Chapter 15 Hanne
HANNE
Morco didn’t come to my cabin that night.
I almost went to his but wasn’t sure what his reception would be. He’d been livid from the moment he realized someone had destroyed the garden and the bow. He was probably not in the mood to be with me, so I kept my distance.
When I woke up the next morning, I got back to work in the garden.
Only half of the seeds had been recovered, so I had to replant them and compact the dirt once again, making sure they were properly watered so they wouldn’t wither after being dry and exposed to the air.
Caius and Liam emerged from the path between the trees with logs and branches to use for the bows. They placed them on the tables and got to work, chopping them into thin strips before they started carving.
We worked in comfortable silence, like we were so well acquainted we didn’t need conversation.
When my legs needed a stretch, I left the garden and joined them at the table. “Do you think Krull did it?” Our last interaction had been hostile. When I’d pulled out that dagger, I had been fully prepared to use it.
Caius halted his work and looked up to meet my stare. “Morco said it was Allegra. She confessed.”
I was surprised at first but then quickly disappointed—because he hadn’t shared that with me.
“Doesn’t know what her punishment should be,” Caius continued. “If she were a man, she would be exiled.”
“She should be exiled,” Liam said. “She committed treason against her own people.”
“You know that wasn’t her intent,” Caius said. “She was just…upset.”
“If Krull was upset, would it be different?” Liam asked. “We lost half the seeds Hanne gathered. That’s half our food supply—gone. And what if we were attacked without that bow? That bow could have been life or death. I have no issue with Allegra personally, but her actions are unforgivable.”
I sympathized with her, but Liam was right. Her actions were indefensible. “I wish she’d just come at me directly.” A couple punches to the face would have healed. They would have been less work than fixing everything she’d destroyed.
“None of us wish that, Hanne.” Caius returned to his work, carving the bow.
Liam worked on his at the other side of the table.
I was about to turn back to the garden when I spotted Morco enter the Gathering, his arms muscular in his shirt, his chest wide and powerful. Now that I’d seen him nearly naked, I knew what lay underneath those clothes…and it was hard not to picture it.
I was both nervous and excited at once. My mouth was dry and my throat was tight.
Without his touch and in the presence of others, I could feel that ache between my legs, the ache I felt when we kissed, when his warm body was on top of mine, the tightness and frustration before he moved between my legs and made me release.
His eyes were angry when they found mine, but once they locked in place, they softened into their possessive intensity. As if the guys weren’t even there, he looked at me like we were alone.
Then he broke contact and turned to Caius. “We need that meat, Caius. Especially now that the garden has been interrupted. I would go myself, but I need to make sure Krull doesn’t come sniffing around.”
Caius set down the bow he was working on. “Let me grab my stuff and round up some guys. Liam?”
“Yeah, I’m in.” Liam set down his bow and knife and left the table.
“I’ll work on the bows,” Morco said. “Thanks, guys.”
“No problem, Chief.” Caius walked off with Liam and grabbed the attention of other men at a table, getting the hunting party together.
Now, it was just the two of us.
“How’s the garden?” Morco said.
“It’s nearly finished.”
“Will it still work?” He took a seat and examined Caius’s work before he picked up the dagger.
“Not sure. But life survives the seasons and the weather, so I imagine it’ll be okay.”
“Good.” He started to carve the bow, going faster than he had last time since he’d already made one.
I waited for him to tell me about Allegra, but judging by his silence, he had no intention of sharing. “Caius told me it was Allegra.”
He swiped down the bow with the knife before he lifted his chin and looked at me. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m tired of talking about the woman who came before you,” he said.
“I’m tired of showing her kindness that only makes her grip me tighter.
I’m tired of being the better man, when the only man I want to be is yours.
” He grabbed the dagger again and got back to work, taking the topic off the table and throwing it in the dirt.
After seeing the stress it caused him, I let it go.
Now that we knew how to construct a working bow, Morco deployed all the available men to help while Caius and the others were on the hunt. He had the women help too, harvesting the plant material I used to construct the string.
Morco left his completed bow on one of the tables so others could examine it when they needed guidance. He moved around the other tables and helped where he could, his men building weapons to use in the war.
The only man who wasn’t there was Krull, and I assumed that was intentional.
We worked all day and into the night, only having a break to eat lunch and dinner. I focused on the arrows, the missing piece. By the end, several more bows were almost finished, and because they were made of different woods and those had specific markings, each one was unique.
Morco stood with a bow in his hand and pulled the string back, feeling the tension as he pulled farther. When his elbow started to shake with instability, he released, but the string didn’t break.
“Try this.” I handed him one of the arrows I’d made, the feathers replaced with a thin but durable leaf I’d found.
When I’d searched the trees for a substitute, I would find leaves then release them to study how they fell.
Instead of dropping straight to the ground, one type of leaf would sway back and forth as it fell, taking four times as long to hit the earth.
I’d decided to fasten those to the arrows.
He studied the arrow in my hand before he fit it to the string. Then he pulled back like he had before, the tip of the arrow resting against the wood of the bow. With perfect posture, like he’d handled a bow before, he turned and aimed at the closest cabin before he released.
The arrow launched so fast that it struck the side of the cabin before I could see it leave the string. All I heard was the distinct thud of the arrow as it impaled the wood of the cabin.
Morco slightly lowered the bow as he stared at the arrow in disbelief. Then he walked over and grabbed it by the end. He had to tug twice to free it from the wood. He examined it before he stared at me, giving me a look unlike any he’d ever worn before. “I knew you’d find a way.”
He carried the bow and the arrows as we headed back to the cabins. Mine was the first one in the line, the reason Allegra had heard us together the other night. I assumed we would stay at his cabin from now.
But he stopped in front of my door like he disagreed.
His intensity was replaced by a rigidness he didn’t release.
There was also unnecessary space between us when there should be no space at all.
He gave me a nod, like I was one of the guys rather than the woman he kissed… everywhere. “See you tomorrow.”
“Whoa…what?”
He gave a quiet sigh as he closed his eyes.
“Don’t make this harder for me, Hanne.”
“You’re the one who’s making it hard, Morco.”
When he opened his eyes again, they were elsewhere, on the door past my face. “It’s not that I don’t want to—”
“Then come in.”
“Hanne.”
“I told you I want you—”
“Hanne.”
I sucked in a harsh breath between my teeth.
“I don’t want to rush this.”
“I’m not a delicate flower that will wilt at the slightest touch. I’m a grown woman who is capable of making her own choices. And this is my choice.”
“I also have a choice—and my answer is no.”
I’d only been with him once, and it was the most passionate night of my life. More passionate than the books I’d read. More passionate than my dreams and my imagination. And then it was taken away from me. “Why?”
His eyes found mine again.
“I asked you why.”
No answer was forthcoming, his stare hard and guarded, no cracks in the surface.
“Can we at least sleep together?”
“I can’t.”
I had a man in my life, a man I wanted to be with every night, and there was an invisible block between us. A block he refused to move, even though he was the one who’d put it there.
“I almost crossed the line last time, and you deserve better than that.”
“I deserve you, Morco.”
He seemed resolute in his decision, the way a mountain refused to bow to the wind and the rain. Only an earthquake from deep within could shake his foundation. “We’ll get back to work in the morning.”
“Can’t wait.” It was the first time I was angry with him, angry that he wouldn’t just give me what I wanted. That I was barred from intimacy because I’d never been touched, and he didn’t want to be the first one to do it.
He didn’t rise to my anger. Just turned around and walked off, the bow across his back, the bundle of arrows in his grasp.
I watched him go and hoped he’d turn around, change his mind, and come back to me, but when he disappeared, I knew he wouldn’t return. He would sleep alone in his cabin—and condemn me to do the same.
I was dead asleep when I felt it.
The sudden cold. My sheet had slipped off my body and onto the floor, and the air was cool on my skin. The fire in my hearth had died out, so I had no heat or light. I absent-mindedly reached for the sheet, my hand snaking over the edge toward the floor.
A hand gently grabbed my arm and urged me back.
My heart clenched with hope at the warmth. Morco had changed his mind and come back to me. His hands moved to my bottoms and started to pull them off. I instinctively lifted my hips to help him get them off.
“Fuck, Blue.” He pulled off my pants and underwear.