“Yeah, I’m in.” Liam set down his bow and knife and left the table.
“I’ll work on the bows,” Morco said. “Thanks, guys.”
“No problem, Chief.” Caius walked off with Liam and grabbed the attention of other men at a table, getting the hunting party together.
Now, it was just the two of us.
“How’s the garden?” Morco said.
“It’s nearly finished.”
“Will it still work?” He took a seat and examined Caius’s work before he picked up the dagger.
“Not sure. But life survives the seasons and the weather, so I imagine it’ll be okay.”
“Good.” He started to carve the bow, going faster than he had last time since he’d already made one.
I waited for him to tell me about Allegra, but judging by his silence, he had no intention of sharing. “Caius told me it was Allegra.”
He swiped down the bow with the knife before he lifted his chin and looked at me. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m tired of talking about the woman who came before you,” he said. “I’m tired of showing her kindness that only makes her grip me tighter. I’m tired of being the better man, when the only man I want to be is yours.” He grabbed the dagger again and got back to work, taking the topic off the table and throwing it in the dirt.
After seeing the stress it caused him, I let it go.
Now that we knew how to construct a working bow, Morco deployed all the available men to help while Caius and the others were on the hunt. He had the women help too, harvesting the plant material I used to construct the string.
Morco left his completed bow on one of the tables so others could examine it when they needed guidance. He moved around the other tables and helped where he could, his men building weapons to use in the war.
The only man who wasn’t there was Krull, and I assumed that was intentional.
We worked all day and into the night, only having a break to eat lunch and dinner. I focused on the arrows, the missing piece. By the end, several more bows were almost finished, and because they were made of different woods and those had specific markings, each one was unique.
Morco stood with a bow in his hand and pulled the string back, feeling the tension as he pulled farther. When his elbow started to shake with instability, he released, but the string didn’t break.
“Try this.” I handed him one of the arrows I’d made, the feathers replaced with a thin but durable leaf I’d found. When I’d searched the trees for a substitute, I would find leaves then release them to study how they fell. Instead of dropping straight to the ground, one type of leaf would sway back and forth as it fell, taking four times as long to hit the earth. I’d decided to fasten those to the arrows.
He studied the arrow in my hand before he fit it to the string. Then he pulled back like he had before, the tip of the arrow resting against the wood of the bow. With perfect posture, like he’d handled a bow before, he turned and aimed at the closest cabin before he released.
The arrow launched so fast that it struck the side of the cabin before I could see it leave the string. All I heard was the distinct thud of the arrow as it impaled the wood of the cabin.
Morco slightly lowered the bow as he stared at the arrow in disbelief. Then he walked over and grabbed it by the end. He had to tug twice to free it from the wood. He examined it before he stared at me, giving me a look unlike any he’d ever worn before. “I knew you’d find a way.”
He carried the bow and the arrows as we headed back to the cabins. Mine was the first one in the line, the reason Allegra had heard us together the other night. I assumed we would stay at his cabin from now.
But he stopped in front of my door like he disagreed. His intensity was replaced by a rigidness he didn’t release. There was also unnecessary space between us when there should be no space at all. He gave me a nod, like I was one of the guys rather than the woman he kissed…everywhere. “See you tomorrow.”
“Whoa…what?”
He gave a quiet sigh as he closed his eyes.
“Don’t make this harder for me, Hanne.”
“You’re the one who’s making it hard, Morco.”
When he opened his eyes again, they were elsewhere, on the door past my face. “It’s not that I don’t want to?—”
