For a moment, neither of them moved. The fire crackled. Somewhere outside, a bird called—a bright, liquid sound that seemed impossibly cheerful after the violence of last night’s storm.
Then Dani’s voice drifted from the sleeping chamber, sleepy and querulous:
“Jessa? Where are you?”
The spell broke. She rose quickly, nearly knocking over her chair in her haste.
“Coming,” she called back. “I’m right here.”
But as she hurried towards the archway, she paused at the threshold and looked back.
He hadn’t moved from his position by the fire. He was watching her with an expression she couldn’t read—something almost wistful hidden behind that carefully controlled mask.
“Thank you,” she said again. “For… everything.”
He gave a single, sharp nod.
She turned and went to her sister, leaving him standing alone in a home that was no longer just for one person.
CHAPTER 12
The sound of laughter echoed through the den, and Tarek’s hands went still on the wood he was carving.
Laughter. In his home. A bright, childish sound that seemed to bounce off the stone walls and settle into corners that had known only silence for five long years.
He should have found it irritating. He should have bristled at the intrusion and the disruption of his carefully constructed solitude. Instead, he found himself straining to hear more—listening as Dani’s giggles mingled with her sister’s softer voice, the two of them playing some game in the other room that involved, from the sounds of it, Jessa pretending to be some kind of monster.
His beast stirred contentedly in his chest.Pack,it purred.Den. Ours.
Not ours,he reminded it firmly.Temporary.
But the beast wasn’t listening. It never did, not when it came to the two humans who had somehow invaded his territory and made themselves at home.
He looked down at the half-finished drop spindle in his hands. He’d started carving it two days ago, the morning after the storm, when Jessa had mentioned working with the sunvines. The words had barely left her mouth before he’d found himself reaching for his carving knife and a suitable piece of wood.
Pathetic, really, how quickly he’d abandoned his principles.
He’d told himself it was simply practical. She needed to spin the sunvine fibers into thread, and spinning thread required tools. Helping her accomplish her goal meant she’d be able to leave sooner, to build the new life she’d spoken of. The spindle was just… expediting the process.
But the excuse rang hollow even to his own ears. Especially when he considered the two additional chairs he’d built for the table. And the small bed he’d built for himself in what had been one of his storage rooms. And the way he’d rearranged his entire den to accommodate two humans who would be gone as soon as they were able.
You’re a fool,he told himself.An old fool playing house with a woman who will leave the moment she has what she needs.
The laughter from the other room peaked, then dissolved into breathless gasps.
“Again! Do it again, Jessa!” Dani gasped.
“I can’t,” Jessa said, equally breathless. “I’m all monstered out. You’ve defeated me.”
“That means I win!”
“You always win. You’re the most fearsome monster-slayer on the entire mountain.”
More giggles, and the sound of small feet running across the stone floor.
His jaw tightened, and he forced his attention back to the spindle. The wood was coming along nicely—a light, straight-grained piece he’d cut from a branch of silverwood, its surface smoothing under his blade. He’d weighted the bottom with a bead of carved stone and shaped the hook at the top from a bit of copper wire he’d salvaged years ago.
It was good work. The kind of work his hands remembered from another life, when he’d shaped surgical tools and medical implements instead of furniture and household goods.
