08 Talking To No One
Sera
Night fell fast, and with it, the temperature plummeted. We had three fires going, but the heat didn’t seem to travel more than six inches past the flames. I sat on a log by the middle fire, pulling the wagon fur around my shoulders, shivering so hard my teeth were literally clicking together.
A shadow fell over me. A second fur, heavier and smelling strongly of woodsmoke, dropped onto my shoulders.
I looked up, expecting Fenris. It was the two-fingered warrior again.
“Alpha says you’re cold,” he muttered.
I looked across the camp. Fenris was at the far fire, his back to me. He was hunched over, talking to a group of his men, gesturing toward a map spread out on a crate. He hadn’t even looked my way.
“Tell your Alpha,” I said, my voice shaking with cold and sudden, sharp irritation, “that if he’s so concerned about my temperature, he could try talking to me himself.”
The warrior stared at me for a long beat. He looked like he was weighing whether or not I was worth the effort of an explanation.
“I wouldn’t tell him that,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because he’d probably come over here.” The warrior shook his head, a grim set to his mouth. “And whatever you’re imagining that conversation looks like? It doesn’t look like that.”
He left me there. I pulled the second fur tight. It was warm-unnaturally warm-and it carried that same scent from the cabin.
Him.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was he going to beat me? Fuck me? I stared at the fire, trying to reconcile the man who was “gentle” with horses with the “barbarian” my father had sold me to.
Later, the camp went quiet. The warriors rolled into their bedrolls, the only sound the popping of the dying embers. I was drifting, caught in that hazy space between awake and asleep, when I heard it.
A voice. Low. Rumbling.
I opened my eyes just a crack.
Fenris was sitting by the fire, five feet away. He was alone. But he was talking.
“It’s too soon,” he said. He paused, as if listening. “I know the risks. I don’t need you to remind me.”
His tone was… different. It wasn’t the flat, cold command he used with my father or his men. It was looser. Guarded, but intimate.
“The South isn’t like the Ironmaw,” he continued, a ghost of a rough laugh catching in his throat. “She looks like a stift breeze would snap her in half.”
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of pure, unadulterated exhaustion. He looked human for the first time since I’d seen him. He said one more thing, too low for me to catch, his head bowed toward the empty space beside him.
Then he went silent. He just sat there, staring into the red coals of the fire for a long time.
Slowly, his head turned. He looked directly at me.
I froze. I kept my breathing shallow and even, praying the thudding of my heart wouldn’t give me away. He watched me for what felt like an hour.
1/2
+25 Bonus
Then, he leaned toward the empty air next to him and whispered, so softly I almost missed it.
“I know.”
He stood up and walked into the darkness toward the edge of the treeline.
I lay there, my eyes still closed, heart hammering against my ribs. Who the hell was he talking to?
I clutched the fur on my shoulders. It was heavy, it was warm, and it smelled like him. And despite the fear, despite the confusion, I didn’t take it off.
COIN BUNDLE: get more free bonus
Comments
Support
Share
GET IT
2/2
