Page 13 of Heart of the Hunter (Band of Bastards #3)

“Do you have anything in your bag for you to eat?” she asked, her voice laced with guilt that she secretly hoped not to divide her meager fare.

She was ashamed of her selfish behavior, but she hadn’t heard his stomach growling, and she was quite certain hers was about to turn inside out. “Or shall I share my cheese with you?”

“I have food.” He looked at her with an expression that appeared to be a mixture of pity and amusement. “Do you have any soggy oats for Willow in that bag.”

She shook her head and felt the heat of embarrassment on her face. “I thought she would be back in the stable by morning. Now I feel terrible for not thinking about her in my preparations.”

“That was preparing?” he asked doubtfully as he tipped his chin toward her wet saddlebag, ruined bread, and soggy cheese.

She gritted her teeth together and pressed her lips into a thin line as she looked away from him.

It was pitiful, even she had to admit that, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

“I thought it better to travel light, and I am not so very far from home. If I have to go a night without food, it is not the worst that could happen.”

Hunter’s eyebrows arched high as her stomach rumbled loudly in direct contradiction to her words.

He hooked a finger through the cracked leather strap that connected her saddlebags and picked it up, then held it near to the fire to see it better as he twisted it this way and that to get a better look at it.

“This saddlebag has lived its life and should be burned.”

“No!” she exclaimed pushing off the stool to grab it from Hunter’s hands and almost dropped her precious piece of cheese in her haste.

His head jerked up at her vehement response, but he did not protest when she took it from him.

“I will give you that it is old, but it is perfectly suitable when it is dry.” She found a hook on the wall and hung it up to dry, then returned to the stool. He studied her curiously as she sat and took a bite of the cheese, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

The saddlebag had belonged to her brother Baldwin, who was five years her elder.

It had seen much use when he was alive, and then it had been packed into the chest with his other belongings when he was killed three years prior while trying to protect a small group of travelers from bandits.

It would sound foolish if said aloud, but she felt emboldened and not so alone when she wore her brother’s clothing and carried something of his with her, like the saddlebag.

It felt like a part of him was with her.

“I have grain for Willow.” Hunter pushed to his feet and went to his own saddlebags leaning against the wall by the door.

He opened a flap and pulled out a small burlap sack tied off with a bit of string.

As he opened the door, Willow stuck her head through the opening.

“Out, girl,” he chided softly, then set a gentle hand on her muzzle to push her back out of the hut.

The glow from the fire spilled through the doorway to cast the stable area in a dim light. She watched as he guided her horse to the far wall and poured oats into a small trough, then heard his low murmurs as he spoke to Willow in a soothing tone and rubbed his hand over her neck.

As she watched him, she chewed her cheese and thought about what her friend Galiena had told her about him.

Her husband Red was one of Hunter’s few friends in the world, and according to Galiena, Hunter was not a warrior in the traditional sense.

He was trained to fight in battle, but his skills were better suited for stealth, and he was given the missions that required one person to find their way into a difficult place, get the task done, and be gone before anyone knew he was there.

When Anora asked about the nature of the tasks, Galiena had grimaced and slowly dragged her finger across the front of her throat to mimic a knife.

“He’s intimidating, doesn’t speak often, and always looks angry,” Galiena had said to her, “but Red respects him, so he must have some redeeming virtues.”

Hunter had never intimidated her, at least not in a threatening way.

She’d been annoyed by him at times, and often curious about him, but she’d never been afraid of him.

Not even when he grumbled at her in exasperation.

Galiena was right when she said he didn’t speak much, but there were times when he would tell a story at the supper table with her, her father, and Sumayl, and everything about him changed for a short while.

The tension would drop out of his shoulders, the lines in his forehead relaxed, and sometimes he even smiled.

That smile took her breath away the first time she saw it. His whole face changed, his eyes glittered, and there was a glow that radiated from him. His features eased and she thought she’d never known anyone as handsome as him in that moment.

But it had been months since she’d seen him smile with his whole face. He’d hardly smiled at all of late, he stayed for supper less often than he used to, and when he did, he listened to her father’s and Sumayl’s stories but did not offer any of his own.

She caught herself staring at him and looked away quickly when his eyes locked with hers as he ducked back through the door of the hut.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him stoop to pick up his saddlebags and open them again.

He pulled out several items wrapped in cloth and then busied himself at the sideboard.

When he turned toward her with two bowls filled with food, her stomach growled loudly, and she felt herself blush with embarrassment.

But that didn’t stop her from taking the offered bowl, which contained salted meat, more cheese, and half an apple—a veritable feast compared to what she’d brought. And not soggy.

“Thank you, Hunter.” Her gratitude was genuine.

“It is the least I can do in return for the meals you’ve shared with me.”

“Is this…venison?” she asked, astonished as she savored a piece of the dried and salted meat.

“Aye,” Hunter said evenly, but his eyes narrowed as he watched her response.

She’d only had venison once but remembered well the sharp, earthy taste of it.

She had been invited to dine at Castle Whyte with her father, the old Baron Payne, and his son Edmund.

She’d recently turned seventeen years of age and Edmund was of a mind that he wanted her for his wife.

He’d convinced his father to let him court her and sought her father’s permission, but Anora would not have him.

He made her feel self-conscious and strangely ashamed in the way he leered at her, as though he could see her naked body through the layers of her gown and chemise.

He would whisper vulgar and disturbing things in her ear when he stood near to her and trailed his fingers over her possessively, which made her skin crawl.

She shuddered at the memory, but what had made her think of it was the knowledge that only nobles were allowed to hunt venison. For everyone else it was a punishable offense. “Is it still against the laws of the king to hunt deer?”

“Aye,” Hunter said as he popped a large piece of the meat in his mouth and licked his fingers.

She was momentarily distracted by the curve of his lips into a smirk and the slow, deliberate act as he stuck the tip of each finger in his mouth and pulled it out clean.

Suddenly unable to sit still, she shifted on the tiny stool and lifted her gaze from his lips to his eyes, which were locked on her.

She opened her mouth to say something witty to cut the tension, but her mind was blank, save for the provocative image of what he’d just done.

“Are you going to turn me in for the reward?” he drawled, then bit into his half of the apple.

“That wouldn’t be very chivalrous of me, considering I have every intention of eating every bite of it.” She popped a piece of the meat in her mouth and let her fingers slide slowly between her lips to lick them clean as he’d just done.

His eyes widened and his jaw froze in place as he watched the movement. She’d not expected the intense response, or how much it thrilled her that he was affected by it. After a few breaths, she saw his Adam’s apple bob, then he closed his slackened jaw and focused his attention on this meal.

Anora did the same, but her head swirled in confusion.

He didn’t care for her and was annoyed by her presence—at least that was her conclusion from his actions of the past months.

And the affection that she had developed for him, purely as a valued friend of the family, had diminished with his dismissal of her.

She’d tried to tell herself that it mattered not how he felt about her, and it had no bearing on her everyday life.

Except images of his smile, the one so full of true joy, continually crept into her mind at the most unexpected of times.

And it seemed the more he ignored her, and the more she tried to push him from her mind, the more vivid the images became—images that extended beyond his smile and made her heart beat faster with the memory of them.