“You have a lovely cottage,” I said, my voice rough. As I shifted on my feet, the floor creaked. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. Have a seat.” Oblivious to the painful ache in my chest, Rune motioned to one of the high-backed chairs. Engravings ran along the wooden back posts. They were unfamiliar to me, but they looked like some kind of lettering. Likely orcish.
Still feeling awkward, I crossed the room, the floorboards creaking beneath my steps, and took a seat. The legs scraped loudly against the floor, and I winced. As if immune to the sound, Rune settled into the chair opposite mine and forked some eggs onto his plate. No one said a bloody word.
“Got some chickens?” I asked, desperate to clear the silence.
Frowning, he looked up to meet my gaze. “Sorry, no. Is chicken a standard breakfast food in…wherever you came from?”
So he knew I wasn’t from around here. I’d expected that. On the journey over, Louisa had given me a bit more information about the island. Only a few hundred folk called this place home. A stranger’s face stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Um, no. We don’t have chickens for breakfast,” I answered. “I meant because of the eggs. I saw your mushroom foraging basket outside and thought maybe you had your own chickens, too. For the eggs.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything. Cheeks burning, I grabbed a slice of bread and buttered it with furious focus. I needed to take a different approach here. If he didn’t feel as uncomfortable as I did, I’d eat my shoe. I’d never get him to reveal all his secrets to me unless I could get him to relax. Which meantIneeded to relax.
Unfortunately, my shoulders felt like stones had taken up residence inside them.
“I’m really curious about your house,” I said after a moment.
He sat up a bit straighter. “Oh? How so?”
“Well, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s almost as if someone built it to be part of the forest.”
“Someonedidbuild it to be part of the forest,” he said gruffly. “That was me.”
“You built this place?” I gazed around. The woodworking was incredible. Every beam was slotted perfectly into place, and the wood had been sanded so smoothly that I bet you could slide your palms across them without finding a splinter. But more than that, there was an artistry to it. Several of the beams ended in elaborate carvings. Some had wolf heads, and others had depictions of twisting branches that seemed to reach toward the thatched roof, as if stretching toward the sky beyond. He must have built these chairs, too. And this table. Gods, what a talent.
“It’s very nice,” I said. “I’m impressed.”
The hint of a smile curved his lips. It was the first time he’d done anything but scowl since he’d found me lurking on his property. But the half-smile was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, almost like he’d realized what he was doing and wanted to stop himself.
My stomach twisted. There’d been suspicion in his eyes earlier, too.
Rune didn’t trust me, and yet he’d invited me to breakfast. I slowed my chewing. The food was delicious, but what if I’d been too hasty in letting down my guard? I never should have eaten the enemy’s food, lest I find it poisoned.
I stabbed a bit of fish with my fork and lifted it toward him. “You don’t have any. Want a bite?”
Rune stilled, then levelled his gaze at me across the table. “This might be the first time I’ve had a visitor offer to feed me, fork to mouth.”
My cheeks heated. “Glad to be of service.”
For a moment, our gazes locked across the table. There was something dark in his expression, something I couldn’tquite read. And I hated that—hated not knowing what he was thinking. What made him tick. When I met someone, I could usually glean the truth of them within a few moments. For example, I’d known Erik was a thieving bastard from the second I’d met him. It was in the twitchy way he moved and the insistence to keep his hands tucked in his pockets, regardless of the situation.
And Erik’s eyes held a darkness. Sometimes when I met his gaze, it felt like there was no one in there—like his soul had abandoned him years ago and left the husk of his body behind. Louisa’s words of warning echoed in my mind. Maybe she was right. Maybe all the kills he’d notched into his belt over the years had ended up killing something in him, too.
Like Erik, Rune held a darkness, but he didn’t feel empty. He felt…real. And I didn’t know what to make of that.
“Hand it over, then,” he finally murmured, breaking through my charged thoughts.
Heart pounding, I leaned across the table until the fish brushed his lips. With his eyes still locked on mine, Rune opened his mouth and tugged the food off the fork with his teeth, his tusks glinting beneath the flickering hearth-light.
A tidal wave of anticipation consumed me. Every inch of my skin prickled, and heat burned my cheeks. I sat back and lowered my fork to my plate, waiting. After a moment, Rune chewed the food, swallowed, and went back to his eggs.
He didn’t twitch. He didn’t gasp or fall over dead, which meant he hadn’t tried to poison me. Well, that was good.
I should feel relieved, but the churning dread remained. Rune was smiling as he tucked some more food into his mouth, looking far too happy with himself. It was like he knew what I’d been thinking, that I’d suspected the food. And now he thought he’d won this silent, fraught battle of wits.
An unsuspecting person wouldn’t be smug about that. Something I’d done must have tipped him off.
