Chapter Twelve #3
Lyssa tried to turn, but his hand on her shoulder was firm, preventing her. “You were a knight?”
“I was.”
“I didn’t know those still existed,” she said. She’d loved the stories her mother had told her about knights and dragons when she was a child. “Did you ever fight any monsters?”
“A tourney knight, I said.” He sounded amused. “You know, jousting?”
“Jousting?” She smirked. “Rich people and their ridiculous hobbies.”
“Indeed.”
“Did you have pretty armor and a plumed helmet? A lance with a lady’s token tied to the end of it? Did they crown you with flowers and kiss your sweaty cheeks afterwards, before throwing a feast in your honor?”
He laughed. “Something like that.”
“Were you any good?”
“I was the best, actually. No one could beat me in hand-to-hand combat.”
Now she forced her way around to face him. “What?”
“I said—”
“I know what you said. You know how to fight?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, watching her face like he was trying to figure out whether he should duck.
“Then why did you let me show you how to throw a punch?”
He looked sheepish. “You said it would make you feel better.”
“Because I thought you were helpless!”
“I told you I wasn’t,” he reminded her. “You were just making assumptions based on my appearance.”
“I…” She turned back around, her cheeks hot. Something uncomfortably close to affection was burrowing into her heart, and she was helpless to stop it. “Are you almost finished?”
“Just about,” Alderic said, tying off the thread and snipping it with the scissors.
Lyssa reached for the leftover poultice she had made for Brandy.
She scooped up some on her fingers and smeared it over the stitches in her thigh before wrapping a length of bandage around it.
Alderic dabbed a bit onto her back, then wiped his fingers off on a cloth and began plastering a few squares of gauze over the poultice.
“You should eat something, by the way,” he told her. “They say red meat is good if you’ve lost blood.”
Lyssa rolled her eyes, pulling her clothes on carefully over her wounds and gritting her teeth against the pain the movements caused. “Great thinking, Al. Are you going to go catch us something for dinner?”
“I already did.” He dug around in his pack and tossed her a bag of jerky.
She snorted. “You’re quite the hunter.”
“Money is the best snare there is,” he said, and a laugh burst from her lips at the mental image of him throwing coins at a rabbit.
She handed a piece of jerky to Brandy before shoving some into her own mouth. “Thanks,” she said around it, “but I don’t think this is going to make much of a dent. I’m starving.”
“Murderous rampages do tend to work up the appetite.”
“There’s some canned food in my pack. We could have that.”
He disappeared inside the tent to fetch the rations she had brought, and emerged with a wrinkled nose. “These look disgusting,” he said, inspecting one of the cans. “Tinned beef? How can you eat this?”
“And here I thought I was wrong about you being a snob,” she teased, shoving more jerky into her mouth.
“Why? Because I don’t fancy the idea of botulism?” He rummaged around in his own pack and withdrew a small skillet, some paper spice packets, and a little bottle of what looked like cooking oil.
“What are you doing?”
“Making this edible,” he said.
“You know how to cook?” Her chewing slowed. Well, she could add that to the list of things she never would have guessed about him.
His lips curved into a smile. “No servants, remember? And I can only eat at the Morningstar so many days in a row before my body starts to object rather violently. Molly’s beer may be good, but her food is atrocious.”
“I thought you had a good metabolism.”
“Not for whatever she puts in those pies.” He struggled with opening one of the cans, the liquid inside splattering his cuffs.
“You’re ruining your new shirt,” Lyssa said. “One of the good shirts.”
“They’re all good shirts.”
“Roll up your sleeves.”
“I’m fine,” he said, flicking beef juice off his hand.
She narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t just beef juice—there was blood trickling down his palm, too, from some injury beneath his sleeve. “I thought you said the mermaids didn’t touch you.”
“They didn’t.” He looked down at his hand. “You, uh … nicked me with one of your knives when I was dragging you out of the lake.”
“I did?” she asked, horrified.
“It’s fine. Really,” Alderic said quickly.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She reached for his cuff and he batted her hand away.
“I’d really rather you didn’t.”
“Don’t be stubborn,” Lyssa said. “The last thing we need is for you to get an infection from the lake water.” She grabbed his sleeve and wrenched it up before he could stop her.
Both of them froze, until a concerned whine from Brandy broke the stunned silence.
“Shit,” Lyssa muttered, gaping at the old, jagged scars along Alderic’s wrists. They were large, twisted things—deep wounds, like claw marks or knife slashes. A little higher, there were whorls of pink skin that disappeared beneath the fabric covering his biceps.
They met and held each other’s gaze for a beat too long before she snatched her hand away from his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he snapped, grabbing the alcohol and a gauze pad from the med kit.
She watched him swab the cut—admittedly minor, as he’d insisted. His hand was shaking. “What happened?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
Alderic’s cheeks reddened. “These,” he said, pointing at the pink whorls, “are from when my father tried to burn the estate down with the Beast inside. I was inside at the time, too. And these,” he said, pointing to the slashes, “are from when I tried to kill myself.”
Lyssa sucked in a breath. “You tried to kill yourself?”
“A few different times, a few different ways.” He jerked his sleeve back down.
Her eyes snagged again on the scar at his throat.
“Why?” It came out a whisper. She knew she had no right to ask, not when she hadn’t even admitted to him why she really wanted to kill the Beast. Not when she had reacted so badly to him asking her how she had gone from suburb to gutter.
How could she expect him to tell her something so deeply personal when she kept her own painful cards close to her chest?
But he didn’t tell her it was none of her business. He didn’t push her away or shut down. He replied, so softly it was almost a whisper, “Because the Beast destroyed my life. Why continue living it?”
What had been a mere seedling of affection taking root within Lyssa bloomed with a sudden intensity that overwhelmed her.
She had teetered on that precipice, after Eddie died.
In the weeks and months that followed, the lack of him was a hole in her heart as painful as any physical wound, and part of her had wanted to die.
She might have, too, if not for the oath she had carved into her palm.
It had given her purpose, had inspired her to shed her old life like a molted skin and become the weapon of vengeance known as the Butcher.
Lyssa would still follow her brother into the grave eventually, but she would meet her death with a sword in her hand and her oath fulfilled. She couldn’t imagine wading through the depths of grief, facing day after day, without that promise to fuel her.
“Alderic…” She found herself on the verge of telling him about Eddie, on the verge of laying herself bare in a way she hadn’t done since Honoria had betrayed her.
The only thing that stopped her was the sheer strength of the iron cage she’d welded around her heart since then.
It was rusted shut and hard to open now, even when she wanted it to.
Instead, she took Alderic’s hand. “I swear to you, I will kill it,” she managed to say around the lump in her throat.
An expression she didn’t understand flitted over his face, relief and sorrow somehow mixed together, and he nodded. “I know you will, Carnifex. That’s why I hired you.”
Lyssa woke with a start. The interior of the tent was bright with morning light. Alderic had taken first watch last night after they had finished their dinner, and was supposed to have woken her after a few hours.
“That idiot let me sleep all night,” she grumbled. He’d be dead on his feet, and would be lucky if he didn’t snap an ankle or fall into a ravine on their way back down the mountain.
Then she remembered: the canteen. Fuck. They’d have to spend the day searching for it, and, if by some miracle they actually found it, collect more water by moonlight that night.
She sat up with a groan. She hurt everywhere, but the skin around her wounds wasn’t hot to the touch, and she didn’t seem to have a fever. No infection—or venom—thank the Lady.
She pushed aside the tent flap to find Alderic lounging in one of the camp stools by the remains of the fire, tossing bits of beef jerky to Brandy, who snatched them out of the air effortlessly from his cushion.
“Good morning,” Alderic said brightly when she emerged.
“You’re cheerful for someone who didn’t sleep at all last night,” Lyssa said, kneeling to check Brandy’s wounds.
They looked to be doing well, too, though he whined when she probed the skin around his stitches.
Her throat tightened at the sound, and she planted a kiss on his cheek in silent apology.
When she rose to her feet, the bullmastiff turned his attention back to Alderic and barked happily, waiting for another piece of jerky.
“He likes me now,” Alderic told her, and Brandy thumped his tail in agreement.
“I can see that. Why didn’t you wake me for my watch?”
Alderic shrugged. “I didn’t have the heart. You were out cold, snoring louder than a—”
“I don’t snore!” She crossed her arms, wincing when the movement stretched her stitches painfully.
“Oh, you most certainly do,” he said. “Besides, there was work to be done.” He reached for something on the ground beside his camp stool and tossed it to her.
The canteen Ragnhild had given them, full of water.
Lyssa gaped at him. “You found it.”
Alderic grinned. “After two moonlight swims last night, I found I fancied a third. It was quite invigorating, actually.”
She turned the canteen over in her hands, frowning. “I still don’t understand why those mermaids are so afraid of you.”
The amusement faded from his face, but his tone was flippant. “Fish aren’t usually known for being good judges of character, are they? Perhaps wearing all black makes me seem menacing.”
Lyssa snorted. “Maybe. If you had been in your old clothes, they probably would have laughed themselves to death and saved me the trouble of killing them.”
“Still so rude,” Alderic said, but he was smiling again, and there was a tenderness in his eyes. “Even after all I’ve done for you.”
An answering tenderness found its way to her lips, a smile softer than the usual slashing grins she armored herself with.
“My apologies, Mr. Menacing. You have my eternal gratitude.” She squeezed his shoulder, and he looked pleased with himself.
“Now, let’s get the fuck out of this place, before anything else tries to kill us. ”