“We still have shit to answer for,” Iloni murmurs. “We let Ma go too far. But this is a start.”
It’s a start.
Rath pushes through the circle and drops to his knees, head tilted slightly back so he can keep his gaze on mine. He angles his neck, taking his hair and draping it on the opposite shoulder.
“I’ve got a blade,” Iloni says, finishing off the cup of blood.
I hold out my hand. The hilt presses against my palm and I wrap my fingers around it. Then, slowly, I press the edge of the blade against his neck and draw it down in one gentle line, parting his skin just enough for more blood to seep through.
“Fiuthen,” he says, not breaking our gazes.
Fiuthen comes forward, a small leather pouch in his hand. His dips his fingers inside and begins to spread the scarring salve over the fresh cut.
“Well, why didn’t you say you had some?” Huedda says.“Males.”
“At least he don’t have to carve her name in his back like some of the clans do,” Iloni says.
Rath’s eyes brighten and he opens his mouth.
“No,” I say.
He frowns at me.
I hand the blade to Iloni and take a step back, and then another one. “We’re not married yet.”
Turning, I run.
Behind me, an Orc warrior roars.
TEN
I stop running deepin the forest, my feet carrying me along familiar paths until I emerge in one of the many tucked away clearings the clan has cleared out over the decades.
Bending over a moment, I catch my breath. It’s been some time since I had to sustain a long sprint at full speed. I need to train.
Rath emerges from the shadows, gait liquid, a barely tamed predator who circles me but doesn’t come closer. “You make me hunt you.”
I wait until my breathing is calm before replying. “The hunt was for you. A wedding gift, I suppose.”
Rath halts, staring at me, his eyes disappearing in the darkness. “Thank you. What happens now?”
“I don’t know.” The resistance holding me back so far is thin, ready to snap as easy as a dangling thread. But I’m. Not. Quite. There. I need. . .something more.
“Let me tell you what I know,” he says.
I cross my arms over my chest, lifting a brow.
“We grew, we fought, we loved. We hurt. We let each other go.”
He speaks so quietly I almost strain to hear him; it’s deliberate. He wants to force me to listen to each word carefully.
“Well, that’s a lie,” he adds with a soft laugh. “I never let you go. But I let you run. I didn’t find you and drag you back.”
I hear the vicious restraint in his voice. The restraint it took not to look for me, to conquer me. The restraint it takes now not to walk past the boundary we both feel I still have erected.
It’s the only thing that separates males from monsters; their ability to heed that boundary. To wait. To claim and devour only when the female offers complete, unambiguous submission.
“I returned,” I say.
