Page 6

Chapter Six

Roan

I woke early the next morning. Hauling up to sitting, my eyes flicked to her bed, I couldn’t help myself.

And there she was. The night before, she’d been sure to put her back to me, burrowing under her blankets like a fox in its den despite the warmth in the room.

I’d almost laughed. Sometime in the night, she’d turned.

Now her limbs fanned out around her, her blanket askew, and I could see her face.

After days of fleeting glances, I admit, I took the opportunity to look at her openly.

And damn it all if her unguarded face didn’t set me back.

Her cheeks were pink with warmth, her brows relaxed and unbothered in a way I hadn’t seen before.

My eyes followed the line of her nose and skimmed over her dark lips.

I hadn’t even known lips could be that color.

Stop looking.

But I was a moth to her flame. Gods, she looked peaceful. I wished like hell she could feel like that when she was awake as well as asleep, but I wasn’t as stupid as I looked.

I screwed my eyes shut, scolded some sense back into myself, and rose from my bedroll, forcing my body to be about the day’s work even if my mind wasn’t. I set into my morning routine as quietly as I could—the dog watching me with shifting eyes from her bed—and when I’d finished, I left .

But standing in the doorway, before I’d closed it behind me, I was foolish enough to turn back and steal one more glance.

After that, it was to the kitchens for my morning meal only to get pulled away halfway through a plate of eggs and hot roots by Baer.

He set me to work in the cellar, moving barrels of honey and mead straight through the midday meal and until I couldn’t feel my arms any longer.

The work was shite, but it was my father who made it nearly unbearable.

He meant to break me, I had half a mind to think.

With all his nagging, snapping, bellowing, and goading, he drove into my skull the one message he wanted to be certain I heard.

He was the one in authority, and I’d do well to remember it.

Damn the day they’d made him an elder. They’d ruined him with responsibility, and now he had it in mind to ruin me, all for the sake of appearance.

He’d not have me slip up and risk making himself look bad.

When Baer could hold me back from the late meal no longer, I went to the kitchens with the others.

Famished, I had more than my share of stew and mead and listened half-heartedly as they carried on about everything and nothing.

My eyes kept sweeping the hall for Fenli, but I saw her nowhere.

Not in the kitchens or out on the hill where I’d glanced other girls our age eating.

It was stupid to look, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

Since getting off the ship, my senses had been on alert, looking for her before I’d even known what I was looking for.

I knew now. I knew and I couldn’t forget.

Wild hair, dark brows, sly eyes, and a berry-red mouth I’d yet to see smile.

Someone dropped a tray on the table, and I startled. I looked up to find Esska staring down at me .

“Tried to bring this to Fenni,” she said, “but Baer caught me. He says you have to bring it. I can’t come over tonight.” She sighed. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

I growled, thudding my elbows down on the wood and putting my face in my hands.

“She needs to eat,” she kept on, “and she’d die before she came out here.”

“Fine,” I said, hauling out of my chair and lifting the tray, “but she hates me.”

“She does not hate you.”

I leveled a stare at her.

“Okay, she hates you, but food is a great way to bribe her into not hating you. Trust me.”

And with that, she spun me towards the door and shoved.

I cursed my situation the entire way over. When I reached her hut, I knocked and announced myself before trying the handle.

The door was bolted.

Of course it would be.

I shifted on my feet, listening to the dog barking and her scolding it while I waited to be let in. After the thing had quieted, I heard the bolt being pulled back. The door opened, and I just caught a flash of her retreating back into the dark.

I took in a breath, resigned myself to misery, and followed behind her.

The dog growled when I entered, but I did my best to ignore him. I set the tray on the empty table and cleared my throat.

“Ess sent this over for you. They wouldn’t let her bring it herself.”

Fenli glanced my way, eyed the food, and frowned. The dog growled again .

I wasn’t sure which one hated me more, but I decided to focus on the dog.

His ears were too big for the rest of him.

One stood straight up, but the other had a lazy tip that bent forward.

There was a line down the middle of his face, dark on one side and marbled on the other, white and brown and black all at once.

He was easily the most ridiculous looking animal I’d ever seen.

In that sense, his name—Goose—suited him.

Leaning over, I plucked out a chunk of meat from the stew and tossed it to him. He gobbled it up, and just like that—no more growling. Now he looked at me with alert ears and bright eyes.

Smiling, I made the mistake of glancing at my wife.

Livid .

I shrugged, and she went back to what she’d been doing. Which looked like a lot of nothing. She sat in her chair in the back and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. I looked back down at the table.

I wondered where she’d hidden all the things that’d been cluttering it when I’d come that first day back. I hadn’t gotten a good look, but I’d begun to realize that she hadn’t wanted me to see what she’d had out. Which, of course, made me even more curious.

I scanned the room. There was no sign of where her things had been stowed, but there were certainly a lot of options. She had junk everywhere. I’d look, and I’d wonder, but I wouldn’t go snooping.

Whatever it had been, it was her secret to keep.

I considered sitting at the table to mend my shirt, but I thought better of it when I eyed her food going cold.

If I didn’t give her space, she’d likely never relent to eating.

I could only imagine how Ess would blame me for it, so I turned back to my corner.

The three-legged stool was there, and I sat while I made myself busy with a needle and thread.

Eventually, Fenli did creep over. She swiped the tray and brought it back with her to the chair and the fire.

I did my best to pretend not to notice, but the painful truth was that every part of me was paying attention to her, straining to notice anything and everything she did.

Like I was the hunter and she was the prey.

Toke . I needed to get my ass back out to the forest and stalking deer trails so I could remember what I was about.

When I’d finished my mending (and Fenli had finished her dinner, licking each finger and dumping the tray on the end table), I set about tidying my things. I sorted through my blades and frowned.

“Did you move one of my knives?”

I glanced over in time to catch her bristle at my words, but she said nothing in return. She continued looking into the fire, same as she always did. I knew enough to know she wasn’t mute like some supposed. Her lack of reply was as damning as an outright confession.

“I don’t mind. I’m just gonna need it tomorrow.”

Nothing.

“Fenli.”

Her eyes flashed to me.

“No,” she said, but she looked guilty as hell. She couldn’t meet my gaze for more than a moment, and she was wringing her fingers into the shawl in her lap.

I’d been trying to temper my foul mood, but it was starting to seep through. “I carried it over last night and laid it right here with the others.” I gestured to the small table. “It’s not like anyone else lives here. Just give it back. It’s my best hunting knife.”

Jory’s warning of the quiet ones slitting throats all the same came to mind then, and I wondered what her plans were for the thing.

I decided to take a different approach. “It's okay if—”

She stood so quickly her chair nearly tipped clean over. Then, to my great surprise, she marched up to me, past me, grabbed all my knives in her arms, then hoisted them up and out the window, dumping them into the mud below.

My jaw was hanging open, but when she turned on me, I snapped it shut.

Her voice was quiet. “Leave me alone.” There was a moment of stillness, her seething mad, me shocked to silence. “I don’t ha-have,” she swallowed, “your s-stupid knife.”

Then she turned on her heels, climbed into her bed, and buried herself under blankets. The dog was at her feet, watching me suspiciously and with no amount of kindness in his eyes. He seemed to have forgotten about the meat I’d tossed him.

I looked at my battle sword, the only blade she’d left on the table, and I blew out a breath. Any ground I’d thought I’d made was lost, and I found myself right back where I’d started: hated by my wife and her beast-child. Only now, I was down a knife as well.