33. The Offer
The Offer
I wake alone, not shackled to a boulder, though, so that’s an improvement.
My body aches, but not because of sleeping on the hard, cold ground and not because of Cyphus’s abuses. No, I’m sore for different reasons.
A smile curves my lips and warmth suffuses me as I stretch and remember every one of those reasons.
None of which I regret.
I rinse off with water from the basin. Tage might have gone, but he thoughtfully switched out the water in the basin and left a change of clothes for me.
My smile only deepens at the courtesy. His smell is all over me, and as much as I don’t hate it, I wash myself, relishing stepping into fresh clothes: a tunic, trousers, thick wool socks.
I deliberately push aside the disconcerting thought that these are Danhy’s garments.
Exiting the den, I move with a light step that I perhaps should not feel.
I’m still forced to be here. I cannot leave of my own will, and even though the dragon who most wanted me dead is dead .
. . the others don’t approve of my presence among them either.
All that holds true even if last night I felt as though I was something else, a creature of passion and pleasure, something free and wild.
I still don’t belong here.
I scan the cave’s central space, far less warm than Tage’s private quarters. There is no sign of last night’s carnage. Thin light trickles down from the vents between the stalactites, and I know it’s well past dawn. I slept late.
Tage and Danhy are nowhere to be seen.
Viggo and the new pride member, Merik, work through some maneuvers in the training area.
I study them with interest, tempted to join.
The time I spent working with the guard back home was the highlight of my days.
I would enjoy working with others who could actually see me for a change and offer instruction based on my performance.
I stifle the impulse, though. Merik shoots me a wary, distrustful glance. Viggo seems to pointedly avoid looking at me. They would not want me among them, an outsider, a human, the enemy.
It’s an uncomfortable reminder of my status. In the light of day, I face that glaring reality.
Last night changed nothing for them.
It changed nothing for me.
I might have shared the alpha’s den, his furs, but none of them would consider me anything other than an interloper, at best. An enemy, at worst.
Tage cannot protect me forever. Not if they really want me gone.
He would try . . . but what happens when the others have enough of me here?
When Arvos wakes? He wants me around about as much as Cyphus did.
I swallow thickly. He offered to kill me himself back in Isstad.
How many profas must Tage fight because of me?
What happens if he loses . . . when he loses?
The lightness I felt upon waking ebbs, vanishing into the mist that flows at my ankles.
I turn, facing the tunnel that leads out of the cave and wonder what would happen if I walked right out into the Crags. Would anyone stop me? Tage isn’t anywhere to be seen. Would Viggo and Merik even care if I tried to leave, or just think, Good riddance?
I contemplate that for a moment before moving in the direction of the laundry area, deciding to make myself useful.
Any escape I make will require careful deliberation.
Nothing hasty or impetuous. Indeed not. After my last attempt, it will only be harder to break away.
Especially if I’m spending my nights in Tage’s den.
My pulse flutters at my throat, and I struggle to ignore the sensation, to not let it influence me.
Someone else is stirring about the kitchen. I hear the clang of pottery and my belly flutters at the possibility that maybe it is Tage. Only it’s not Tage.
I freeze at the sight of Danhy.
She stands before the basin, where water runs down a wall in channels into a small pool that empties out through several too-small-to-be-seen drains, creating the perfect system for washing crockery and clothing.
She freezes, too, elbows deep in the washbowl. Her tawny eyes narrow on me with familiar dislike. “She wakes.”
I stop, hovering in the threshold. “Good morning,” I greet.
“More like ‘good afternoon.’ You finally decided to drag yourself from his furs.” Not a question or statement. A condemnation she delivers with squared shoulders and quivering nostrils, as though she could smell something pungent on me. “You killed Cyphus.”
“Cyphus killed Cyphus.”
“The profa would never have happened if you weren’t here.”
I consider that and then reject it. Tage and Cyphus were heading toward a definite collision. My presence might have just hastened it.
I inhale, reaching for my composure. I motion to the basin. “Can I help you with that?”
“What you can do to help me is leave,” she hisses.
I stare at her, uncertain if she means leave the room or leave here entirely.
She must read some of my hesitation because she clarifies, “You need to leave this pride. Go and don’t come back.
” She lifts a sopping wet pair of trousers from the tub and begins to wring them out.
I cross my arms. “How do you propose I do that? You think Tage is going to let me just walk away?”
She sneers at me, her eyes raking me in a way that makes me cross my arms tighter around myself. “Because you’re so very special? You think your magic cunny has trapped him? That’s right.” She nods furiously. “We all heard you, bleating like a goat in rut.”
My face flames, and I flinch. Not only because of her coarse speech, but because of the veracity of her words.
I was loud—so was he—my throat even feels a little raw, my vocal cords unaccustomed to making noise.
I certainly was not accustomed to emitting that kind of volume in my former life.
There had been no reason to, after all. No one had been able to hear me.
Former life. I wince. There isn’t anything former about that life. It’s still now. Still present. Still the life waiting for me in Penterra.
Once I join my family, invisibility will be my lot again. Unless I find my witch. I wince anew as I accept the unlikelihood of that. I could never find her before back in Isstad. I spent years trying. What are the chances I could find her now?
Danhy continues. “Now that he’s had you, he will not care if you take yourself off, human.” The word human is uttered as the greatest, most vile insult. Because to her, it is. “In case you haven’t noticed, variety is not rich among us. For no other reason would he have lowered himself to bed you.”
I don’t bother pointing out that he is not above venturing into Penterra and consorting with humans as he’s done in the past. She must know that I’m not his first human lover.
It doesn’t feel like the time to offer that argument.
Hostility throbs from her . . . along with an undercurrent of something else.
The question nags at me, teeth nipping, leaving bloody little bites on my tender skin: Has she ever shared his furs? Occasionally perhaps? Her possessive attitude, the bitterness edging her expression, hints at that.
And yet it is none of my business who shared his furs in the past. Just as it will be none of my concern who shares his furs in the future. At the thought of that, I inhale a deep, jagged breath that hurts going down.
I refuse to let jealousy settle and sink and spread its poison through me. I cannot judge him. Not for his past and not for an undetermined future that doesn’t include me.
I could not begrudge him finding happiness with someone else. He deserves that. Especially as we do not belong in each other’s lives, a truth everyone in this den knows. I will not be the solitary individual blind or stupidly resistant to the glaring truth of that.
Danhy waves vaguely. “Go. Vanish into the Crags. He won’t give you another thought, human.”
Footsteps sound behind me and I turn to see Merik advancing, his prismatic onyx eyes close enough to Tage’s to give my heart a small squeeze.
His gaze sweeps over both of us with a quickness that reminds me this one had been living an untamed existence just a short time ago.
Of them all, he’s perhaps the most feral, the most unpredictable, the most connected to his dragon core, and the one most likely to kill me for simply crossing his path—like a baby adder whose bite is far more deadly than that of a fully formed adult.
I gulp a breath and resist the impulse to step back.
“Viggo told me to fetch a shovel and bucket to collect the ashes in the firepit,” he says.
With a curt nod, Danhy moves to fetch the items for him.
I step forward. “I’ll clean out the firepit.” It will give me something to do and remove me from this room . . . and Danhy.
She shrugs. Before passing the shovel and bucket into my hands, she holds onto them tightly, drawing my gaze back to her face.
“Think hard on what I’ve said.” Her focus flicks to Merik’s watchful gaze, then back to me.
She steps closer, whispering for my ears alone.
“You’re just a pet. His plaything until he tires of you.
Is that how you see your life? Have you no dignity? ”
I pull back and respond evenly, not caring if Merik hears my words. “Don’t act as though you care about me. You’re not looking out for me.”
With a wary glance for Merik—apparently, she does care if he hears her—she whispers, “I can help you. Truly. I will help you leave this place. I’ll direct you on how to get down the mountains. Supplies. Warm clothes. I’ll see you well-equipped.”
I startle at her offer, her words—tempting, thrilling . . . frightening.
Suddenly escaping feels real and not a distant possibility. A true prospect. I could leave this place. I . . . could . . . leave.
Can I trust her, though?
Scanning her features, I read earnestness in her lovely face. Of course. She wants me gone that badly. Gone is gone and that’s all she’s after. Whether it’s me dead or me slipping away and disappearing into the mist.