19. Body Heat
It had never been so wet or cold before. Wilder locked his muscles in place to keep from shivering. This was insufferable.
They needed to find some shelter, and quickly. A tremor vibrated Lyra’s body. As she turned to the side, he caught a glimpse of her blue lips. If he was cold in his nearly immortal body, he couldn’t fathom how she must be feeling.
“Otto,” Wilder called louder than the torrential rain.
“I’m on it.” Otto galloped past them in search of somewhere for them to wait out the storm.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen rain such as this. Raindrops the size of his fist. Lyra shivered again, and his chest cleaved in half. He let go of the reins, wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her against him.
“What are you doing?” She tried to pull away.
“Your lips are blue, and my orders are to bring you to the King alive.”
“That doesn’t explain why you are touching me.”
Wilder’s expression darkened as his brow lowered, and a smirk tugged his lip up. “You mean to tell me, in all those books, you read nothing about body heat?”
He could see the wheels turning in her brilliant mind. When her eyes widened, he knew she had figured it out.
“I would rather die at this point,” she ground out.
“Believe me, Legs, I would love to let you. But orders are orders.”
Thunder rumbled high overhead, cutting off her reply, and had her flinching into him.
“What was that?” she breathed, staring up into the sky. She had to squint against the rain pelting her face.
“That was thunder.”
“Thunder,” she tested the word out.
Wilder realized that Lyra had never heard thunder before. Deep below the surface, the sound never reached them.
“It’s the heat from lightning that causes it.”
Lyra nodded. “I’ve read about it.”
Of course, she had. She had read about storms and plants, but not about body heat, which could save her life as a human.
Obviously, there were gaps in her knowledge, and he wanted to see where those were.
“You read about storms but not about other helpful survival tactics?”
Lyra shrugged. “I’m sure the texts about ‘body heat’ were deemed too crude for females to read.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned to meet his gaze. “There were some books that females weren’t allowed to read.”
Wilder scoffed. He felt like he stepped into the deep end with this line of questioning.
What was taking Otto so long?
“I’m not lying,” she murmured, turning around. “We couldn’t read things about politics, history, or anything remotely intimate.”
Wilder pulled their horse to a stop as the words shocked him to his core. They censored the knowledge of their females. Who would do such a thing?
“And who decided what was appropriate or not?” He didn’t know why he had asked. He already knew the answer.
“The King and the other males in power.”
White-hot rage surged through him; stifling knowledge to half your population was a way to keep control. So the rumors about the mermen’s cruelty were not fabricated.
Puffs of steam slipped through his lips and into the frigid air between them.
“Is that not what you do in the Wilds?” she asked, with a timidness that surprised him.
“Absolutely not.” The words came out much harsher than he had intended, but he was still lost in his rage. The buffoonery that was censoring knowledge because of one’s sex or social standing was offensive to him.
Even his father, with all of his faults, would never agree to such a thing. The world demanded balance, and limiting knowledge tipped the scales.
Otto clambered towards them. His clothes stuck to his pale white skin, but his eyes were bright.
“I’ve found a small cave that will do. There have been no occupants for quite some time.”
“Thank you,” Wilder replied and followed after him.
The cave was tiny. Barely large enough to fit them sitting side by side, but it was out of the rain and in a favorable location to keep an eye out for an attack.
Wilder had torn down boughs of cedar branches to make a makeshift stable for the horses, although they didn’t seem to mind the rain. He had watched as Ridge let Lyra help him feed each beast. It was amusing when she stared with wide-eyed wonder at their large teeth and tongues.
But now an uncomfortable silence filled the cave, and Wilder knew it was his doing. His silence wasn’t unusual, but to not allow the others to speak was. He couldn’t help it, though.
Lyra kept burrowing underneath his skin, and he needed to keep his distance—or better yet, get her to keep hers.
“How long will the rain last?” Her quiet voice echoed through the small space.
“Not too much longer,” Otto replied, holding his hand out into the pouring rain past the rim of the granite overhang.
“That’s good,” she replied. “I have a strange feeling.”
Wilder’s ears pricked with the insinuation, and he looked over her head to meet Otto’s stare.
“How so?” Wilder asked.
It was common knowledge among their people to always listen to your gut. That was how fate, the gods—hell, even the universe—guided you.
“It’s an eerie feeling. Like something bad is going to happen,” she murmured, tucking her legs up under her chin and resting her head against them.
“Has that ever happened before?” Otto asked.
Lyra squinted as she thought and then nodded.
“Mhm. The night Wilder rescued me from the human attackers.”
Wilder lurched to his feet and stalked into the rain. With his sword gripped in his fist, he paced along the entrance of the cave. Daring anyone or anything out there to come close.
That’s when he felt them—out there in the distance, watching. There were at least two from Igneous’ clan and three from Matthias’.
It was highly unusual for wulver clans to work together. They had a history of violence that stretched back further than the Wilds and the Mannereds. But if they were smart, they would cut their losses now and flee.
Wilder had a reputation as one of the best swordsmen in their realm and had been cutting down monsters and men alike since he could hold a sword on his own. It was like breathing to him.
The sword in his grip had been passed down through his ancestors for millennia.
It was as legendary as he was. The blade was composed of layered steel, forged in the volcanoes of a long-forgotten place that didn’t exist on any map.
The pommel was unremarkable, a series of silver runes carved into an ancient ash wood.
There wasn’t a creature the blade could not cut down, magical and human alike. It glowed in the watery light streaming through the rain-leaden clouds as he paced.
Even if they weren’t stupid enough to fear him, they would fear that sword.