“And soon you’ll be back in Windthorn, with hundreds of men just waiting for you to fuck them.”
Theos frowned, clearly confused by the bitterness in Finnvid’s voice. “Well, probably not hundreds. Still—aye, there are other people I can do things with if you don’t want to do them. Not right here, right now, but that’s not your problem.” He took his hand off Finnvid’s ankle while keeping his gaze on his face. “The stuff we already did . . . you didn’t like that? You didn’t want to do it?”
“I liked it,” Finnvid said in a small voice. “I wanted to do it.” He forced a smile onto his face. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I just need to go check the snares. I’ll be back soon.”
“You need to put more clothes on,” Theos prompted.
Of course he was right, and Finnvid pulled on heavier pants and a hooded coat and mittens. He managed to do it all without even a glance in Theos’s direction.
When he finally got outside, the cold air felt like a slap. A slap that he needed. He’d gotten stupid, forgotten who he was and whoTheoswas. He’d let himself get too attached, and he was going to suffer for it. He stared up at the cold blue sky and wondered how things had gotten so confusing.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Theos had no idea whether all Elkati were insane, or just Finnvid.
He looked down at the gash on his thigh, the one that was giving him the most trouble, and poked at the edges. They weren’t as red as they’d been, and he didn’t think he had a fever anymore, either. The thought of food no longer made him feel ill.
His injuries were healing. He still didn’t have the strength to walk all day, or to carry a heavy pack, but it wouldn’t be long before he could get moving. And as soon as he could, he would; he needed to get back to Windthorn and see what could be done to make things right.
Theos sighed and flexed the muscles in his leg, watching the honey-covered scabs stretch but not tear. Another couple of days in the den. He could justify no more.
He lay back and dozed a little, and when he heard Finnvid crawling into the den, he kept his eyes closed.
“I caught a squirrel,” Finnvid said quietly. He clearly knew Theos wasn’t asleep. “Can you help me clean it?”
“I’m weak and feeble. You should do it yourself.”
“I’m weak and feeble, too. I’ve never really learned how to do this. When we hunted, we had people to take care of what we caught.”
“I thought you hunted with birds.”
“We did.”
“So the birds caught the animals, other people cleaned them . . . When you say ‘hunting,’ do you really mean ‘going for a walk’?”
Finnvid snorted. “I suppose Sacrati hunt wolves with just their teeth.”
“Teeth? Teeth would be cheating. We just use our bare hands.”
“So be a mighty Sacrati and come help me with the squirrel. If you don’t help, you can’t eat any.”
“I don’t actually like squirrel all that much.”
“Do you like it better than broth?”
Theos opened his eyes and sat up. “We should do it outside. Let me get dressed.”
So they cleaned the squirrel, and Theos showed Finnvid how to chop it up and cover the little scraps of meat with vegetable meal and then fry it all in butter.
“It would have been better if we’d hung it up for a couple days,” Theos said as he chewed one of the meat chunks.
“Less tough?”
“Aye.”
“That would have been nice. But, still, it was good to have something fresh.”
Everything was nice and relaxed. If Finnvid hadn’t reacted as he had earlier, and if he wasn’t still being quite so careful to avoid eye contact, Theos would have thought that the logical end to their afternoon would involve nakedness and skin-to-skin contact. But as it was, he kept his clothes on and waited. Finnvid was tidying and organizing their meager belongings, and when he was done with that, he looked yearningly toward the exit.
