10. Vireth #4
Mercifully, the wolves outside—and the cave itself—is silent. Finally, my legs give out beneath me and I slide down the cave wall, curling inward while tears spill hot and humiliating down my face. My antlers ache viciously. My chest hurts. Everything hurts.
Gods. I am so lonely.
It’s long minutes—I don’t quite know how long—before I hear any sound beyond my own stuttering, raspy breath. Then, ever so slowly, Renard crouches down next to me. His knees pop as he kneels down beside me, and after a moment he says quietly, “Look at me.”
“No,” I blubber.
“Please, Vireth.”
I shake my head hard enough to send another stab of pain through my skull.
“You should leave,” I whisper. “Before I rot this entire forest from the roots upward. Before I turn into the Blight Mother completely. Before you end up getting hurt. I worked so hard to save you. I wanted so badly to save something.”
“I owe you my life, Lady Fae,” he says quietly. “I’m not leaving.”
“Then you are a fool, Farmer Knight,” I reply, my voice watery.
“Yes,” he grunts, a wry curve to his lips. “I’ve heard that said many times before. I’m certain you won’t be the last person to say as much.”
Despite myself, a broken sound escapes me, close to a laugh, and Renard shifts closer. Very carefully, he reaches toward my face—his hand pausing briefly near one of my antlers before it settles gently against my cheek.
No one has touched me so kindly, so gently in years.
“You are not alone in this,” he says. “I swear it.”
Another sob tears loose from my chest before I can stop it.
“You don’t know what this is, Renard! Gods, I don’t know what this is!
And you can’t just promise me that I’m not alone when my own body seeks to betray me.
I’m turning into something I don’t understand and you—you are just the unfortunate human who got dragged along for the ride.
Please don’t offer me your honor-bound obligations, Renard, I am overtired of being a burden and want nothing more to do with it. ”
“No,” he says after a moment. “Perhaps not.”
His thumb brushes ever-so gently beneath my eye, wiping away black tears and blood together. I go completely still. His touch is unbearably gentle, despite the calluses and scars crossing his fingers. My breathing slows, perhaps even ceases.
His gaze drops briefly toward my mouth. Not for long, but…
long enough. Heat—not the heat of transformation, of this curse—rushes suddenly through me, igniting deeper instincts that flare to life in my breasts, low in my belly, between my legs.
For one wonderful, terrible second, I think he might kiss me.
And what’s worse… I want him to—am increasingly desperate for him to. The thought lands hard enough to flutter excitedly in my stomach.
Renard inhales sharply too, as though the same thought has struck him at exactly the wrong moment.
We both know what comes next. Renard offers me a small smile and pulls away. The shift is small, but it is enough to dissolve the thousands of lustful fantasies that have already managed to blossom in my mind in this precious moment. Something inside me folds inward quietly.
Of course not, Vireth. He just watched you rot through a wyreboar, almost collapse a cave, summon a pack of wolves, and pull the bones of the dead up like a bouquet of spring flowers—all without meaning to.
Not to mention he’s sitting here watching antlers sprout from your skull as you turn into a world-ending ancient being.
“Oh,” I say before I can stop myself.
His expression changes immediately into one of wary apology.
“Vireth—”
“It’s fine.”
“That doesn’t sound convincing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a woman say she was fine when she was, in fact, fine.”
“Well, I’m fresh out of dignified reactions tonight.”
Awkward silence descends. Outside, the wolves begin retreating into the trees one by one. The cave has stilled around us, the bones littering the ground have fallen silent. The fire pops and hisses with the sap-filled pine logs.
Neither of us speaks for a while after that, both of us too exhausted—or perhaps embarrassed—to fill whatever quiet remains.
Renard eventually feeds more wood into the fire while I sit wrapped tightly in my cloak trying unsuccessfully to stop shaking.
Nibblebones climbs into my lap and settles there heavily, warm fur and sharp little bones pressed against my stomach.
She is the only other comfort for me, and one I cherish even more now.
Despite the fire, our breath condenses in frosty puffs and icy damp seeps up from the thin layer of mud on the cave floor.
When Renard finally sits beside the wall again, he leaves enough space between us to be polite. A handful of minutes pass before I give up and edge slightly closer to the warmth. I’m sure he notices, but I’m too wrung out to be proud. Gods, thank you for his chivalry in not bringing it up.
It’s a long, long while before either of us drifts off. I lie awake listening to the wind outside and the steady crackle of the fire, the soft, rapid breathing of Nibblebones warm and soft against my body. Eventually, beside me Renard’s breathing slows in the gathering dark.
Without meaning to, I drift toward the sound.