It scraped through Raye’s thoughts, throbbed harder against her aching temples, while she blankly gazed at Svein, who wasstill sniffing happily at his ribbon, and beaming toward Gaelfr. And when Gaelfr next suggested that they take one last trip to the outhouse before bed, Svein didn’t argue, and eagerly skipped over toward Raye at the table.
“You’ll come too, right, Mama?” he asked, clasping her hand. “And Papa Gaelfr can bringhisaxe this time!”
He shot an admiring look up toward the door, toward where Gaelfr had apparently, at some point, hung up his sword and his gigantic axe together with Raye’s own axe beside the door. Making hers look tiny and flimsy in comparison, and she watched in silence as Gaelfr easily swung his down, and flipped the heavy wooden handle in his fingers.
“Come, woman,” he said firmly. “I shall guard you both.”
It was yet more bitter humiliation, taking turns using their tiny dark outhouse while Gaelfr waited outside with his axe — and then took his own turn, too. And making it even worse was the fact that Raye had always hated these nighttime outhouse trips, and that Gaelfr’s looming presence still made the whole ordeal far less anxiety-inducing than usual.
“And now, time for bed, my son,” Gaelfr told Svein, once they were all back inside the cottage again, with the door safely barred behind them. “Is there aught else you do, before sleep?”
Svein was already heading for his bedroom, but then he hesitated, and cast a hopeful look toward Raye. “I need Mama to sing for me. You still will, won’t you, Mama?”
Raye darted a doubtful glance toward Gaelfr — she didnotwant to sing in front of this horrible judgemental orc — but she made herself nod anyway. And once Svein had climbed into bed, she sat in her usual spot beside him, and took his hand in hers.
“What would you like, love?” she asked him, though her voice wavered. “The lullaby?”
Svein happily nodded and wriggled deeper under his fur — one of the furs Kalfr had sent, the warmest one — so Rayenodded, and fought to block out the awareness of Gaelfr still standing there, still judging her. And then, on a deep, shaky breath, she started to sing.
It was the old Mirkandian lullaby her own mother had always sung to her, about the wind sweeping through the treetops, and the animals all curled snug in their beds below. The skunk, the possum, the fox, safe and warm in the dark, where no one would ever find them, or hurt them.
It felt painfully relevant now, heaping yet more guilt and misery upon Raye’s bowed head, but she kept singing, as steadily as she could, despite Gaelfr’s silent watching presence. Until Svein’s hand was slack in hers, his eyes closed, his chest slowly rising and falling beneath his fur.
Raye watched him for another long moment in the near-darkness — the only light was from the fire still crackling out in the main room — and she finally, gently released his hand, and leaned over to press a kiss to his warm silken forehead. Her eyes were prickling again, the sobs too close and dangerous in her throat, but she could again feel Gaelfr watching, strong enough to be a touch. Still judging her, condemning her, just like he had since the first moment he’d arrived.
It took almost all Raye’s willpower to stand up again, and to walk past Gaelfr toward the door. Out into the main room, which seemed impossibly cramped and close, with just that one small bed against the wall. And making it even more cramped was Gaelfr, quietly closing Svein’s door behind him, and coming out to stand beside Raye in the dim firelight.
Raye didn’t look at him, but she could still feel him there, too present and powerful beside her. The orc who had betrayed her, and ruined her life, and made Kalfr moan like that, and claimed her son as his own, and —
“You’ll sleep outside,” she said into the silence, as evenly as she could. “Won’t you?”
She held her eyes straight ahead, her heart and head pounding, waiting for his answer. She would be civil, she would do her best for Svein, and that was all.
“No,” came Gaelfr’s reply, deep and heavy in the dark. “I shall sleep here tonight. In this bed, with my mate. With…you.”
7
Gaelfr would sleep here. With his mate. With… her?
Raye whirled to stare at him, at his hard shadowed face in the firelight. “You will do no such thing,” she said, her voice a rasp. “And I amnotyour mate!”
Gaelfr’s scoff was sharp, cutting through the air, scraping up her spine. But he didn’t speak, didn’t deign to answer her, and suddenly all the pent-up misery and fury from this endless day boiled in Raye’s chest, bubbling up in her throat.
“Howdareyou,” she snarled at him, through gritted teeth. “How fuckingdareyou. To show up here, at my house, and swagger around as though youownit. As though you own myson, who you’ve never evenmet, before today! And now” — she hauled in a breath, her rage surging higher — “you have the utter fucking audacity to say you ownme? After you’ve done nothing but mock and judge and condemn me, all this damned day long?”
Gaelfr’s lip curled, and he shot a narrow glance toward Svein’s closed door. “I have not mocked nor judged you this day, woman,” he replied, under his breath. “I have only sought to learn you, and our son.”
Our son. It rankled in Raye’s chest, and she barked a laugh, shook her head. “I might have failed as a mother, but I’m not a fool,” she spat at him. “I know how you’ve been looking at me, judging how I look. How you’ve been ordering me around, like I’m useless in my own home. How you think I starved Svein, and failed at his hair, and his protection, and even his tunnel. How you think I’m even worse than that — that awful woman Kalfr wants instead of me!”
And oh, gods, clearly she was more tired than she’d realized, because she should never have said any of this. Should never have betrayed that it mattered, that she cared what Gaelfr thought or said. He was still awful, he was dangerous, she was supposed to just be civil, that was all.
Gaelfr darted another glance at Svein’s closed door, his nostrils flaring — but perhaps he’d caught that almost nothing could awaken Svein after falling asleep, because he scoffed again, louder this time. “You knownaughtof what I think, woman,” he snapped back. “And I said Kalfr’s new woman wasworsethan you. And if I have been looking at you” — his voice deepened — “it is only to wonder at how you have been starving yourself to feed our son! For you were once a plump, ripe, lush woman, and now —”
His clawed hand gestured up and down Raye’s body, at the shabby homemade dress hanging off her shoulders and breasts, while a sudden horrified humiliation burned through her chest. He really had been looking at her, judging her, all damned day long, and — and —
“And now I’m utterly hideous, is that it?” she demanded. “Along with being cruel, and stubborn, and greedy, and jealous?!”
The anger crackled in Gaelfr’s eyes too, and his lip curled, as another deep scoff escaped his lips. “You are nothideous, woman,” he growled. “But ach, you are yet stubborn, and greedy,and cruel! You drove both your precious son’s fathers away from him, because you could not bear that we were bound to one another! You wreaked this great wrong upon us all, because you werejealous!”
