She seems smaller now she’s dressed.
And hungry.
I kneel and hold out a bowl without approaching her, the steam drifting slowly. It’s chicken broth, and it should nourish and warm her. Bread slathered with butter will fill the hollowness within her stomach. Water in a skin that smells mildly of leather will quench her thirst.
Her nostrils flare, even as her eyes widen with eagerness.
“You poisoned it?” she says flatly.
“If we wanted you dead, why would we bother with any of this?” I say.
She hesitates as her fear and pride war with her body's desperate craving. Then she takes the bowl from my hands and eats like she hasn’t eaten in days. There’s no time to enjoy the flavor as she slops the broth over her chin and tears at the bread with her teeth, swallowing too fast. The desperate, unguarded sounds of her eating twist inside my chest.
I turn my face away.
She will never be hungry again.
When she finishes, she drains the water skin dry, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Some of the tension bleeds from her shoulders, replaced by wary exhaustion.
“Who are you?” she asks at last.
Kelan answers this time. “The scar on your neck. It’s a mate claim?”
She shakes her head. “Gregory was no mate of mine.”
He narrows his silver eyes. “He savaged you for no reason.”
“There is always a reason for violence. One that's rarelyjustified.”
“The scar is old,” I say. “You used your magic to escape him?”
“He’s dead,” she replies. “His friends are not.”
Rage swells, dark and fierce, but I tamp it down. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“They won’t stop coming for me,” she says, her shoulders drooping. “They want my magic. My body.”
“They cannot have it,” Kelan growls, making her flinch and recoil. I hold out my hand, urging him to keep calm. She’s been through too much to handle our possessiveness and power without explanation and understanding.
She laughs once. “And you’re going to stop them?”
“Of course.”
She shakes her head, letting the sleeves of the blue sweater fall over her hands.
“Who are you?” she asks again.
Darial crouches to her level, careful not to crowd her. “We felt your magic. It tore through the world like a cry of agony.”
Her fingers curl in her lap. “I didn’t want to use it. I don’t know how to control it. But I had no other way of escape.”
“We know,” I say.
She looks at me again, her stare raw and open. “Then don’t tell me what I should do with it.”
After a moment, Darial speaks gently. “You’re hurt. Magic can mend that.”
She shakes her head immediately. “I don’t know how. I’m not—” Her voice cracks. “I’m not trained. I try not to use it… they sense its power and find me and...”
