19 EYES DON’T LIE
AILSA TOOK A bite of pie and tasted nothing. She couldn’t enjoy the meal.
Not when Kayla was still held captive.
Not after what she’d done.
They’d found a corner at the edge of the ale-hall, a rough-hewn table half in shadow, and were pressed close enough that their knees brushed beneath it.
Around them, the place heaved with noise—voices rising, cups slamming, bursts of conversation and laughter—but they paid little attention to their surroundings.
Dale was plowing his way through his pie. A long day of travel and nothing besides some bread and cheese just after dawn had clearly left him ravenous. He ate like a man who had learned not to waste food or time, head bent, shoulders hunched slightly forward.
She should be hungry too, but her gut still churned in the aftermath of the fight.
She felt stunned, as if her body was going through the motions of eating and drinking, but her mind was elsewhere.
I killed a man … and I enjoyed it.
And then she’d hungered for his blood. How she’d wanted to bend over him, to fasten her lips to his throat and drink.
The memory of that craving turned her cold.
She’d wanted his blood more than she’d wanted to breathe.
“You didn’t tell me your mentor taught you how to fight dirty.” Dale’s voice was casual, suspiciously so. It was pitched low, meant only for her, lost beneath the swell of laughter and drunken song spilling from the far side of the hall. No one spared them a glance.
Her chin lifted, and she found her bodyguard watching her. There was a stillness to him that made her pulse spike. Despite the food and ale, he still hadn’t relaxed. Not like the others in here—those already flushed with drink, their laughter loud and careless. Dale remained coiled and watchful.
Ailsa reached for her cup, noting the slight tremble there. “You’ve seen me fight before.” Good. At least her voice was steady. She needed to hold herself together.
“Aye.” He rubbed his chin as he eyed her. “But it was different when we faced the Reedohran.”
She snorted. “No, it wasn’t.”
“You were vicious.”
A shiver rippled through her. “Aye, well,” —she cleared her throat— “the bastard vexed me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
Ailsa looked away, nausea biting once more. “In truth, I can’t really explain what happened out there,” she admitted, her voice suddenly scratchy. “I was scared at first … and then I wasn’t.”
Gods, that was an oversimplification. She couldn’t tell him the truth though. To do so would make it real. Permanent.
Even so, her words felt too loud, too exposed, even though they barely carried beyond the table. She rounded her shoulders then, wishing she’d said nothing.
Dale’s gaze sharpened at her revelation, and Ailsa’s misgivings grew.
Maybe it was a mistake to confide in this man.
“You enjoyed that fight then?” he asked, putting down his eating knife. The dull thud of metal on wood was swallowed instantly by the din around them. Still, it made her flinch. The question hung between them.
Ailsa grimaced, and she cut her gaze away once more.
No, she hadn’t enjoyed it. She loved it.
Her stomach dropped.
Suddenly, she could see the dead outlaw again. His torn throat. The hot blood.
She’d heard about rare individuals, those who grew up twisted and wrong. Those who took pleasure in causing pain, in torture and killing. Was she one of those? There had been a killer in Braewall once. A man who’d carved people up and kept pieces of them. They’d called him the Beast of the Reek.
Sweat trickled down her spine.
Maybe there wasn’t a cure for what was happening to her.
Maybe this was simply what she was.
Across the table, Dale’s expression turned speculative.
He then picked up his cup and took a swallow of ale.
“Don’t look so worried, Ailsa.” His voice had dropped even lower, almost lost entirely beneath the roar of the room—words meant only for her ears.
“Better that than you freeze when faced with danger.”
Ailsa’s fingers clenched tightly about her cup. Was it?
She cleared her throat then, desperate to change the subject now. “Good to hear Kayla’s been busy again.”
Dale’s lips curved. “Aye … a pitchfork, eh? Nasty.”
“She didn’t kill him though.”
“No, but the wound is likely to sour. He might slow them down.”
Ailsa nodded. It probably would. That was good news.
Dale leaned forward then, his gaze ensnaring hers. The movement brought him closer still, crowding her space. The rest of the hall fell away. “We will catch up with them. I swear it.”
They stared at each other.
Ailsa stilled. There was something different about his eyes. They glowed gold in the torchlight, their rims edged in black, their pupils almost … elongated.
She blinked. Surely not?
“Didn’t you file your nails down a couple of days ago?”
The intrusion of Dale’s voice made Ailsa glance up. He was standing by the fire, warming his hands. However, his stance wasn’t relaxed, and his locked jaw caused her heart to thump. He was gnawing on something.
Maybe it was her.
His gaze, which was upon her hands, was shadowed.
Heat rolled over her.
She’d wondered when he would comment on her nails. She shouldn’t be surprised, especially since he’d witnessed her wielding them tonight.
“I did,” she agreed, forcing a lightness she didn’t feel into her voice. “But I like to keep them short.” She swallowed, knowing he wouldn’t leave it there.
He didn’t.
“I saw you use them in that fight … they grow fast, don’t they?”
“I suppose so.”
“They’re unusual,” he went on, his gaze lifting to hers. His tone softened a little then. “They grow into points.”
She started to sweat. “Maybe … if I didn’t keep them trimmed.”
She looked down at the nails of her left hand, which she’d just finished filing. They gleamed palely in the light of the hearth, while those of her right hand were unnervingly long.
She glanced up then, avoiding Dale’s gaze as she looked around the alcove they shared. It was a simply furnished space, yet bigger than their cramped room in Rhu—two sleeping nooks piled high with furs and a flickering hearth. Little else.
Certainly, nothing to lock her attention on so she could ignore his questions.
Ailsa dropped her gaze and started filing the nails of her right hand.
She rasped the file harder. White filings gathered in her lap.
Her nails were shorter now, but still not short enough.
“Ailsa.” Dale’s voice drew her attention once more. The concern in his eyes surprised her. “Don’t worry about killing that shitbag. He had it coming. As did his friends.”
She flashed him a tight smile. “You’re right.
I should feel sorrier about slaying the Reedohran …
at least they were acting true to their nature.
” She paused then, desperate to turn the conversation away from herself.
She’d thought their talk over supper would satisfy him, yet it merely seemed to have piqued his curiosity.
It was time to start asking him some questions. “How many men have you killed?”
He shrugged, his amber eyes veiling. They looked like they usually did now—it must have been a trick of the firelight earlier. “A few.”
She snorted. “That’s cryptic.”
He shifted his gaze back to the flickering fire. “I’m not one to boast of such things.”
“Do you remember your first?”
He nodded. “I heaved my guts out afterward.”
She inclined her head, intrigued despite herself. “What happened?”
“A border skirmish.”
“Did you fight for the Braewall Guard?”
“Once.” His tone had cooled. A warning not to pry.
She heeded it. She didn’t want him to dig into her business either.
Leaving the fire, Dale heeled off his boots and moved over to his sleeping nook, reclining on the soft nest of furs.
For a short while, they didn’t speak. The only sounds in the room they shared were the gentle crack and pop of the hearth and the abrasive sound of her filing her nails.
Eventually, rising from where she perched on the edge of her own sleeping nook, Ailsa went to the fire and threw on the nail shavings. The flames consumed them in a bright flare of light. She then brushed off her tunic.
“You are … unsettling, lass.”
Dale’s voice, low and guarded, shattered the hush.
Pulse lurching, Ailsa turned to face him.
Dale watched her from the furs. He had that penetrating look again, one that made her feel exposed. He also drummed his fingers impatiently on the wooden rim that surrounded the sleeping nook. Indeed, the man was on edge tonight.
“I know,” she whispered.
You’ve never been right.
“Aye, you’re a beauty.” The compliment was spoken without a trace of flattery in his tone.
It unbalanced her, but he wasn’t finished yet.
“Sometimes, I find it hard not to stare at you.” Ailsa stiffened at that, yet he pressed on.
“But there’s an otherworldly quality about you …
as if you were made from moonlight and Shee magic. ”
She snorted, even as queasiness rose. “Now you’re talking nonsense.”
He favored her with a tight smile. “Aye … maybe.”
An awkward pause followed before Ailsa cut her attention to the flickering fire.
Her chest started to ache then. A familiar pain.
“All my life, I’ve just wanted to be like everyone else,” she admitted.
“But I’m not. Even as a bairn, I was strange …
different. I was bullied for it too. I’m as tall as a pine and as pale as a corpse.
My eyes are dark pits, and my lips are redder than a bawd’s.
” She flexed her fingers then. “And these … make me shudder.”
She paused. Gods. There was so much more to say, so much more that was wrong with her. But she swallowed all of it.
She glanced at him then, to find him still watching her. He wasn’t smiling now though. “You think I’m a freak, don’t you?”
He flinched, his big body stiffening. “I—”
“No,” she cut him off. “Eyes don’t lie, Dale.”
He stared back at her for a long moment. And then, to her surprise, he rolled out of the furs, rising to his full height and stepping up before her.