But he remained alert, and still stared at me with uncanny reverence in his eyes.
“I owe you my life,” Thomas said again once I saw him off his injured leg and settled in bed.His bed.I was alone with a man in his cottage. The thread around my heart tightened briefly. I shook my head and glanced around me.
The cottage was small, a single room only, and smelled of old wool. Clearly meant for bachelor accommodations, it had merely a trestle table, a single stool, and an oaken kist, carved with a cloverleaf pattern on the lid. The clay-lined hearth was barely large enough to earn that name, but pottage sat in a brass cauldron upon it, having cooked all night.
Thomas’s dog, medium-sized with thick, bi-colored fur, awaited beside him, whining at his master’s distress.
Thomas reached down and ruffled the dog’s fur. “There ye go, Cullen, ’tis all right. Lady Wood Nymph is here to look after me now.”
Not wood nymph. Something more and greater, did the Wolf greet me true.
I would look after Thomas, yes. In the morn, I would wet strips of leather and wrap them around his injury. I would prepare a comfrey salve to prevent infection and would give him wormwood for the pain and valerian for restful sleep. The lessons I had been taught by Mairi Grieve would serve me well.
No. By the morn I will be gone to claim what is mine, and we two will never meet again.
My heart gave a tiny twitch. On the word of a wolf, a treacherous beast indeed, would I abandon this man, the only one by whom I was truly seen?
He reminded me so of the Dark Fool, and that was one I did not trust one bit.
I pulled the blankets up to Thomas’s chin. “You should not say that you owe me your life.”
“Why not? I am ever grateful for your help.”
Humans sell their gratitude far too cheaply. To express thanks is to acknowledge the other party has done for you, and one day you must do for them as well. They are never willing to do enough.
And if Thomas said he owed me his life, the implication was that one day the debt would be repaid.
Another reason not to linger in the mortal realm.
Thomas ran his teeth across his lower lip, cocking his head. “That was the bravest thing I have ever seen, my wood nymph. How did you know how to face down that Hellish beast?”
“The beast is no more Hellish than I am.” I avoided his eyes and the true answer, which wasI do not know.Instead, I asked, “What were you doing out there? Why go out to Carterhaugh on Beltane, of all nights? You are lucky you have only an injured leg to show for it.”
“I meant to join the Douglases. Reavers took their cattle; we had to reclaim our own.”
“Hmm.” I crossed my arms. “And you had to go through Carterhaugh for this?”
“No, I...” His gaze grew distant. “Something called me. The howl of a wolf, sounding above the noise of the forest. The song of a pipe but played mournful and low.” He shook his head. “I cannot remember. Too much Beltane spirits, perhaps. I know only the song beckoned, too powerful to resist.”
The wolf wanted him there. I would swear, had I not come along, he meant to kill Thomas.
The only one who cares for me in this mortal world.
“Resist you must, Thomas.”If that wolf had bitten him, I do not know what would have transpired. He might have been locked inside his own flesh, unable to move until death at last took him. He might have lost his sight, his wits, his voice.
He might have ended up like Mairi Grieve.
“’Tis dangerous to be caught out in the forest alone,” I continued. “What if there had been a pack?”
“Ye speak rightly, lass. But what were you doing in the forest at night? It is as much folly for you as for me.”
No, it wasn’t. However much I dreaded the enormous beast, I had fended it off with the rountree branch, and when I told it to leave, it had. My words returned to me:But you shall not claim this mortal life. He is mine.I had meant them, and by the blood of Faery inside me, I had to continue meaning them, or lose myself entirely. We fae cannot give such shallow promises as mortals can.
But I could not protect Thomas when I was no longer here.
I owe you my life.And I owed him an answer. I lowered my head and reached inside me for the Bess he knew. “I had nowhere else to go. Eamon Grieve has sent me from home.” Heaviness filled my senses; my insides felt wounded and raw.
“He has sent you from home,” Thomas said quietly. Pity furrowed his brow.
