Dev set down his carving. His expression had gone very still, very serious, and when he spoke, his voice was gentle in a way that made my eyes burn.
"Ellie. Listen to me. Nathan didn't break you. He broke your trust, and he broke your heart, and he was a colossal prick for doing it the way he did. But you're not damaged goods. You're not some defective thing that got returned to the shop."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. Because I've watched you for the last four weeks, and you know what I've seen? I've seen you learn a dead language from children. I've seen you sit with elderly women and help them prepare food even though you had no idea what you were doing. I've seen you make an entire camp of prehistoric wolf shifters genuinely fond of you through sheer bloody-minded warmth and terrible pronunciation. Maybe you were broken, Ells, but maybe this is the place where you get to heal. Where you get a second chance."
"Oh, bloody hell," I whispered, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "Don't be nice to me. You know I can't handle it when people are nice to me."
"Tough." Dev reached over and squeezed my hand.
"Go find him," Dev said. "Fix it."
"And what do I say, Dev? I don't have the words. Literally. I can ask him for water and tell him the sky is blue."
Dev laughed. “Girl, we’re in the Ice Age surrounded by cavemen, and the one you want has a cave all to himself. What makes you think you need words?”
It took a full three seconds for his meaning to land.
"Dev!" Heat flooded my face so fast I thought I might actually combust. "I am not going to… that's not… I can't just walk into his cave and…"
"What?" He blinked at me with an expression of such perfect innocence that I wanted to throttle him. "I'm just saying, nonverbal communication is a perfectly valid—"
"You're telling me to seduce him!"
"I'm telling you tocommunicate. If seduction happens to be a byproduct of that communication, well… I’ve bathed alongside the man, Ellie. I think you’d enjoy yourself."
My face was now approximately the temperature of the sun. I buried it in my hands, making a strangled sound that was halflaugh, half horrified squeak. "I cannot believe you just said that to me."
"You're welcome."
"I hate you," I said, with absolutely no conviction whatsoever.
"You love me. I'm your favourite human in this entire geological epoch."
"You're my only human in this entire geological epoch. That's not the compliment you think it is."
"And yet here I am, dispensing invaluable romantic advice from my throne of furs." He gestured grandly at his makeshift seat. “Now go find your bear!”
I stood up, brushing off my borrowed deerskin leggings before Dev said anything else to make me blush. I was not going to seduce Daska. That was absolutely, categorically not happening. I was going to find him, explain that Nathan was not my mate, and... then what?
Dev's laughter followed me as I walked away, and I made a rude gesture over my shoulder that only made him laugh harder.
The camp was busy with the easy rhythm of late afternoon. Women were gathered near the smoking racks, turning strips of meat and talking. A group of older children were practising with small bows near the treeline under the watchful eye of a grey-muzzled wolf called Torvak. Two men were repairing a shelter, their movements synchronised in that wordless way the pack seemed to manage everything. Somewhere out of sight, someone was singing—a low, rhythmic melody that rose and fell like breathing.
I tried his shelter first. Empty. The fire was banked low, his herbs hanging in their neat rows, everything in its place. The two cups we drank tea from every morning sat side by side on the ledge, and the sight of them—his large one and the smaller one he'd carved specifically for my hands—made my chest squeeze painfully.
He'd carved me a cup. He'd noticed my hands were too small for his and he'd just made one. Without being asked. Without making a fuss about it. Just saw a problem and quietly, patiently solved it, the way he solved everything.
I pressed my fingers against the smaller cup, feeling the smooth grain of the wood beneath my fingertips. He'd sanded it until it was silk-soft, not a single rough edge that might catch my skin. The handle curved just right for my grip, and there was a tiny mark carved into the base—a small, delicate flower that I hadn't noticed before.
My vision blurred. I blinked hard and stepped back out into the daylight, seeking out the first person I knew.
“Kessa? Daska ev?” She frowned and glanced around, then said something to the woman next to her that was too quick for me to catch. The woman smiled at me and gestured towards the treeline in the distance.
“Daska se en. Slan.” Daska is there. That I got.
“Slan?”
