Chapter 8 #2
Surprisingly gentle, the Northerner attended to the rest of my cuts, his expression a perfect wall of stone.
Watching him, I wiped at my eyes, disregarding any evidence of my lapse in decorum.
He had saved my life. Yet the words thank you would not venture from my lips, sticking in the back of my throat.
He had saved me for his own nefarious reasons, but I still couldn’t help feeling grateful that my kidnapper prevented the cannibal from making me into a pie.
“How . . .?” I croaked out. My mouth was still numb and my throat raw and dry.
His gaze darted to me at the sound of my voice. His mouth pinched. He surprised me when he responded. “I have a high tolerance to poisons. Something I was trained for at an early age.”
“Oh.” I peered at him, his face splattered with blood, attentively wrapping my arm.
A quiet intensity throbbed in the room. Adrenaline hammering in my ears with what had just happened.
I became suddenly aware of his nearness, his touch, his body between my thighs.
His gaze lifted to mine like he felt the change in the air, our breaths the only sound in the room.
He dropped the rag on the table, stepping back, irritation raising his shoulders. “We need to get out of here.”
Slipping off the table, I almost fell, his hand flying out to grab me.
“I’m fine.” I pulled away from his grasp, steadying my shaky legs.
He huffed, turning away and strolling to the wall to seize extra knives and cleavers, sliding several in his belt and two in his boots. Emulating him, I pilfered a sharp blade the flesh-eater had put on the table.
“No,” the Northerner growled, his head shaking.
“I will not be left weaponless and vulnerable like that again,” I snapped back.
“You think I’m stupid enough to let you carry a weapon?”
I stepped up to him, having to tilt my head back to look up at him.
“You’ll have to tie me up and carry me again, because I am not leaving here without one.” By the slowness of his movements, the sweat beading at his temple, he was suffering more from the drugs than he let on. Carrying me would deplete any energy he had.
The same muscle in his jaw twitched and he huffed through his nose. “If you use that on me . . .”
“You’ll chop off my hair, I get it.” After what had happened, I realized how silly it was of me to fuss about him cutting off my hair. It was hair. It would grow back.
But the knife . . . that would eventually be used to get away, to kill him if I had to.
“No, kanin.” He pressed his body into mine, leering down at me. “I will cut off your hands.”
The house felt eerily alive when we reached the main floor, as if the man would return at any moment. The room held a ghostly feel, a grief for the lives of those who were not heard, whose bodies were in jars in the basement.
“You learn to adjust what’s on the menu. Until you crave it. Salivate for it. Want that more than anything else.”
The fire in the hearth crackled and popped, the table still set with our dishes, everything looking exactly how we left it. Along with the pot of stew on the table.
“That was the last of the livestock.”
“Can’t waste the opportunity when livestock walks straight through your door.”
Somewhere in the back of my brain I had already put the pieces together, but his words snapped them into place. The pieces of meat I had swallowed down. The rush of sickness punched me over, gagging, a whimper strangling my throat, realizing what had been in the soup.
Raven flesh.
Spitting and scraping at my tongue, I could feel my skin crawl, feeling the trace of Raven meat festering there, the little pieces that slipped down my throat and rotted in my stomach.
Panic stole my breath, making my actions more hysterical.
I needed it out of my body. Needed to purge every last speck of what he had fed me.
“Stop it.” The Night Raven seized my wrists, holding them away as I tried to vomit up anything left. “We don’t have time for this.”
“This was from a victim, wasn’t it?” I gestured at the bodice I was wearing.
I knew the answer, but it became more real when his head dipped in an affirmative.
“There are so many outfits in there.” I peered back toward the room with the clothes.
“Children’s clothes . . .” I hiccuped, gasping for oxygen. “How can someone do that?”
“Desperation to survive strips away societal norms or morality. You do what you need to do.”
“Do what you need to do?” I screeched. “He ate Raven flesh!”
“Technically, Ravens in history have been known in other realms to be cannibals.”
“What?” My attention snapped to him. “That’s a complete lie.”
“Not something they teach in your tutoring books, I’d gather, not really something people want to know, but it’s true. Don’t worry, kanin, I don’t think you’ll suddenly develop a craving to gnaw on my kidneys.”
I flinched, my stomach gurgling with queasiness.
He peered down at me, flames flickering off his face, his gaze stopping on my silver locks with a frown. “You need a cloak.”
I blinked at him. He grunted, stomping into the bedroom. It was only a moment before he returned with two cloaks and a pair of worn woman’s boots for me. “Take those useless things off and put these on.” He motioned to my flimsy bridal shoes, stained by the dirt and mud.
I shook my head, staring at the items with grief. A woman once wore them. She had a life, maybe kids and a husband, and now all that was left was shoes and clothes she used to own.
“You think that person cares anymore? Put them on.” He shoved the cloak at me, dropping the boots at my toes. “We need to go.”
I sucked in slow breaths, draping the cloak over my shoulders and slipping my feet into the sturdier boots. The cheap wool of the cloak itched my skin, the essence of the woman still clinging to it. I wanted to tear it off, run from the house, and purge the entire place from my mind.
While I was tying the laces, the Northerner’s hand darted out to seize the blade I put in the pocket of my skirt.
“What? No!” I sprang for it, trying to reclaim it. “You said—”
His hand grabbed my throat, holding me in place, his expression hardening.
“So fucking gullible and na?ve. You wouldn’t survive a day on your own out here, kanin.
” His tone hard. “Did you really think I’d let you carry?
” He pulled me in until his nose brushed mine.
“Do not forget who you are to me. We are not friends or comrades. And I’m certainly not going to let you have a weapon to use against me. Especially this close to the border.”
“You are a monster,” I seethed, his grip hard enough to strain my sentiment.
“Really?” He scoffed. “We’re standing in a house where the owner tried to eat you, and you’re calling me the monster.” He shook his head. Dropping his hand, he clutched my arm, hauling me for the door.
Stepping out into the dusky light, our feet came to a halt on the porch. A wheeze clipped the back of my throat in terror.
Mounted on black horses, six men in dark cloaks and hoods were grouped in front of the house.
The riders on each end carried fiery torches.
The flames cast them in a ruddy glow, muddying any definition in their faces but highlighting the deadly scythes each bore on their back.
What looked like a crimson J was embroidered on their cloaks.
The enormous horses they were riding had sleek inky coats and obsidian eyes which didn’t even reflect in the blaze, as if they were made to blend into the shadows and never be seen.
Veins and muscles popped under their skin, rendering them frightening and menacing instead of beautiful and graceful like the horses from Silvervale.
They were bigger than any horses I had ever seen.
One of the stallions opened its mouth in a bray, baring its teeth.
The other beasts followed in succession, stomping their feet and neighing.
My heart slammed in my chest, and I jerked back with a gasp.
Huginn-Muninn.
They had fangs.
Top and bottom, the four-pointed daggers snapped at us, saliva dripping from their mouths to the dry dirt below.
“Well, well . . . look what we have here. A Night Raven and a Day Raven.” The man in the middle spoke, his voice deep, but it had a nasal inflection. “Just curious where you think you’re going? We just got here.”
“I might not even share you with the rest.” The man’s words came back to me. “I will need to hurry before they arrive.”
The rest had arrived.
“Livestock isn’t supposed to run away, right?” one of the torch-holders said to his friends. He sounded younger, with an unsettling giddiness to his tone.
“No. They certainly don’t.” The middle man spoke again. “Not from us.”
“Take the knife from the back of my belt.” So low I almost missed it, the Northerner mumbled to me, his gaze not leaving the group. “Slowly.”
Dread slithered down my spine, knowing what it meant. The danger we were in, if he wanted me to wield a weapon.
Leaning closer, my body pressed into his, trying to hide my movements, appearing like a fragile scared girl, huddling into my man for protection.
My hand slowly slipped up his leg, feeling his muscles flex at my touch.
Somewhere in the back of my stupid brain, I recognized the heat coming off his skin, the tautness of his well-shaped ass.
Then instantly felt disgusted at my intrusive thoughts, especially in our current situation.
I slipped the blade out from his belt, but kept it hidden behind him.
“Did Nyre cut out your tongue already?” The man in the middle sat back in his saddle, the bottom of his scruffy jaw showing, a deep white scar slicing across his chin.
“I didn’t find anything you’ve said so far worth responding to.” The Northerner pushed out his shoulders to let me hide more behind him.