on the settee in the library. And it looked like sparrow blood to me.”
“My, my,” Cal said flatly. “Game must be sparse if you’ve resorted to tracking me.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t drag your quarry through the house then, Caledon.
” Ice in his voice, his brother said, “The girl already looks at you like she thinks you’re going to fuck her on the table.
If you’re going to pluck her to ground, do it properly, at the festival, and treat her like the deer she is. ”
“She’s not a deer.” I saw to that.
“Father says she is, Baby Cal,” his sister jumped in. “And you know he’s never wrong. He says you should know better after what happened last time.”
“And I’m not fixing your mess this time,” Ben said.
Cal’s hands flexed at his side as he looked purposefully at the lesion marring the backs of his brother’s knuckles. “You say, while we’re still knee-deep in yours.”
“That was different.”
“No, it wasn’t. And if you had fired your arrow when you were supposed to, you would have figured out right away exactly what kind of heart your wife had, and what treachery she was capable of.”
“Don’t.” It wasn’t clear whether she was cutting him or Ben off, and Cal jadedly suspected that this was precisely her intent. “Really, Baby Cal. It’s so easy to ruffle your feathers. I’ve never seen you be so protective. Don’t tell me you’re getting soft.”
Then sun was beating down hard on his shoulders, hard enough that he felt the glow of heat in his cheeks.
He yanked his shirt off in agitation, knotting it around his slender hips.
The friction awakened the scratches Nadine had left on his skin, which stung sweetly as sweat mixed with the shallow wounds. “Nobody’s ever called me soft.”
“Well, I should hope not.” Ben looked at him askance, taking in his sparrow’s marks with a deepening frown. “Not if you’re that well-acquainted with what beats beneath your sparrow’s breast.”
“Let’s not fight.” Odessa handed him his rifle back with a stern expression that lacked her usual playfulness. “I want to find a deer. We’re running low on venison and I don’t want to wait until the ones that father ordered can make it through the pass.”
Cal darted a sharp look at his brother, who wouldn’t look at him. “Right,” he said slowly. “The rockslide.”
“What’s that tone, Brother?” Ben hefted his rifle over his bare shoulder. “You’re not going to give us a lecture on the legalities of poaching, are you?”
“That depends on what you plan on having poached,” Cal said. “The timing is rather precise, isn’t it? The ranger said the ground was scorched.”
“I don’t control lightning, Baby Cal.”
“I don’t think it was lightning. I think it was explosives.”
Ben barked out a harsh laugh. “Why would I blow up my own land?”
“I think you’d destroy anything you desired rather than see it fall into another’s hands.”
“That’s enough,” Odessa said. “You’re going to scare away all the deer with your bickering.”
They lapsed into silence as the woods swallowed them up. The trees grew so closely together that they seemed to absorb sound, every crunch of wet leaves beneath their feet muted. Cal saw Ben looking at him in his periphery, though he pretended to be searching the treeline.
Cal bent to examine the earth. Deer tracks were dainty, the indents of their hooves like a pair of slippers in snow or damp soil.
The rain made it easier; breathing in the smell of petrichor, he scanned the nearby tree trunks, looking for signs of rubbing.
Even after rutting season, some of the old velvet sometimes remained or the more aggressive bucks might still be scent-marking.
He stood, rubbing his palms on his jeans. Ben and Odessa had ventured deeper, towards a stream. Fresh water attracted all kinds of wildlife. Even when there were no deer to be had, one could still land a sparrow or a fox. They never shot the ravens, though. It was bad luck.
“I don’t understand,” Odessa was saying. “Usually the forest is crawling after a heavy rain.”
“They might still be sheltering in place.” Ben pointed his rifle at the ground for emphasis. “A powerful storm like this—it’s more than some creatures can bear. And the deer are always shy around this time of year. That’s why Father brings them in.”
“There were deer here recently,” Cal said. “They’re gone now, though.”
Ben swung his rifle up abruptly, straightening. “Not all of them.”
“This again.”
“What makes you think you have the right to flout tradition over the rest of us? You come back to this house all high and mighty, ordering us all around, and now, what, you plan to breed yourself an heir?”
Yes, that voice inside of him whispered. “I fucked her. You fuck women, don’t you?”
“I don’t bring them home.” Ben stepped closer. “I don’t tend to their wounds.”
“Maybe you should take better care of your things.”
“Her blood is weak. Her sister was a mistake, yes, but she was a true Cullraven bride. The legacy demands women who are poised and pleasing, who are willing to sacrifice their bodies to bear the next generation of heirs. That shrinking creature will never survive you—or us.”
“They don’t come to you.” Cal spoke quietly, anger piercing through the words like small envenomed blades. “You can’t even set a successful lure. They flee from you. Like your wife fled. And you had to blow up an entire fucking cliffside to keep her sister from getting away.”
Odessa stopped walking, shooting him a glare.
“No paper trails,” Ben said. “Isn’t that one of your affirmations?”
“I made her bleed,” said Cal. “And still, she begged for my cock. That makes her more of a sparrow than some of the other wives who walked over the threshold of this house.”
“Then perhaps I should thank you for breaking her in for me.”
“I’d sooner buck tradition and kill you myself,” Cal swore viciously.
Odessa sighed loudly. “You’re going to scare off all the game.”
“There is no game here,” Ben said. “Only Cal’s sedition.”
“Which we cannot hunt, either, unfortunately.” Cal turned his back on his older brother, so filled with fury that he nearly vibrated with it. His heel sank into the mud as he took a hard step to the right. “There will be better game when father’s deer get here.”
A sudden snap made his head rear up as he spotted a flash of brown through the screen of trees where the woods shaded into Cullraven property. It was too large to be a deer, and it ran on two legs instead of four. Human. Female.
“Nadine!” Odessa called out. “Oh, it’s Nadine! What is she doing here?”
Cal’s eyes snapped to the gate just as she broke out into a run.
“Oh, she wants a chase,” Ben said. “She really is a sparrow.”
She had heard them, her quick walk speeding up into a gallop. Cal shoved his gun at his sister and sprinted after her, ignoring Ben’s ugly laugh. He wasn’t sure what she had seen to make her run like this but he could guess. He knew what made women run like this.
He’d seen it before.
Perhaps his father had gotten to her first, poisoning her mind against him, against all of them. The lit spark to her fuse, igniting a conflagration of terror and fear.