Rather than approach, Nadine backed away—towards the entrance. The crunch of grit on her heels echoed shallowly, fading as she retreated.
Cal swore softly and began to crawl back towards the entrance, moving faster when he heard a high and piercing scream in the cavern.
He shot out of the tunnel just in time to see Rael catch a slumping Nadine over his arm. Her eyes rolled back before fluttering closed, her breath leaving on a sigh.
“What did you do to her?” he demanded.
“She was going to—ow, fuck!”
“That was a rhetorical question, Rael. I can see what you did. Give her to me.” He lowered the fist he’d swung, pointing sharply for emphasis. “Now.”
“Take your sparrow then.” Rael shoved her at him clumsily. Cal caught her by the front of her blouse, nearly tearing it, and had to heft her up by her middle to keep her from sinking to the ground. “See if I help you again. Jesus, that hurt.”
“I told you to make sure she didn’t get away, not to knock her unconscious.” He pushed her hair back, checking her temple. She was going to have a hell of an egg.
“Having her unconscious is more convenient,” Rael groused.
“Your father feels the same way,” Cal retorted.
Rael winced, and Cal felt a flicker of something like guilt. They had never discussed their fathers. It hadn’t occurred to him that Rael might share his misgivings about Sheriff Crocker’s role in his family’s traditions. “You just want her to be able to fight you off.”
He had earned that, so Cal turned back for the tunnel without responding. Rael scoffed and walked off. Cal didn’t bother to stop him. Even if Dottie had closed things up for the day, the opening chamber was shallow. Anyone could hear. It was a wonder they hadn’t already.
Getting the two of them through the tunnel took some maneuvering. One of the boards scraped his back, tearing his shirt and some skin with it. Cal twisted his way through with a gasp, cradling Nadine against his chest. Once they were through, he laid her flat on the ground, looking her over by the light of his phone. She’d gotten a little scratched up from her fall but seemed otherwise unharmed, her breathing measured, nearly shallow—not like it was when she was asleep and every inhalation was a space he could drown in.
The light was rousing her. Her eyes twitched behind her lids. With a soft groan, she stirred. Loose rocks grated beneath her sneakers and backside as she shifted on the cave floor, stonescraping against stone. Cal clicked the flashlight on again and the sound she made when she realized she wasn’t alone nearly stole his breath away.
“Oh, Nadine.” He spoke in a gravelly whisper, with a hoarse, grating edge that strained his vocal cords and made it sound like he had an infected throat. “You look so helpless lying there. Like a wounded little bird.”
She jerked like a speared fish. “Who’s that? Who’s there?”
Cal hesitated. “Your master.”
It was what his brother liked to be called.
Nadine tried to get to her knees but slid on the rocks and fell, landing on her back. He had tracked wounded creatures through the wood before, following trails of blood and crushed grass as they grew increasingly reckless, knowing that they were being pursued. She had left herself prone by coming here, and the reality of her situation was just beginning to seep into her mind. He could sense that same panic in her now.
“But I’m here now,” Cal said, walking towards her at an angle to cut off her path of escape. “I’ll take care of you.” He reached out, just grazing her cheek, and she yelped to find him so close, the sound reverberating in a series of watery echoes. “My poor broken sparrow. Didn’t you like the gift I left you?”
“W-what gift?”
Cal swung over her hips, dropping his weight to his knees and knocking her supine with a push against her sternum. He threw one hand out to stabilize himself; the other went beneath her skull, bracing her head against impact. “You tried to hide it, but the person who leaves the mark owns the quarry, Nadine. That’s the rule of first blood. So this time,” his voice rose in emphasis, allowing a hint of his natural timbre to bleed through, “don’t cover it up.”
This is a reckless, foolish plan, that practical part of his mind whispered.
Cal ignored that voice and crushed his mouth against hers, letting his hand slide around from the back of her skull to collar her throat. Nadine made a muffled protest, shying from him, and his fingers tightened until he was cupping her rapid pulse in his palm.
Thiswas how the sparrows were taken on festival day. It was a brutal claiming: two beasts rutting, red in tooth and claw as they fought for dominance. Noelle had not had the privilege of experiencing that side of Ben, but she had seen glimpses, oh yes. Little hints of wildness peeking through the mimicry, ready to fuck and bleed.
In the dark, he felt as if the mantle of his humanity had slipped to reveal the grotesquerie of horror beneath. This was his father’s tradition. His great-grandfather’s. There was no space for reason down here in the liminal shadows, not with his sparrow struggling beneath him, so alive that even the dust and the dark trembled to be near her.
I could take her. He gave her neck an experimental squeeze and felt her whimper into his mouth.Just like my great-grandfather took his sparrow.
When he let his pelvis rest flush against hers, she bucked involuntarily. A harsh breath left his nose at the sensation. He could tell from the cant of her hips and the way she was pressing against the floor that the size and feel of him distressed her.
“No,” she said in a small, strangled voice, as he bent over her body. “No, please . . .”
“Shh.” Cal ran his fingers up her side, following the natural curve of her waist. The hem of her blouse had ridden up in her fall, making it easy for him to dip his fingers beneath, mappingthe gentle slopes with a practiced hand. “It’s only going to hurt a little.”
