Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ROSAMUND
Pulling my knife from its sheath at my belt, I pass it to him without another word. I try not to look at the dead animal left in the dirt beside him—a big rabbit? A small sheep? What is that? Oh Gods, is it a pig?—as he gets to work, kneeling and hitting the blade with a flintstone to start a fire.
The sparks fly, landing on the mass of dry grass and twigs he has gathered while out there hunting, and a small flame jumps.
I kneel across from him and bend down to gently blow on it. I may not know much about surviving out here, feeling out of my depth, but I know how to build a fire.
He abandons the knife and stone and gets to his feet. “Going to grab some wood. Be right back.”
I should be helping him, but he asked me to stay put, and like a pet, a child, a puppet, I obeyed.
I don’t want to make things more difficult than they are.
I pride myself on being realistic, even though Della said I’m not.
He knows what to do, I don’t, and getting in the way won’t help, that’s for sure.
I just hate feeling... helpless and useless.
He appears in almost no time, leaping down the rocks like a wild thing—which he is, I remind myself, realizing I’ve been seeing him more and more as a man and less as a wolf with each passing day.
He’s hugging a huge bunch of broken branches, and as he lands beside me with a thump, he lets it all fall to the ground.
“Miss me?” He grins widely at me and crouches down to arrange a few branches over the small fire.
“I...”
“Relax, Princess. I’m only teasing.”
Which doesn’t account for the strange sense that I have missed him, and do miss him whenever he’s out of my sight. Every time I hear a sound, I think it’s him, and the relief I feel is less about my safety and more about needing to see his face...
Good Gods. What’s going on with me?
Now he’s using my knife to clean out a few lean twigs and somehow... braiding them together to make a sort of grid. He then strips two sturdier, short branches of their leaves and sticks them into the ground, on either side of the fire, and places the grid on top.
After which, he turns to the dead pig and starts skinning it.
“You have done this before,” I whisper. “All of this?”
“Hunting? Lighting a fire? Roasting meat outdoors? Oh, yeah.”
“Do you... always do that? At home—”
“We don’t live under the sky, princess. We have fortified cities built on the mountains. Like I told you, I know how to use silverware.”
My face heats. “You did. And I knew that. It’s just that people say—”
“People say a lot of things.” His mouth quirks, though, and he gazes at me from under those long, pale lashes, shifting on his feet where he’s crouching.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s okay. We may use silverware and have fortified cities, but we’re still savages.”
“But you said—”
“We’re not animals.” He sighs. “Yet, we aren’t like you. It’s true, we are outside a fair bit. We enjoy hunting and killing our prey. Eating the meat raw and bloody. Running and brawling. Fucking under the sky.”
Swallowing is difficult. “I see.”
“It’s just a different kind of life. No balls and complicated etiquette. No coddling our women or them submitting to us.” He winks. “Except in sex, of course.”
Why does he keep talking about sex? The fire in my neck is spreading through my body, setting it alight. “Okay.”
“But it’s a beautiful place.”
“The mountains? Aren’t they bare rock and cliffs?”
“You wouldn’t know their beauty,” he says hoarsely, “that savage nature with its black trees and purple foliage, the yellow rocks where water trickles, the great wildcats stalking the bare rock, and the antlered wild goats scrambling higher and higher. To the eagle nests. To the dragon nests. So close to the sky.”
Breathless, I watch his beautiful face, the emotions flitting through his eyes, and my heart hurts in the strangest way.
He longs for his home. He is in love with the place and his ways.
Savage he may be, but he’s also noble in his nostalgia and desire to return, his love of nature and its creatures.
Am I really falling for a werewolf? The thought is so preposterous, I huff out a laugh.
“Funny, am I?” he grumbles.
“That’s not… it’s not why…”
His intense gaze pins me. “You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not. I was coughing.” I demonstrate. “Got something in my throat.”
He frowns. “Don’t lie to me, Princess. I can hear your heart racing.”
“And only lies can produce such an effect?”
“No. Not only.” His frown eases. “But I know when you are aroused, and right now, you’re not.”
“You’re obsessed with sex,” I snap.
“Guilty as charged. Like never before. Ever since I met you, my dick has been hard as a rock.”
Choosing to ignore that—because it would imply he finds me attractive and I know I’m not—I go sit on a low rock as far away from him as possible. “My heart could be racing for any number of reasons.”
“But you’re not running, lifting heavy objects, or killing prey for dinner.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Emotions can cause your heart to race.”
“What kind of emotions?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He smirks. “You have emotions about me?”
“Certainly.”
His head snaps up. “What?”
“Let me see.” I start counting on my fingers. “Anger, annoyance, exasperation—”
“But mainly awe at my prowess and male strength,” he says without missing a beat, “as well as excitement about our journey together and attraction for—”
“No attraction. Nope.”
His smirk returns. “But yes to the rest?”
“What? No.”
“What about gratefulness?”
“Is that an emotion?” I shake my head. “Nope. That’s not an emotion.”
“No need to fight your mad attraction toward me, you know,” he says. “It’s easier if you just give in.”
“Is that so?”
“Well, yeah. Why beat around the bush? If you want my body, you only have to say, and—”
“Stop.” I find myself getting up and edging along the wall of stone at my back, my heart ricocheting around my chest.
“I was only—”
“I said, stop.” Suddenly, his blood-covered hands and slightly too-sharp teeth wake up the slumbering panic in my head. “Don’t.”
“Princess…”
The whimper tearing from my lips is pathetic, but I can’t hold it in. “Blood. So much blood.”
He goes very still, his golden eyes on me. “You’re seeing something that happened long ago. They took you and killed those around you, didn’t they?”
“The wolves,” I whisper. “They came in the night and slaughtered us. It was a slaughterhouse.”
“Fuck.” The faint knot in his throat bobs as he swallows. “I’m sorry.”
Breathing hard, I stay where I am, waiting for the panic to subside. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re not. But you will be, with the right person. The right circumstances. You need someone to make you feel safe.”
“Lord Eorl,” I whisper. “He’s the one I need.”
He watches me across the dancing flames, his mouth set in a tight line. “Have you ever even met him?”
I shake my head.
He nods, as if he suspected as much. “I hope he does right by you.”
“He will.” I slide down the rocks and sit on the ground. “I said I’ll be fine.”
We sit in silence as the pig roasts over the flames, fat sizzling, the aroma of cooking meat hitting my senses and twisting my stomach with hunger.
My doubts and revulsion from seeing the carcass fade away as instinct takes over.
I’m starving. I could grab the meat from the flames and devour it, were it not for a quiet, brooding dark fae sitting cross-legged across from me.
He’s toying with the knife, flipping it, twirling it, balancing it on his knuckles.
When the silence stretches too long, and the sizzling of the meat becomes a buzzing inside my head and stomach, I lose the battle.
“Shall we eat?” I ask.
“Of course, Princess.” He lifts the knife and starts cutting thin strips off the meat. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” I grab the meat, not caring if it burns my hands, and stuff my mouth with it. I’ve never tasted anything more delicious. “This is good!”
“Life outside the walls of your manor can be great. I wish I could teach you how to enjoy it.” He’s silent once more, while I gnaw on the meat like a, well, like a wolf. Then he says quietly, “I’ll take care of you.”
“No need.” I lick the fat off my fingers, swallowing down a moan. “I’m okay.”
“Are you? Whoever did this to you,” he says slowly, deliberately, “whoever it was that hurt you, they will pay. I’ll find them and make sure they can’t hurt anyone ever again.”