“It just all happened so fast,” Sorven said.
For a moment, Aevrin’s eyes found her. Then he abruptly looked away, turning back to his brother. Cassia pushed down the flood of confused guilt as best as she could.
“Don’t youknowbetter?” Sath snapped at Sorven with a scowl on his face. It was a kind of anger Cassia knew well, the type that came from pure fear and love. “That dragon isn’t big enough to fly you yet.”
“But I swore I saw the Matherson’s cattle,” Sorven said. His eyes were wild and wide as he looked around. “Isawthem.”
“And you thought you’d just plunge in headfirst yourself?” Sath bellowed. “You don’t go charging off on a newly-bonded who can barely hold you!”
“Mathersons?” Aevrin asked. He crouched at Sorven’s side, holding his brother’s hand as their father paced. His back was to Cassia.
“Kit came by today,” Sath said, stopping and rubbing a hand over his face. He suddenly sounded exhausted. “Fifty head, gone. His duck was so mad she almost tried stealing from our herds, ‘till Raehid put her back in line.” Raehid was Sathuel’s drake.
“Damn,” Aevrin hissed. “Rustlers?”
“Has to be,” Sath answered grimly. “That’s three reports now, ours included. We were helping him look, and checking our own, all afternoon without you.”
Rustlers. Outlaws.
Cassia stiffened. She couldn’t turn on Rylan, but she was holding information that the Rivekers needed.Or maybe it’s not even him, she told herself desperately.I’m sure there’s plenty of outlaws in these parts, not just Zey’s men.
“Saints, Sorven,” Cassia heard Aevrin say quietly. “If you really did see those cattle, you’re lucky you fell. Don’t you know better than to tangle with rustlers all on your own?”
“Youwent after them,” Sorven complained.
“Yeah, and I got more shooting and fighting experience by a mile. Hell, you really want to put Cobrid in that kind of fight?”
“I thought…” Sorven started. The bang of the backdoor interrupted him as Mavek came in. A few moments later the blue-eyed rancher emerged from the mudroom, looking wet but a good deal cleaner than Sorven, shoes off and waxed rainsheet dripping all over the floor.
“Cobrid?” Sorven asked Mavek, voice trembling.
Mavek snorted, untying the rainsheet around his neck. “She’sfine.”
“You’re sure? She’s not hurt?”
“She flew just fine to the coop,” Mavek told him soothingly. “I wiped her clean and gave her a bucket of hot milk. Just about now, she probably feels like she’s in dragon heaven. You’re the only one who got banged up. You going to the clinic or what? I’ll take you.”
“Stop looking for excuses to bother that nice girl,” Prisca said, her tone a bit harsher than Cassia thought was necessary. Gramma Prisca still looked terrified, her face tight. “Evelya must’ve told you two dozen times by now she’s not interested.”
“Aw, Gramma,” Mavek said, looking deflated. “I was only going for Sorven this time…”
“You ready?” Sath asked Sorven, who nodded. “Then come on. Let’s get you in the cart and down to the clinic.”
“I’ll give the borderline another ride,” Aevrin suggested.
“No,” Prisca snapped. “The weather’s bad and the light’s almost gone. We’re already one man short, Aevrin. It can wait until tomorrow.”
“Rustlers—”
“Aren’t worth breaking your head open,” Gramma snapped. “They’ll get their due. Load Sorven into the cart, let’s clean up all this mud, and then it’s dinner time. Nobody else is going out tonight.”
They ate dinner in near silence. When Mavek and Aevrin started debating whether it was a sprain or break, Gramma Prisca shut them up quickly. Soon the theories were put to rest: Sorven was back, with a splint on his ankle and a crutch. He and Sath sat at the kitchen table, Sorven’s leg up on the third chair with a pillow to cushion it, eating a second dinner of Cassia’s stew and homemade bread. The rest of them leaned against thecounters (or in Aevrin’s case, the doorframe, like he was itching to get away from her) as Sorven told them all in great detail what the healer had said. It wasn’t broken, but it was a bad sprain. Healing magic would help make sure everything settled right, but he wasn’t going to be riding anytime soon, or even walking for a week or two.
True to word, he spent the next week and a half in the house, while Mavek, Sath, and Aevrin worked extra long hours, out the door just as the sky was starting to brighten and not back until it had been down for an hour or so already. She scarcely saw Aevrin, except when the whole family was gathered for a meal. They still sat side by side then, and sometimes on the porch with the others for a nightcap. After the first few awkward days, things more or less went back to normal between them, but Cassia couldn't shake the feeling something had changed with that stupid, impulsive kiss.
He’d made the bet, but he hadn’t won. There had been no good reason for her to kiss him, except that she’d wanted to. Which wasn’t nearly reason enough when she was living under his family’s roof. She was playing with fire. She didn’t want Sorven to be hurt, but she was almost glad for the strain it put on their schedules, keeping her from having to face Aevrin head-on.
Sorven… Sorven, she saw an awful lot of. Sometimes he went out on the porch, where Cobrid flew over to check on the human she’d bonded to, but mostly she was with the other dragons chasing cattle. Bored out of his mind when she was gone, Sorven made the kitchen table was his home base.
