Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Njkall watched the signs of Polly’s fear.
The way her fingers found the edge of her sleeve and worried at the seam.
The half-step she took towards him whenever a stranger passed too close.
The carefully measured breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, that she thought he didn’t notice.
He noticed everything. He’d spent the better part of a year learning the language of her fear, and he could read it now as easily as he read weather signs on the mountain slopes.
She was afraid. She’d been afraid all day.
And she was doing it anyway.
That was the part that made his heart swell until it hurt.
He walked beside her through the thinning market crowds, matching his stride to her smaller one, and he watched her push through the fear like a swimmer fighting a current—not pretending it wasn’t there, not conquering it in some triumphant moment, but simply refusing to let it stop her.
She’d stood at the window of that shop and looked at her own work displayed for strangers to buy, and she’d said I could get used to this.
And he’d believed her.
“You’re quiet,” she said.
“I’m often quiet.”
“Quieter than usual.” She glanced up at him, and there was something new in her face, a flush that had nothing to do with the cold. “Are you worried about something?”
“No.” He considered. “I’m proud of you. That’s all.”
The flush deepened. She looked away, but not before he caught the small pleased curve of her mouth. “I didn’t do anything. I just walked around a town.”
“You walked around a town that terrifies you. You helped Tess when she was falling apart. You looked at your work in a shop window instead of hiding in the caves.” He kept his voice matter-of-fact because he’d learned that praise made her flinch if it came on too strong.
“A year ago you couldn’t cross the threshold of my quarters without checking three times that the way back was clear. Don’t tell me you didn’t do anything.”
She didn’t answer. But she moved a fraction closer, until her shoulder nearly brushed his arm, and he felt the small trusting weight of that gesture settle somewhere deep in his chest.
They turned off the market square onto one of the side streets that led to Baralt’s house and ended up passing Rjmar’s shop again.
Doren lounged against the wall beside the entrance.
He had propped one shoulder against the cold stone with the studied carelessness of someone who wanted to look like he didn’t care where he was.
His golden mane caught what little light filtered through the overcast sky.
He was picking at his claws with a small knife, and when he saw them approaching, his mouth curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Clan Leader,” he drawled. “Slumming it in the port again? I’d have thought a male of your importance had people for that.”
“Doren.” He nodded and kept walking, uninterested in the male’s provocations. “Rjmar keeping you busy?”
“Rjmar keeps me fed.” The knife flashed as Doren flipped it and caught it.
“In exchange for which I catalog his inventory, mind his shop, and listen to his opinions on the proper storage of dried fungus. It’s a thrilling existence.
” His eyes flicked to Polly and sharpened with interest. “And who’s this? Another stray you’ve collected?”
He felt her go still beside him. He saw the old fear crawl back into her posture, but she didn’t retreat. Instead she lifted her chin and met Doren’s gaze.
“I’m Polly.”
“Polly.” Doren tasted the name like he was deciding whether he liked it. “You live up in those caves with him? Voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” He pushed off the wall and folded his arms, the knife disappearing somewhere into his sleeve.
“Word of advice, then. From someone who’s learned the hard way.
Everyone wants something from you. Everyone.
The ones who feed you, the ones who house you, the ones who smile and tell you they’re just being kind—” His lip curled around the word.
“They’re all keeping a ledger. And sooner or later, they come to collect.
Best to know the price before you sign.”
Silence hung in the cold air.
He opened his mouth to tell the bitter young male that his cynicism was a cage he’d built himself, and that not every hand reaching towards him was a fist, but Polly spoke first.
“That’s not true.”
Her voice was quiet. Not challenging, but certain, in the way she was certain about the few things she believed down to her bones.
Doren blinked. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” She held his gaze. “Some people give because giving is who they are. They don’t keep a ledger.
They don’t come to collect. They just—show up.
Again and again. Even when it costs them something.
Even when you can’t pay them back.” A pause.
“I know because I’ve met them. I live with one of them now. ”
A glimpse of something raw and young flickered beneath the male’s sneer, gone almost before it appeared, and his jaw tightened.
“Then you’re lucky,” he said. “Or naive. Time will tell which.”
“Maybe.” She kept her chin up. “But I’d rather be naive and right than clever and alone.”
For a moment Doren had no answer at all. He stared at her, this small human female who’d flinched at his voice a moment ago and now met his cynicism head-on, and Njkall watched the male’s careful armor crack just slightly at the seam.
Then the shop door swung open and Rjmar’s voice barked out. “Doren! Are you cataloging or are you loitering? Those crates won’t count themselves.”
Doren’s face slammed shut again. “Duty calls.” He gave them a mocking half-bow. “Clan Leader. Polly.” He turned and disappeared into the shop, and the door swung closed behind him.
They walked on in silence for a few steps.
“He’s angry,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“But he’s not—” She frowned, searching for the word. “He’s not cruel. Not really. He’s just scared. Like a dog that’s been kicked so many times it bites before you can touch it.”
He looked down at her. At the tired brave face, and the grey eyes that saw so much more than she gave herself credit for. She’d been in Doren’s presence for less than two minutes and she’d read him with astonishing accuracy.
“I think you’re right,” he said.
They reached the gate to Baralt’s house, but he didn’t reach for it right away. Instead he found himself standing there, looking down at Polly and turning over something that had been building in him all day like snowmelt gathering behind a dam.
Today she’d stood in a market that terrified her, comforted a female falling apart, and faced down a bitter stranger without hiding behind him once. He’d spent the past year protecting her from the world. Perhaps it was time to start helping her find her way back into it.
The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying.
“Njkall?” she asked softly. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere.” He reached for the gate. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “About how much you’ve changed. And how I might need to change with you.”
She didn’t ask what he meant. But her small fingers clasped his enormous furred palm and squeezed once before letting go.
Then he opened the gate, and warmth and firelight spilled out to meet them, and Izzie’s voice called a greeting from within, and he put the moment away to be examined later.
The journey home passed in the dark. The sleigh runners hissed over the snow, the stars wheeled overhead through breaks in the cloud cover, and Tess sat wrapped in furs beside Polly, exhausted into silence.
Polly dozed against his side for part of the ride, her small body finally surrendering to the day’s toll, and he held himself still so as not to wake her, cataloging the warm weight of her and the soft sound of her breathing.
Cera met them at the healer’s cave and took Tess in hand, promising to make her eat something before she slept. Polly hovered until she was sure Tess was settled, and only then did she let him walk her back to their quarters.
He’d expected her to collapse into sleep the moment they arrived.
He was wrong.
He was banking the fire in the main cave when she came to him. He heard the soft pad of her bare feet on the stone and the whisper of fabric before he saw her. He turned, expecting to send her to bed, but the words died in his throat.
She stood in the entrance to her sleeping cave, in one of the short gowns that skimmed lightly over her body, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, and her grey eyes bright with something that looked almost like exhilaration.
“You should be sleeping, little one,” he said roughly.
“I can’t.” She crossed the cave towards him, and there was no hesitation in her, no caution. “I’m too—” She laughed, a soft startled sound. “I don’t even know what I am. Tired. But wired. Like I ran a race and won it and I can still feel it humming in me.”
She stopped in front of him, so close he could feel the heat from her body. “I keep thinking about today. About all of it. And I keep thinking—I did that. I did that. And I want—”
She stopped.
He held very still. The fire popped behind him. He was suddenly, acutely aware of how little she wore, and how much he wanted, and how dangerous both those things were.
“You want what?” he asked.
“You,” she said, and then she reached up, pulled his head down to hers, and kissed him. A hungry kiss, fueled by the day’s triumph, and it hit him like an avalanche.
He kissed her back. Gods help him, he couldn’t not kiss her.
His hands spanned her waist, and he felt her shiver at the touch—not in fear, he was certain of it now.
She pressed closer as the kiss deepened.
Her mouth opened under his, and he tasted her, and a low rumble built in his chest that he couldn’t have stopped if he’d tried.
She made one of those delicious sounds against his lips, wanting and unguarded, and it went through him like a spear.
He was losing control. He could feel it slipping.