She smiled and held out her hand, although like her it was also a little unsteady.
He dropped another coin into it.
She ran a ragged nail across the coin. “Ye can see I’m tellin’ the truth, can’t ye,Prime?”
Gooseflesh rippled across his body. “What do ye know of that?” Again, in this town, no one except the three of them and his own Louisa knew that.
One of the reasons they’d moved here, away from other packs, wanting to avoid a wave of violence that had gripped too many, a frenzy to take over and kill to get what they wanted.
The three of them, all Primes, had already seen far too much violence and killing in their lives, their blood-lust long ago quenched under the weight of too many stones stacked into cairns on lonely battlefields.
All they wanted to do was live. Thrive. In his case, raise pups. In Charlie’s, get mated and hopefully have pups.
In Badger’s, trying to find a new reason to awaken every morning.
“I see enough.” She dropped the coin into a a ratty cloth bag hung from a cord around her neck and tucked it back inside her bodice. “What do ye want to know?”
“What do I need to know?”
She held out her hand again but this time to take his, not asking for more coin.
He let her.
The woman closed her eyes and Duncan felt…something. She definitely wasn’t a Prime, not even a shifter, as far as he could tell, but there was certainlysomethingodd about her.
Damned odd.
Her eyes remained closed as she talked. “Four girls,” she softly said. “Yers. Ye never have sons with yer mate. Not by blood, anyway. Youngest of yers takes the younger t’were here tonight. True love. But send him away first before she’s born, for a few years, to have him help build yer kingdom. To give it some time. It’s for his benefit, too. For them all.” She swayed a little on her feet. “Plenty o’ years of joy for ye before the next tragedy. But heed well my words earlier and mark them.”
She lightly hummed a melancholy tune he thought he should know but couldn’t quite place right then. “There’ll be one who impossiblyisbut shouldn’t be,” she continued. “Not yers, but of yer direct line.” She cocked her head as if listening to voices he couldn’t hear, accompanied by more humming. “Do the difficult, try not to listen to the wind, although that’s hard enough, I gather.”
She opened her eyes and stared into his. “At some point yer red-haired friend will have to step up, even though he won’t like it much. More than once. Second time, the grazer will make him do it. Don’t make it easy for yer friend to shirk his duty that time, either. Distant future. Long after I’m gone.”
“Grazer?” That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“I see what I see.” She motioned with her free hand at her abdomen. “Et up with it. Every bit o’ me. From the inside out. But ye’ll meet another one day far in the future who you’ll show a similar kindness to, like me. Help wi’ their transition.” She cocked her head the other way. “Ye have a deep heart and even deeper soul in ye. It’ll serve ye well.” She squinted, slowly shaking her head. “The end is not—it’s the beginning. But the painful sacrifice will mark everyone. And it’s the only way. But it’s willingly made.”
She released his hand and blinked twice, taking a deep breath. “So that’s that, then.”
He started to reach for another coin but she stopped him. “I have no use for that now. Pay me back by tellin’ me what ye see in me? Ye know what I mean. It’s a damned hungry beast, ain’t it? How long until it’s full, aye?”
He swallowed hard. “Maybe a few weeks, at most. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Nothin’ to be done about it. I’ve known for a long time. Surprised I’m still vertical, frankly.”
“Do you…have family?”
“Nah. Lost me husband in a mine years ago. Two bairns never made it out of infancy.”
“What are ye, then?”
“Me?” She harshly snorted. “I’s none but a humble washerwoman.”
“Pull the other one.”
She cannily smiled. “Guess it can’t hurt to say now. I think I’m the last of an ancient line. Used to have sisters and cousins but lost track of ’em long ago. Spent a lot o’ years hiding’ this part o’ me. Thanks fer obligin’ me tonight. And fer the coin.”
“Why now? Why me?”
