Chapter 7 #3
He cuts another piece of meat with that same calm steadiness, and I'm about to accuse him of stalling when I see it happen—the corner of his mouth lifts, actually lifts, into something that is unmistakably a small private smile, and it stays there for a full second before he even tries to smooth it out, and I almost fall off the wall because Keer is smiling and it's at me and I am not prepared for any of it.
I'm sitting here on cold ground with a half-stripped stick in my hand realizing that Keer has been funny this entire time and has just been quietly keeping it to himself like some kind of monastic deadpan hermit, which is honestly rude, and also that his face does that when he smiles, which is information I did not have two seconds ago and can never un-have, and I'm going to have to think about that later because right now I'm too busy trying not to grin like an idiot at a man who I'm now learning has a smile and uses it sparingly, apparently as a weapon.
The plate is half-empty between us and the garlic smell is still in the air and the cold is coming up through the ground and I swear to god if he does it a third time I'm going to lose it.
"Who cooks for you?"
"What?"
"Normally. Before I showed up and started assaulting your fire pits with seasoning. Who makes your food?"
"I eat what the pack eats."
"Today that was raw dried meat and stale bread."
"It's sufficient."
"Sufficient." The stick is getting thin, so I find a new one to strip naked. "Sufficient is the saddest word in any language. Sufficient means 'I stopped expecting better and I'd like everyone to stop asking.'"
His shoulders drop by a fraction.
"You have opinions about everything."
"I do. It's a condition. Kestria says it's terminal."
"She would know."
"She would. She's been listening to me have opinions for years.
About herbs, about chickens, about the structural integrity of my roof, about the correct way to smoke venison—Kestria knows more about venison preservation than anyone should and she's never once asked me to stop talking about it, which either means she's a very patient person or I've worn her down to the point where my voice is just background noise, which is—" I catch myself.
The stick is bare. I'm holding a naked twig. "I'm doing it right now, aren't I."
"Yes."
"You could tell me to stop."
He shrugs and keeps eating.
He could have. He's the Alpha. People stop talking when he enters a space. I know this because I watched it happen.
And I'm sitting here babbling and he's letting me.
I snap the twig. "Nobody sits with you."
His hand goes still on the plate.
"Soren has you. Before every new moon. You sit with a kid who's scared and you don't fix it, you just—stay. And that's—" My voice is climbing and I can hear it and I can't stop it. "But who does that for you? Who sits with the person who sits with everyone?"
Don't look at me.
Don't look at me with that—
He's looking at me.
I look at the trees. Very interesting trees. Many branches. Some of them have leaves.
"The pack doesn't work that way,” he says, so quiet I almost don’t hear him.
"Maybe it should."
"The Alpha is—"
"Alone. Yeah, yeah. I noticed. You live at the edge of your own territory, Keer. You eat standing up. Everyone watches you and nobody—" I wave the broken twig at nothing."Nobody brings you dinner."
"You did."
Heat crawls up my neck. "That was practical."
"Was it."
"Yes. You need to eat. Eating is a biological requirement. I was being—medically responsible."
"You seasoned it with sage."
"I season everything with sage. That's not special. That's default herb protocol."
"You picked wild garlic from the ridge."
"It was right there. On the path. Growing. For free. Anyone could have picked it."
"No one did."
"Well—" My mouth opens and shuts three times and nothing useful comes out because he's just sitting there looking at me and the plate is almost empty and the garlic smell has mixed with cedar and pine and the cold air off the trees and I am in so much trouble, "—okay fine, maybe I didn't want you to eat alone tonight because I watched you sit in the dirt with a kid for an hour and nobody came near you and nobody brought you so much as a piece of bread and that felt wrong, it felt really wrong, like everybody in this clearing loves you and nobody actually feeds you, and I don't know how a whole pack of wolves manages to look after each other without looking after the one person who looks after all of them, but apparently that's what's happening, and I couldn't just stand there scraping a pot and pretending I hadn't seen it, so yes, I seasoned the meat and yes, I picked the garlic on purpose because when you make food for someone you make it good, you don't just shove calories at them, you actually—"
I stop.
Because I hear what I'm saying roughly half a second after he does, and his eye has not left my face, and I am abruptly very aware that I just said when you make food for someone like he is a someone I am making food for, which, technically, yes, but also—
"—which is a general statement. About cooking. In general. For anyone. A known fact about food and effort." The words are coming out faster than I can steer them. "You're welcome. For the food. Which was practical."
His mouth curves up and the skin around his eye softens into a crease.
"I should go." My voice comes out higher than I want. "The fire pits need banking before morning. And I should check the—there are things. To check."
I stand up. My knees pop. Embarrassing. Very dignified exit.
He's still sitting against the wall. Plate empty. Knife across it.
"Eat tomorrow too."
He looks up at me.
"That's not a request." I don't look away. "That's—I'm telling you. Eat breakfast. Come to the fire. Get a bowl."
"Is the human giving orders now?"
"The human is telling you that sufficient isn't good enough." I hold his gaze. "Goodnight, Keer."
His eye holds mine and he dips his chin, and that is the closest thing to a goodnight I'm going to get.