“Monsieur,” Terence said. “I know you sent me away, but…” he choked on a grimace. “I don’t have any other way to get home,” he swallowed. “The merchant I traveled with was killed. They all were.”
“You were with the party that was attacked?” Michel asked, moving to sit near the boy. Michel looked up to Iman, who was nearby. “Can we get him something to drink?”
Iman nodded and turned to retrieve a cup.
“The man you placed me with, in Bukhara,MonsieurStefan. We joined a merchant party. They were completing travels and headed back to France. But we were ambushed by a giant.” Iman handed him the cup, and Terence accepted. “I tried to help,” Terence continued. “I don’t really know how to use a sword, but I am good with a dagger.”
“How is it that one man took out so many?” Michel asked.
Terence looked at him, wide-eyed. “He is a monster,Monsieur. A nightmare.” He blinked. “He killed a few before we knew there was someone upon us. Then he took the rest out as they tried to fight him off. He pulled their bones apart like they were chickens.” Terence sat up straighter. “I-I jumped on his back to try to hold him off, but he caught me and pounded me unconscious.” He swallowed. “I woke up some time later. Everyone around me was dead.” He looked up at Michel again. “I have been keeping to the shadows here, hoping to find another group going to France. Then I heard your party was arriving.”
“Have you seen him again?” Michel asked, fearing the man would appear suddenly.
“No,” Terence said, shaking his head. “He disappeared.” He looked at Michel earnestly. “Can I stay with you, Michel? I won’t cause any more trouble, I swear it. I just want to get home. I hate it here.” He groaned and put his head to his knees.
Michel stared at him, grinding his jaw in thought. He didn’t need any extra considerations right now, but he couldn’t leave the boy like this. Not with Ganbold coming for them all like a storm. He did not trust the boy, but he already knew he would concede. Michel let out a long sigh. “Stay where I can see you, Terence,” Michel said. “I do not have the energy to babysit you.”
“Yes. I promise,” Terence said, looking up, looking hopeful.
Then Michel continued, “Now I’m going to need you to start from the beginning and tell me everything you can remember about this interaction.”
ChapterTwenty-Three
From the yurt's flap, Eve watched Michel speak with Terence. She heard them talking about his master and the others, who had been ripped apart by Ganbold. She felt terrible. Her fault, all of it. All she had meant to do was get away to protect the girl, to avoid a confrontation between her tribe and the young tribe that took her. But look at the deaths in her wake.
A light breeze came to calm her skin, which still flamed for Michel. Seeing him, his tall frame hunched by the fire in concentration, and seeing Terence, worry on his face, she looked to the sky, hoping for a sign that she had not chosen the wrong path. Should she have gone to her family and let her father sort this all out? She was not a warrior like her father or her brothers. In this way, she had thought to protect the ones she loved.
Now she feared she would destroy another life: Michel’s. Even if she didn’t get him killed, she was certainly on the brink of destroying any deals he hoped to make. As much as she wanted more of that man, he didn’t deserve for her problems to take over his. She would tell him her whole story. Then he could decide for himself if he wished to leave her.
Even though the thought of being separated from him now made her heart hurt like a dagger had been stabbed into it.
She turned back inside the yurt to collect herself. She saw the table where, seconds ago, Michel had been ready to take her, and she had been ready to give herself to him. It was a mess—chairs tipped, tea spilled. She put her hand to her lips, as the last strands of her desire threaded through her. It wasn’t appropriate, these feelings at this moment, but her body still ached deeply for him. She would have to deal with those thoughts another time.
She straightened the space and cleaned the spilled drinks. Then she set to work at the small hearth. She pulled out her cache of herbs and dried roots, choosing the combination she needed, and set to work on a calming tea for Terence. While the tea brewed, she straightened herself. It was her fault, she knew, that these men were being attacked. If she had only committed to something in her life, chosen a direction, she could have saved so many.
The girl from the young tribe, though. She would not have found her peace.
Eve finished the tea by adding a crystal of sugar to the kettle. She exited the yurt and came to the fire to sit beside Michel. She handed Terence a cup, and she handed one to Michel as well. Michel had been speaking, but when he saw Eve, he lost his words and just watched her.
She smiled. Whatever happened, she would not stop loving the way she affected him and caused him to forget everything he was doing.
Michel shook himself and turned back to the boy. “Did you have any indication of where he was headed?”
The boy huddled over his tea and shook his head. “He never said a word.” He swallowed. “He didn’t seem to want anything. Just to kill us.”
“We will continue to hope that he has had his fill and will be gone.”
“Have you eaten?” Eve asked the boy.
“No,madame,” he said, glancing between her and Michel.
“Mademoiselle,” she corrected, with a smile.
He nodded at the mistake as the fire continued to crackle and the men drifted into silence. The boy sipped his tea, and Eve poured cups for those who wanted some. She smiled to herself. He had called herMadame, which meant he thought of her as Michel’s wife. Terence hadn’t joined their party until after she and Michel started getting along. He must have assumed she was on this journey with her husband. She pocketed away the warm feeling it gave her, despite the cool of the night and the timbre of her thoughts.
The next morning, they awoke with the sun. Michel watched over the camp, the coffee Eve had prepared for him in hand, while he waited for the rest of the men to be fully awake. Despite his hope to return to Eve the night before and spend the remainder of the evening in her bed, enjoying each other, he could not leave Terence unattended. He didn’t trust the boy, and Terence had had his fingers in at least half the men’s items before Michel had booted him the first time, so Michel didn’t trust the men to leave him alone either. Reluctantly, Michel put Terence in his yurt. Very reluctantly. Despite how badly he wanted to pick up with Eve, Michel didn’t need another murder in the night.
A brisk wind whipped through the camp, and Michel went to sit by the fire, closer to where Eve prepared breakfast. After a moment, Eve dusted her hands, took her cup of tea, and sat near him. The closeness roused him again, having never quite calmed after getting a taste of her the night before. Her skirts brushed his leg. He wondered just what he had to do to have her lying vulnerable before him once more. Then Eve spoke.
