Chapter 20
"Be ready in an hour."
I don't turn around. The petals are mid-grind and if I stop now the consistency goes off and I'll have to start over.
Also I don't owe him a startled jump every time he fills my doorway.
"Be ready for what?"
Silence.
I turn around.
He's already walking away. Massive shoulders, that walk. Doorway empty.
"Keer—be ready for what?"
Nothing.
I stand there with the mortar in one hand and the pestle in the other. Staring at the spot where he was. He just—walked out. Issued a directive and left. Didn't even look back.
Be ready for what, exactly? A meeting? A trip? A casual walk to my doom? Should I be packing a bag, wearing different shoes, mentally preparing for—
This is fine.
Hours alone with him. In the woods.
Again.
I set the jar down. Carefully. With great control.
Footsteps. Different ones. Kestria fills the doorway—must be a family thing.
"So." She leans against the frame. "I hear you're going flower picking."
"I'm going what?"
"Mm-hmm."
"He didn't tell me—he said be ready in an hour, he didn't say flower—HE'S TAKING ME TO THE FIELD?"
"That's the rumor."
"Why didn't he just SAY that? Why is it a riddle? Why do I have to hear it from you?"
"Because he's Keer."
"Rrrrgh." I shake both fists at the ceiling.
"That was almost a growl."
"It was a HUMAN sound."
"Mm-hm."
I'm already moving. Baskets. I need baskets—at least three, four if it's a big field. Knife for cutting stems., gloves—where are the baskets?
"Just the two of you? Alone?"
"I guess? I have absolutely no idea. Keer really likes being the mysterious type."
"Mysterious?"
"Mhm"
"Mel."
"Don't Mel me."
"So it was the mystery that got you last time?"
"That was—" My voice goes higher. "A one-time—adrenaline. Post-fight. Chemical response. Very well-documented. In science."
"Which science?"
"The—shut up."
Kestria laughs, bright and warm and completely without mercy. She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, gentle enough that I want to bite her hand. "You love me. Try not to fall off his back."
"Ha, yeah I—wait, what?"
But she's gone, and I'm standing with three baskets and a very bad feeling about what that means.
The answer is worse than I imagined.
Keer is waiting at the tree line. My baskets are strapped across my back because I couldn't figure out how else to carry them, and I look ridiculous, and he looks at the baskets, looks at me, says nothing.
"I brought supplies." Unnecessarily.
Oh god, the animals. Did I tell Dara about the evening feed?
The male chews the fence if he's bored and he's always bored—and Keer Jr. needs locking up before dark or he goes after anyone who walks past the coop, talons first, no warning.
And the spotted female kicks during milking if you approach from the left, always the right, I told Henna but did Henna tell—
"It's faster if I shift."
"If you—"
"You'll ride."
Him. His back. Between my thighs. For hours.
"I can walk. Walking is fine. I have excellent stamina. Very strong legs."
"It's half a day on foot."
"Strong. Legs."
He reaches for his shirt.
And here's the thing—the awful, terrible thing I can't tell Kestria or anyone or even the privacy of my own skull without cringing—I know what's under that shirt.
Not in the abstract way I knew at the cottage, when a glimpse of scarred chest was shocking and new and I could squeak about architecturally sound walls and pretend my reaction was curiosity.
I know the specific weight of him. The texture of his skin under my palms. The scars I've traced—not on purpose, not deliberately, but with my hands pressed flat against his chest while bark bit into my back and his mouth—
He pulls the shirt over his head and I know every line that appears. The long scar across his ribs. The thick one at his collarbone. His shoulders flex when he reaches for his waistband.
I don't look away.
I know where the next one is before he turns. I know what his skin feels like under that one—rough at the center, smooth at the edges—and I know that because my hands were on it while bark scraped my spine and his mouth—
So I look at the ground instead, which isn't the same as looking away. The ground is just convenient.
"You can watch." Low.
"Nope."
"Melori."
"Lots of leaves. Good decomposition. Healthy soil."
The crack of bones reshaping cuts whatever he was going to say.
Bodies don't do that. Joints don't bend that way. Bone doesn't reshape in—
Yes it does. I've seen it. Moving on.
And then there's a wolf where he was.
Massive. Black fur eating the morning light. He lowers himself to the ground and the meaning is clear.
Get on.
"Right." My voice cracks. "I've never ridden anything.
You know that. I mean—technically once. One of the goats.
Before your pack ate them. Sorry, that's not—I'm not bringing it up to be passive aggressive, it's relevant, it's a goat-riding anecdote.
The goat ran under my legs because a chicken pecked at it wrong, and then I was just—on the goat.
Carried me halfway across the yard before it remembered I was there.
So. Yeah. Goat. One time. Not a choice. Also your thigh, which doesn't count, that wasn't transportation, that was—we're not talking about that.
We're not. I haven't said it. Forget I said it.
I rode a goat one time and that's the entire list."
He waits. Patient. Which is worse.
His clothes are on the ground next to him. I scoop them up, stuff them in my basket without thinking. Habit. He'll need them later.
I grab a handful of fur.
Coarse on top. Underneath—dense and warm, warmth climbing through my fingers immediately. I swing a leg over, graceless, baskets shifting on my back, and settle.
His spine between my thighs. The width of him forcing my legs apart. Heat radiating up through my core before I've even adjusted my weight.
"Okay." Breathy. "Ready."
He stands in one smooth motion and I grab tighter, thighs clenching around his ribs, fingers buried in the fur at his neck. The baskets dig into my shoulders. My weight tips forward and I'm pressed against him, chest to his back, my body wrapped around his.
He starts moving.
Fast.
“OH SHIT—”
The forest blurs. Trees become streaks and I'm holding on with everything—fingers cramping, thighs burning—
Paste ratio. Pink chicken. Angry goat.
His stride rolls through me. Every step. Through my thighs, my hips, my core. Relentless. And my body is moving with it whether I want it to or not.
Kestria getting stabbed. The rotten deer.
He leaps over a fallen log and I gasp, grabbing harder, my hips pressing flush against his spine.
Trees. Think about trees. That one's probably an oak—does it matter? It does not matter.
Wind. Cold wind on my face. That's a good thing to notice. Wind and the blur of forest and the smell of pine and earth and—cedar, which is him, which is what I smelled with my face pressed against his throat while he—
Gradually, my body stops fighting.
I don't decide to relax. My muscles just give up the argument.
My thighs stop clenching and move with him, my hips rolling with his stride.
My grip loosens. And that's worse, not better, because without the effort there's nothing between me and the sensation.
His muscles shifting under my thighs. My body rocking against his spine.
The warmth spreading through me, steady.
I press my forehead against the back of his neck.
His fur is softer here, warm against my skin, and I can feel his pulse through it.
My eyes close and I just—let it happen. The movement and the trust of it, sitting on something that could kill me, wrapped around something that chose to carry me instead.
He stops at the edge of a clearing and the stillness hits harder than the movement.
Everything is buzzing. My skin, my thighs, the places where we're touching—which is everywhere.
I slide off his back.
My legs buckle. I catch myself, press my hands against my thighs, stand there shaking. Muscles I don't normally use. Very normal.
The field spreads ahead, moonbright carpeting the ground, blue-white flowers so thick they glow. Ridge to ridge, more than I've ever seen in one place.
Bones cracking behind me.
I stare at the flowers. Deep color, purple-tinged edges, those are the potent ones. I should start picking. Right now. While behind me, the sound of his body reshaping—
I turn.
Right there. Naked. And my hands don't even flinch. No shock, no scramble. Just—oh. You again.
Alrighty then.
"I have your clothes." Already digging through the basket.
The bundle comes out warm—they were pressed against the moonbright crate, against the side of my body the whole way here.
"I grabbed them. Before. When you—" I push them at his chest without looking up.
"Habit. Reflex. I wasn't thinking. They were on the ground, I picked them up, that's just—a thing I did. With my hands. Apparently."
Silence.
I look up.
He's staring at me. Clothes still in his hands, not putting them on. Just… looking at me.
"You can—" I gesture vaguely at his entire situation. "Get dressed. Or not. I'm picking flowers."
I turn around fast. Pull on my gloves. Toss the spare pair at his feet without looking up. "Wear them. I'm not patching your hands again." I dig through the basket for my knife.
"You can turn around."
"I'm picking."
"Melori."
I turn around.
Dressed.
Oh, thank goodness.
"Show me which ones."
We fall into it.
Something moves at the field's edge. Small, brown, twitching. Vole. No—shrew. Pointed nose, tiny black eyes, absolutely furious about something.
"Shrew."
Keer doesn't look up.
"Shrews are always furious. I treated one once. Found it in a bramble near the cottage with a thorn through its foot, and it bit me six times during the extraction. Six. Drew blood on four of them. Worst patient I've ever had."
His hands keep moving. Picking. Steady.