Days were for work. Jessa spun thread on the spindle he’d finished—her hands moving in a mesmerizing rhythm that hefound himself watching more often than he should—while he carved or built or mended. Dani helped when she could, fetching tools and sorting materials and chattering constantly about everything and nothing.
“What’s that bird called, Tarek?”
“That’s a mountain thrush.”
“It’s pretty. Do they taste good?”
“I’ve never tried one.”
“Jessa says we shouldn’t eat things that sing.”
“Your sister is wise.”
“She’s the wisest person I know. Except maybe you.”
Evenings were for cooking, a task that had somehow become shared, with Jessa working beside him at the small stove while Dani set the table and announced that she was starving with theatrical emphasis. They ate together, talked together, existed together in a way that he had thought was lost to him forever.
But nights… Nights were the hardest.
He had moved into the cleared storage room, insisting that Jessa and Dani keep the larger bedroom with its proper bed and warm furs. The bed he’d assembled was too small, but he’d slept on worse. Much worse.
The problem wasn’t the bed. The problem was lying awake in the darkness, listening to the soft sound of Jessa breathing, and wanting something he had no right to want.
She’s going to leave,he reminded himself. Every night, the same litany.This is temporary. She has her own life to build, her own path to follow. I am not part of it.
His beast disagreed. His beast wanted to go to her, to curl around her and keep her safe, to wake up with her warmth pressed against him like that first morning on the mountainside. His beast wanted to claim her in ways that would make leaving impossible.
His beast was a fool.
“You’re staring again.”
He jerked his attention away from her hands, those clever, capable hands currently coaxing a length of sunvine fiber into submission, and met her amused gaze.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“You were absolutely staring. You’ve been staring for the past ten minutes.” She didn’t sound offended. If anything, she sounded pleased. “Is there something on my face?”
Yes,he wanted to say.Your eyes. Your mouth. Everything about you demands attention, and I am too weak to look away.
“Your technique,” he said instead. “It’s different from what I’ve seen before.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You’ve watched people spin before?”
“Once. Long ago.” The words came out before he could stop them. “On my home world. There was a woman who made thread from the silk of cave spiders. She had a similar… rhythm.”
Her face softened.
“Tell me about her?”
No.The impulse to refuse was automatic. He didn’t talk about his past. He didn’t share pieces of himself that could be used as weapons.
But she was watching him with those warm hazel eyes, and Dani had fallen asleep in her chair by the fire, and the den was warm and quiet and felt, for one treacherous moment, like home.
“She was my grandmother,” he heard himself say. “My mother’s mother. Many Vultor families retain ancestral caves in the mountains. It is our tradition to give birth there, but my grandmother chose to live there all the time. When I went to visit her, she used to tell me stories while she worked.”
“What kind of stories?”
Stories about monsters,he thought bitterly.Stories about beasts who couldn’t control their nature. Stories I should have listened to more carefully.
