Page 36 of A Hunt Bound in Blood
I got to my feet and stomped into my tent for my books. It took me a while to find the one I was looking for, then I returned to Cammon, slumped to the ground, and flipped the pages to the section on Ocealins.
“Because their population is so low—and because they’re predominantly a water-dwelling people—their language is pretty basic and the alphabet is symbol-based rather than phonetic.” I scanned through the pages, flagging the ones that matched the symbols on the parchment. With my other hand, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the quill and ink I’d grabbed with the book. “Would you mind?”
I handed the bottle of ink to Cammon, and he opened the lid and held it out for me so I could dip the tip of my quill.
“Okay, if we figure the order of the symbols is in the order they’re meant to be read, we can start translating it here with some of these more common words. This one is obviously water, but this one suggests… mountain? No, the opposite. Ravine?”
Cammon set down the ink and reached for the map, which he lay across his knees. “Any ideas on what type of water he’s referring to?”
“I’m trying to parse it out. The Ocealins have at least twenty words for water—makes sense—but it’s not clear how they divide it up. This one seems to be choppy water? This one salt water. This one… curvy water? Maybe a river?” I brushed my hair behind my ear and stared at the series of symbols. “Okay, yes, river. I think. There’s a different one here for ocean, and it’s nothing like what he has here. So a ravine near a river? Or a ravine that used to be a river?”
With a groan, I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes. “I’m too tired to work through this right now.”
Cammon leaned over, plucked the book from my lap, and used his thumb to wipe what must have been a smudge of ink from my cheek. I froze under his touch, and his eyes widened as he dropped his hand, as though he’d acted without thinking.
“Then we won’t,” he said, moving on from the awkwardness of the moment. “This can be a tomorrow problem. There’s only one road out of here, so at least we know we’re going in the right direction.”
I reached for my book, feeling vulnerable without some form of written word in front of me, but he chased me away with a wave and handed me dinner instead.
“Eat.”
The gentle order, the interest in my wellbeing, shouldn’t have affected me, yet my traitorous stomach fluttered under his care. Irritated with myself, I tucked into my food while he closed my ink and set my writing implements aside with the book.
Our silence over dinner—fish spiced with foraged herbs, sided with some increasingly stale bread and a waxy cheese—was companionable. More so than it had been since we’d left the inn. After our two near-disasters, something between Cammon and me had shifted, the initial tension between us fading. Dangerous, but also a relief. My secrets dangled over our heads, a constant and impervious barrier to any true friendship, but it was nice to be able to travel with someone who didn’t mock me for my love of knowledge.
“That was delicious,” I said once my plate was empty.
He quirked an eyebrow. “You’re an easy one to impress. Not much of a cook?”
I bristled. “I can cook well enough to get by. But I’m busy, so yes, my fare is usually plain.”
“You mean bland.”
Although I was tempted to argue with him, I couldn’t. “All right, yes, fine. Bland.”
He smacked his knee, making me jump. “That ends here. Going forward, you will help me cook, and I will teach you my ways. No more excuses for bad food. At least this way when you hand the amulet over to your king, you get to keep something from this trip.”
After dinner, I helped Cammon clean up and ready everything so we could leave first thing in the morning.
He looked around the borders of our camp, squinting into the shadows between the trees behind us and the open field ahead of us. “If you’re up for it, we should leave before dawn. Be on the other side of that shifter border before the sun comes up.”
A groan fought to escape me. I was tired, and the thought of getting a paltry few hours’ sleep before more walking made my entire body ache. But he was right. We’d pushed our luck far enough. There was no point making this journey harder than it was.
“If I’m not up, I give you permission to throw something into my tent to wake me,” I conceded.
He grinned, his red eyes gleaming. “No throwing necessary, Buttons. I’ll grab you by the ankle and drag you out.”
Why did the thought of his fingers around my ankle make me clench my thighs together? But ugh, did he have to insist on using that nickname?
“I’ll make sure that’s not necessary.”
I disappeared into my tent and stripped down to my stockings and camisole, and although I did everything I could to fall asleep, sleep evaded me. What began as thoughts about the clue for the next signpost morphed into a drowsy memory of Cammon’s kiss after the run-in with the shifter and the way he’d gripped my waist after the last puzzle. Before I understood how it happened, he was whispering his theories about the next signpost in my ear as he thrust himself inside me, and I sat up with a jolt to end those images before they took hold.
I was about to lie back down and wrestle my thoughts in a more appropriate direction when noises from the woods broke the peaceful silence of our camp. Snapping twigs, snarls, howls.
My heart jumped into my throat. The shifters had found us, and by the sounds of it, they’d come en masse and not to chat. I’d held my own against a single bear-man, but against more of them? Terror threatened to take hold, but I breathed through it and forced my muscles to unlock. Yes, my life had been sheltered and the only method of self-defence I knew was how to be invisible, but I wasn’t useless, and I wouldn’t cower in my tent waiting for death to find me. The rest I would figure out. Somehow.
I didn’t bother getting dressed, and when I stepped outside, Cammon was already on his feet, the horns on his brow extended, his black, feathery wings stretched wide, and he’d also grown… a tail? It snapped out behind him, wavering in the air as though tracking the danger.