Chapter 10
When Gaelfr returned, Raye was fully dressed again, and curled up beneath the fur. Pretending with all her strength to be asleep, though her heart was still beating far too fast, her breaths strained and thin.
What the hell had she done? What the fuck had she been thinking? To let Gaelfr touch her like that? To behave as though she was his property? His… mate?
She twitched at the sound of his heavy footsteps, moving toward the wash table — he was setting the basin down, perhaps — and after a long moment of silence, he came toward the bed. And gods, she could feel him there, could smell him there, and what the hell was he doing, why was he waiting?
But then, a shift. An exhale, as he sank down onto the bed behind her — but this time, keeping a slight but noticeable distance between them.
He still didn’t speak, but it was loud enough to be a clear statement, all on its own. He wanted to keep his distance from her. He regretted what he’d just done with her. He didn’t actually want her. He only wanted Kalfr. This was only, only about Kalfr.
And truly, how could Raye have thought otherwise? How could she have allowed that, or welcomed it? Gaelfr was dangerous. Gaelfr was her enemy. She could never trust him.
She repeated that to herself as she attempted to deepen her breaths, and fall back asleep. But it took far too long for sleep to come, and even when it did, it felt uneasy, scattered, tainted. She should never have trusted him, never.
She finally snapped awake again at the feeling of Gaelfr shifting behind her, easing out of bed.
And when she shot a narrow glance toward him in the early morning sunlight, he was — oh.
Standing up to greet Svein, who was wandering out of his room with his curls standing all on end, and Mr. Snuggles clutched in his arm.
“You’re still here!” he exclaimed, blinking owlishly at Gaelfr’s face. “Mama, look! Papa Gaelfr’s still here!”
Raye sat up and attempted a smile toward Svein, but he was beaming at Gaelfr, his eyes shining with pleasure and relief. Suggesting… oh. Svein had perhaps expected Gaelfr to leave. He’d expected him to break his word, and abandon them.
“Ach, son, I am yet here,” Gaelfr’s gruff voice replied. “I swore I would stay and care for you, did I not?”
He cast an unreadable glance back toward Raye on the bed, and she fought down the burning in her cheeks as she intently looked away. No. He was awful. He had not cared for her last night in the slightest. She could never, ever trust him.
“So what will we do today, Papa Gaelfr?” came Svein’s excited voice. “Will you hunt for us again? Will you teach me more lessons? Oooh, and I have a book I want to show you!”
There was an instant’s silence, and when Raye glanced at Gaelfr again, he was fully focused on Svein’s face.
“Ach, I wish to do all this with you, son,” he replied.
“But first, I must go west for a spell. There ought to be a Skai scouting track mayhap a quarter-day’s journey from here, and through this, I ought to be able to send word back to Orc Mountain. To — your other father.”
To your other father. To Kalfr. Raye’s stomach flipped, her heartbeat suddenly racing in her chest, and she clutched her hands at the fur. Gaelfr was sending for Kalfr? Now? Today?
But Gaelfr’s glance back toward her was stubborn, his mouth set and thin. Suggesting that yes, damn him, he was going to send for Kalfr. Today.
“But,” Raye’s cursed voice said. “What… what if Kalfr doesn’t want to come?”
She grimaced as she spoke, casting a wincing look toward Svein, who was glancing between her and Gaelfr with sudden, nervous intensity.
Gaelfr gave her an odd searching look too, and Raye glanced away, and fought to keep her breaths steady.
It wasn’t an irrational question, was it?
She’d driven Kalfr away, and they hadn’t spoken for years — and apparently now he might have that beautiful new woman, too.
Maybe even a whole new family. Worse than you…
“Kalfr will come,” Gaelfr said, his voice flat, utterly certain. “We are his kin. Svein is his son.”
His kin. His son. But that dredged up more misery, and more fear, because if Kalfr really came, what then?
Would he bring his new woman with him? What would he say to Raye, after everything she’d done?
Would he want to speak to her, let alone reconcile?
Did she want him to speak to her, after he’d betrayed her?
With Gaelfr, who’d spent last night in her bed, and touched her like that, and left?
Gods, it was such a confusing confounding mess, aching behind Raye’s eyes, and she only vaguely heard Svein asking whether he could go with Gaelfr to this… Skai scouting track. But when she darted an alarmed glance up, Gaelfr was already shaking his head, setting a firm hand to Svein’s shoulder.
“No, it is too far away, son,” he said. “But I shall seek to come back before nightfall. And then we shall spend more time together, ach? We will test these wooden swords of yours with some sparring, mayhap.”
He nodded toward the corner, where Svein had stood the two wooden swords Kalfr had sent him.
And in return, Svein’s eyes instantly lit up, and he launched into a series of excited questions about what kinds of sparring Bautul did, and what kinds of swords they used.
All of which Gaelfr again answered with steady patience, while also rousing the fire, and plucking a pan from Raye’s row of hooks on the wall.
Raye blinked at him — he wasn’t making breakfast, was he? But yes, that seemed to be exactly what he was doing, tossing the rest of yesterday’s leftovers into the pan. “Whilst I do this, you ought to dress and ready yourself for the day, son,” he told Svein. “And you also, woman.”
He didn’t even look at Raye as he said it — ordering her around, behaving as though he owned her, again. And once Svein had obediently trotted off to his room to change, shutting the door behind him, she shoved herself out of bed, and glowered at Gaelfr’s forbidding back.
“I told you, you do not own me, Gaelfr,” she hissed, as she stalked toward the washbasin. “And we do not need your —”
But then she jolted to a stop, blinking down at the washbasin. The washbasin that he’d used last night to… well. And while that appeared to be clear water in it, it could still be —
“I well washed this, last eve,” Gaelfr’s voice cut in, low and clipped. “And it is fresh water, also.”
Raye shot him a narrow look, but he was still frowning straight at the fire, his jaw flexing in his cheek.
And suddenly there was the vivid, appalling vision of him last night in the firelight, standing in this very spot.
Emptying himself of all that streaming white fluid, while his body had radiated such pleasure and ease.
Raye gritted her teeth and shoved the image away, and focused on washing up as quickly as she could.
If nothing else, that wound at her neck seemed to have fully healed, though she could feel slight divots in the skin from where his teeth had bitten into her, damn him.
And when she took off her dress — after making sure Gaelfr’s back was still turned — she soon discovered its neckline wasn’t stained with only a few drops of blood, but with an entire deep dark red pool of it.
Her dismay rose as she stared at it — she was down to her last few serviceable dresses, as sewing them took time, not to mention the valuable cloth she could otherwise sell — and dried bloodstains like this were almost impossible to remove.
And how would she find the time to make another one, and would she really need to meet Kalfr while dressed in one of these?
Only then did she realize that Gaelfr had turned to look at her, and too late she froze, her body swarming with sudden, humiliating heat.
Because beyond the dress clutched in her hands, she was now standing there fully naked — meaning that Gaelfr could see everything.
Her slackened breasts, her hollow belly, her too-sharp hips, her bony legs, her feet.
And Gaelfr was looking, gods curse him. His dark eyes running up and down Raye’s exposed body, as if he had every right. Lingering particularly on her brown nipples, and then — on that new scar he’d made on her throat, gods damn him.
Far too late, Raye flailed and clutched the dress against her front, while Gaelfr grimaced, and twisted away again. Hunching slightly as he bent over the fire, and again flipped the meat in the pan.
“I will grant you a new frock, woman,” he muttered, under his breath. “When I am able.”
Right. Of course. Because that’s what he’d been thinking about, looking at her like that. Not about her, because why would he? He only cared about Kalfr, he thought she was hideous…
When did I say this? cut in his silent enraging voice from the night before. My ástvinur would not choose a hideous woman for us to share.
But that was before he’d actually seen her, and Raye kept her head down as she rapidly finished dressing, first in a clean shift, and then in another shabby, unflattering, too-loose dress. No. She didn’t care what he thought. She couldn’t trust him.
She didn’t meet his eyes again as they sat down for breakfast, even when he plunked a plate full of food before her.
And despite her ever-rising misgivings, her stomach was already growling, and she grudgingly ate, as more memories of the night before flashed behind her eyes.
I must feed you, and tend you, and make you full and plump and hale again.
“That was yummy,” Svein announced, once he’d fully demolished his own plate of meat. “You’re a good cook too, Papa Gaelfr.”
It rankled in Raye’s gut, even when Gaelfr scoffed, and waved it away. “Ach, no, I am not,” he told Svein. “This was all your mother’s doing from yesterday. Her cooking is the fare of the goddess, I ken.”