Chapter 25
Reilly
They took Edward off a supply road at noon.
I had told him the hall. I had told him the road.
Marshall had told him. He went anyway with two wolves and a cart because the lower houses were out of salt and he was twenty and tired of being a sack of grain in a kitchen.
Gareth’s men did not need a battle. They needed a bend in the road and eight coats and a brother who thought a short run was not a war.
The two wolves came back bleeding. The cart came back empty. Edward did not come back.
Guest of Hillsford. The runner used those words. Polite. Alexander’s courtesy with a body attached. Price in the same breath: the wedding date, signed, and Owen Tillson’s head off the cut and onto Hillsford dirt.
I stood in the yard and heard it and the old math landed in my body like cold water. One man or the pack. The yard three years ago. The cabin. The river. Dawn. I had already done this problem. I had already written the answer in a rite.
The heat did not stop.
I hated that too.
My pulse went between my legs while the runner was still talking. The bond yanked toward the cabin and the cut, toward Owen, like sex was a plan. I locked my knees and went into the hall.
The hall split.
Marshall wanted to deal. Date. Not the head, not first. Buy time. Get Edward home. Fight the rest when we had a body back.
Melanie Vernon had come up from the line when the wolves came in bleeding. She wanted a raid. Night. Her eight and whoever of ours could still run. Get the boy. Burn the courtesy.
Idony wanted a Luna. She looked at me like the chair was empty until I sat in it and chose.
Pell wanted Hillsford coats on the south and a wedding before dark. He said guest like it was kindness.
I sat.
Under the table I was wet. It was obscene. Edward was in a Hillsford room and my cunt did not care. I thought about Owen’s mouth on the bench last night, my wrists held, coming until I was quiet, and I wanted to be sick and I wanted him in the room. I kept my face still.
“Say it again,” I said to the runner.
“Wedding date. Tillson’s head. The young Landers remains a guest until both are satisfied. Unharmed, if the date is prompt.”
Unharmed if. Gareth’s grammar.
Owen was in the doorway before I sent for him. Of course he was. He had felt the pull go ugly. Stitches. Ash on his boots. He looked at me and I looked at him and the heat spiked so hard I had to put my hands on the table.
Melanie said, “We go tonight.”
Marshall said, “We deal tonight. You raid and they cut the boy before you hit the first door.”
Idony said, “Reilly.”
The room waited. The bond sat in my belly like a second council. I wanted Owen’s hand on the back of my neck. I wanted to go down to the cabin and let him hold me down until I could think. I wanted my brother.
“No raid at dusk,” I said. “No date at dusk. No head.” I looked at Owen. “You don’t walk into Hillsford alone. Don’t offer it in this room.”
His mouth was already shaping the offer. He shut it. Not gone. Parked.
“Then what,” Pell said.
“Then I send Gareth a letter that is not a wedding and not a surrender and I put every wolf we have on a plan that does not start with panic.” I stood up.
The wet cloth moved. I ignored it. “Edward stays a guest until I get him. That is not the same as me selling this hall to get him. Get out. Marshall, Idony, stay. Owen, stay. Everyone else out.”
Pell left angry. The elders left. Melanie did not move until I tipped my chin at the door. She went, eyes on Owen like she would drag him by the stitches if he spoke.
The four of us. The runner’s words still on the table.
Marshall said, “You cannot keep both of them. The boy and Tillson. That is the price they named.”
“I know the price they named.”
Idony said, “Three years ago you paid a different version. Do not pretend you don’t understand the chair.”
“I understand the chair.” I looked at Owen. “If you go to Hillsford tonight I will not forgive you. That is not a rite. That is me.”
“They took him because of me,” Owen said.
“They took him because of grain and a clasp and a date I would not set. You are the pretty line they put on it.”
He stared at my mouth. The heat pulled. My nipples were tight under the shirt. I wanted to tell him to get out so I could put my hand in my pants and hate myself in private. I wanted him to put me on the table in front of Idony and Marshall and end the split with a claim I still would not speak.
“Write Gareth,” Idony said. “Stall. Hours, not days. Marshall maps the guest house they use on the east road. We do not raid blind. We do not marry blind.”
“Do it,” I said.
They went to do it. Owen stayed. The hall was too big. I walked to my rooms. He followed. I barred the door. I stood with my back to it and I said, “Don’t.”
He didn’t touch me.
I shoved my own hand down my pants because the heat would not wait for a plan.
Two fingers on my clit, standing, coat still on, Edward’s name in the yard.
I rubbed, angry, eyes on Owen, and I came in a short filthy jerk with my teeth in my lip.
It did not help. I pulled my hand out and wiped it on my coat like that would make it decent.
“I hate this,” I said.
“I know.”
“He is twenty. He brought bread to your fire. I sent him home and he still went for salt.”
“I know.”
“If I say the wedding I get him back and I lose this hall in a slower way. If I give them your head I get him back and I become the yard again.”
Owen’s voice was low. “Then we get him without the wedding and without my head.”
“That’s a slogan.”
“That’s the only sentence I’m allowed to say in this room after you told me not to offer the walk.”
I laughed once, ugly. I sat on the bed. He stayed by the door. The bond wanted him on me. I did not let it have the bed. Not with Edward in a guest house and Gareth waiting for a date.
“Map with Marshall,” I said. “Use Melanie. Do not cross the east road until I say.”
“And you.”
“I write the stall. I walk the houses so Pell doesn’t sell them a wedding while I’m in here with my hand in my clothes.” I stood up. “Get out. If you stay I am going to use you to shut my head off and I will not forgive myself for that either.”
He left.
I washed my hand. I wrote Gareth: no date tonight, proof Edward is unharmed, clasp still on my table, no head.
I sent it with a runner who was not my brother.
I walked the lower houses with Marshall’s second and I said guest and stall and clasp and I did not say Owen.
A woman asked if I would marry to bring the boy home.
I said no. She looked at me like I had already chosen the wrong son.
Sunset. No raid. No wedding. Eight Hillsford still on my guest line as if they had not just stolen from a road. Gareth did not come to dinner. That was a kind of answer.
I stood on the ridge and looked east.
The heat sat in me, stupid, steady. I did not go to the cabin.
I went to the kitchen and sat with Edward’s empty place and I drank water and I felt Owen on the cut with Melanie over a map and I felt my own body still wanting his mouth the way it had wanted it last night when the problem had only been a letter and a smile.
Idony found me there.
“You will have to choose before dawn,” she said. “Stall dies in the morning. Gareth will send a piece of the boy or a piece of the date. Be ready to be a Luna in the first hour, not a woman in a cabin.”
“I know.”
She looked at my face. “The heat is not a plan, Reilly.”
“I know that too.”
When she left I put my forehead on the table and my hand between my legs over the cloth and I did not come. I pressed until it hurt and I thought about Edward on a supply road and Owen’s head as a line in a letter and the yard three years ago, and I took my hand away empty on purpose.
The old math was on the board again.
This time I was not going to write the same answer just because my body wanted the man in the column. I was also not going to write Gareth’s answer just because the hall split.
I went to Marshall’s map. I put my finger on the east road. I did not look at the path to the cabin.
Dawn was coming whether I had a third option or not.