Chapter 16 A Practical Exercise in Bad Ideas
A Practical Exercise in Bad Ideas
Cassie
Ian brought food like a man prepared to negotiate with a hostage, a patient, and a wild animal at the same time.
Technically, I was two of those things.
Possibly all three by the end of the week.
He set the tray on the table beside the bed and stepped back before I could accuse him of hovering. Soup, bread, sliced fruit, tea, and a small square of chocolate cake sat arranged on a white plate as if the kitchen had decided my death countdown needed garnish.
I looked at the cake, then at Ian. “Did Sava approve this?”
“No.”
“Did you steal it?”
“Yes.”
That was the first time all day I came close to smiling on purpose. Ian’s face didn’t change, but the mark warmed beneath my bandage.
I looked down at my shoulder. The warmth faded as soon as I noticed it too closely.
Annoying.
Everything about this bond was annoying. Even the parts that were starting to feel less awful. Especially those.
Sava stood near the windows with her arms crossed. “I approved the soup.”
“I’m choosing to believe the cake has medicinal value.”
“It does not.”
“Morale is medical.”
“She has a point,” Ian said.
Sava looked at him but he didn’t look away.
After a second, she sighed. “Half the cake.”
“See?” I said. “Teamwork.”
“Do not make me regret tolerating either of you.”
Ian sat in the chair beside the bed, careful as always. Not close enough to trap. Close enough that the bite stayed quiet. The chair had become his place.
That bothered me more than it should have. A prison room was not supposed to develop furniture with emotional significance.
I picked up the spoon with my good hand. My fingers trembled once. Ian saw it, but he didn’t move to help. He waited.
Another point.
I hated the ledger. I hated that there was a ledger. I hated that he kept earning points in it.
“So,” I said, “tell me about the murder jog.”
Ian’s eyes lifted.
Sava muttered, “That is not the technical name.”
“It feels spiritually accurate.”
“It is a mate hunt,” Ian said.
I swallowed soup that tasted much better than I wanted it to. “That sounds worse.”
“It is old law.”
“Most terrible things are.”
“Yes.”
“What happens?” I asked.
Ian leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, hands loose where I could see them. “The challenged mate is taken to marked ground at moonrise. The wolf is held at the starting boundary until the first call. The mate is given time to run, hide, or choose a path.”
“The challenged mate being me.”
“Yes.”
“And the wolf being you.”
“Yes.”
“And by run, we are all pretending I do not currently need assistance crossing a room.”
His jaw tightened. “You should not be doing this.”
“I know. We covered that right before I agreed to do it anyway.”
Sava came closer with a glass of water and a pill cup. “You will not run the way wolves run. The course can be adapted without invalidating the old law. Medical witness. If they object, they can take it up with me.”
“You’re very scary for someone with a stethoscope.”
“I know.”
I took the pills because arguing with Sava had begun to feel like arguing with a locked pharmacy. Ian waited until I swallowed.
“The hunt has three proofs,” he said. “Find. Guard. Return.”
“Find me, protect me, bring me back.”
“Yes.”
“What does return mean?”
His gaze held mine for one second too long. “Traditionally, the wolf returns with his mate.”
“Please define with.”
Sava made a sound that might have been approval.
Ian’s face went hard with discomfort, but he answered. “Among wolves, the marked mate usually yields once found. The wolf carries or leads them back.”
“Yields.”
His mouth tightened. “Yes.”
“I hate that word.”
“I know.”
“Do I have to do that?”
“No.”
He answered so fast the spoon stopped halfway to my mouth.
Sava looked at him.
Ian didn’t take his eyes from me. “If I find you and you tell me not to touch you, I do not touch you. If that makes the room question the hunt, they question it. If it makes us fail, then we fail.”
My throat tightened. I covered it by eating soup. Very dignified. Very adult. Almost no emotional collapse.
“You realize I agreed to this so they don’t kill me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Failure seems counterproductive.”
“I will not use old law as an excuse to put hands on you.”
The room went quiet. That was the thing about Ian. He didn’t say these things softly enough for them to feel like comfort. He said them plainly, almost harshly, like facts he had carved into himself and expected to hurt.
I looked at the soup because soup was safer than his face.
“Okay,” I said.
Sava checked the monitor clipped to my wrist. “Pulse stable.”
“Thank you for narrating my dignity.”
“You have very active dignity.”
“Runs in the family.”
Ian’s attention moved to the door. So did Sava’s and a second later, someone knocked.
My body tense, Ian rose before the second knock finished.
“Relax,” I said, though I was not relaxed. “It’s probably just another ancient law here to ruin my lunch.”
Ronan entered with Lucien behind him.
His eyes moved to Ian. “Training starts now.”
I lowered the spoon. “I am eating.”
“You can eat after.”
Sava stepped in front of the tray. “She eats first.”
Ronan looked at her and Sava looked right back. Several seconds passed.
Ronan said, “Fine. Ten minutes.”
Sava nodded. “Twenty.”
“Fifteen.”
“Done.”
I looked between them. “Was I just bartered?”
“Yes,” Sava and Ronan said together.
“Lovely.”
Lucien held a slim folder at his side. “The west side is contained for now. Ms. Morgan’s father has agreed to stay in the main resort after a call this evening.”
“My father agreed?”
Lucien’s expression was smooth. “He used different wording.”
“Was there profanity?”
“Some.”
“That sounds more like him.”
Ronan took the folder from Lucien and laid it on the table, away from the soup. “The hunt route has been moved from the old cedar course to the inner north ground.”
Ian’s head turned. “Why?”
“Visibility. Fewer access points. Easier to lock down.”
“Less cover,” Ian said.
“For attackers, yes.”
“For her too.”
Ronan looked at him. “She is not hiding from you.”
Ian’s face went very still. I felt that one. His objection came through before he spoke, not as a word, but as pressure. The hunt was supposed to prove he could find me. If the course gave me nowhere to hide, they would say the proof was thin.
I set down the spoon.
“I need cover,” I said.
Ronan looked at me. I hated when he did that. Ronan’s stare had a way of making a person feel considered in parts.
“No,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You are injured.”
“I’m also being tested.”
“You are being kept alive.”
“Then keep me alive in a way that counts.”
Ian’s gaze cut to me and the mark warmed again. This time I understood the shape of it better.
Respect. Fear. Something lower beneath both, buried quickly.
Not now, I told my body. My body, historically, had not responded well to committees.
Ronan leaned one hand on the table. “If the course includes heavy cover, I cannot guarantee no outside wolf reaches you before Ian does.”
Ian’s voice dropped. “No outside wolf reaches her.”
Ronan didn’t look at him. “That is the point of requiring a course I can control.”
“I need enough cover that finding me means something,” I said.
Ronan’s attention returned to me.
“Fine,” he said. “Partial cover. Inner north ground, west grove, no ravine, no dock line, no outer wall. You will have markers and a boundary. If you cross the boundary, the hunt fails.”
“What happens if I cross the boundary because someone tries to kill me?”
“Then I kill them first and argue law afterward.”
That was probably the closest Ronan got to reassurance.
I accepted it with the grace available. “Good to know there’s a customer service process.”
Lucien looked down at the floor. Ian didn’t. He was watching Ronan now.
“What about Thorne witnesses?” he asked.
“One outside the field. No armed escort on the course.”
“Evelyn?”
“She asked to witness from the east terrace.”
“No.”
Ronan’s eyes narrowed. “You do not decide that.”
“If she is involved, she uses the hunt.”
“That is why she will not be on the ground.”
“She should not be there at all.”
“She challenged the bond before council. Old law gives her witness rights.”
Ian’s hands curled but he stayed quiet.
Fifteen minutes later, I had eaten half the soup, all the bread, most of the fruit, and exactly half the cake under Sava’s supervision.
Then the tray was taken away, and training began.
Training, apparently, meant being wheeled into a private corridor beneath the east wing where the floor was stone, the walls were plain, and the air smelled less like flowers and more like salt, old wood, and wolf.
I hated that I knew the last part.
Three doors stood along the corridor. One at the far left, one at the center, one at the far right. Each was black. Each had a small brass plate with no writing on it.
I looked at the doors, then at Ronan. “You built a werewolf game show.”
“No.”
“Feels like one.”
“We need to know how well you can sense him at distance.”
“Fine. First prize better not be death.”
“No death today,” Sava said.
“Comforting qualifier.”
Ian’s jaw moved once. I was almost certain that was his version of not smiling.
Ronan pointed toward the doors. “Ian will go behind one. You will identify where he is without seeing him.”
“And this helps the hunt how?”
“Since the bond gives you directional awareness, you will know if he is coming toward you, if he has passed you, or if something blocks him.”
“Couldn’t that make the hunt less valid?”
Ronan’s face remained calm. “Not if the council does not know.”
I stared at him and he stared back.
“You cheat,” I said.
“I adapt.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s much prettier on your business cards.”
Ian spoke from across the corridor. “You do not have to do this.”
I looked at him. “I do, actually. That was the whole meeting.”
His expression tightened.
I softened my voice before I could think better of it. “I know what you meant.”
The mark warmed enough that I felt his answer before he gave it.
Gratitude. That one was new.
I turned around as Ian went to go through one of the doors.