LINTON
Ilike watching Kaitlyn. Especially in this kitchen where I’m allowed to follow her every move and I don’t have to hide. Although occasionally I do because it feels good in my bones to watch her when she doesn’t know I’m watching.
I also have to spend time at the fire, working the spit and dribbling fat over the carcass. I’m also given knives and told to chop up things, orange long things, strange round green things. I’m good at it because I like the knives.
By the end of the day, there is a meal prepared, and we are led into a vaulted hall where there are tables laid out in great lengths and more people than I would have expected. Ranged around the room are the brothers. Like me, they do not eat. Their thin forms, covered by the robes they wear, belie how strong they are. But their strength comes at a price. The magic they use turns them into their current forms, taking far more than it gives.
Despite their presence, the room is filled with a buzz of conversation. The others who have sought sanctuary don’t care about the brothers. They are, instead, looking forward to the meal we have prepared.
I make sure Kaitlyn is seated comfortably at the end of a table, and I sit next to her, shielding her from the rest of the sanctuary seekers, always ready to protect her. The food is brought in and placed on the tables. A large carcass is now piles of sliced meat on platters. Round baked items which were made by my mate are also handed around, along with the orange and green things I had a hand in producing, only now they steam from being cooked in hot water.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try anything?” Kaitlyn says, passing me the platter of meat.
“The Bluecap will drain us in our sleep,” the male opposite me says with a glare.
“I wouldn’t feed from you if you were the last creature in the Yeavering,” I growl, spearing a slice of meat on a claw and putting it on the metal platter in front of me. “But try the orange things. I made them,” I add.
Kaitlyn makes a funny snorting noise, although when I look at her, she is concentrating on her food.
“Why are you here, Bluecap?” The man seems keen to be on the wrong end of my claws. “Why do you needsanctuary?”
“The sanctuary is for me,” Kaitlyn says quietly, without looking at the man. “Linton is my protector.”
This seems enough to silence the man, but I study him carefully, partly in case he is a threat and partially because I fully intend to ambush him later and see how well he bleeds.
I doubt he will challenge me again.
He gets up with his platter and moves elsewhere.
“You do know you said that out loud, don’t you?” Kaitlyn says.
“Said what?”
“About making him bleed.” Kaitlyn takes a bite of her meat. “I think we might have to talk about inside thoughts staying inside.”
“He should not have spoken the way he did.”
“I completely agree,” Kaitlyn says, and my wings flare in surprise.
I don’t usually get agreement.
“We’re all here for sanctuary. He doesn’t need to be a bigot about it,” she says. “If the monks don’t turn anyone away, then he can’t be precious about who he shares his space with.”
She takes a vicious bite out of the meat and my spicket jumps in my trousers, making me growl at the sudden movement.
“Still, you can’t go threatening people with violence,” she adds. “We are going to have to live here.”
“Threats of violence usually work,” I reply. “See?”
I gesture to the area around us, which has emptied. Kaitlyn sighs.
“We’re going to have to work on your people skills.”
“We do not need to do that. I am skilled in many ways of disposing of people,” I say, swallowing the mouthful I have eaten with some difficulty and poking at the meat on my platter. I lick my claw.
The flavour is interesting, but it’s not enough to tempt me to any more. My stomach knows what I want, and I remain hopeful Kaitlyn will allow me to feed once she has.
“Those are not the skills I’m talking about,” Kaitlyn says as more of the sanctuary seekers leave our table.
