Page 79

“Whoa. Where are you going?”

“To gather wood for a fire we’ll need later. And to hunt for real meat.”

My eyes skate to the plate and back. “Aren’t you going to take care of that?”

Brows lowering, he backs up a step, grabbing the plate he left on the table, and carries it to the sink.

Once he’s rinsed it, I smile. “Thank you.”

“This is why I cook on a flame,” he grumbles, striding back toward the door.

Chapter 28

I turn the knob on the lantern, dialing up the light, which emits a soft glow around the darkening room. Carrying it by the loop at the top, I head toward a machine that’s on a table beside the bookcase, one I recognize from our museum back home as a CD Player. Popular in the early part of the millennium, until it was replaced by handheld devices and cloud music. My history teacher brought one into class once, allowing us to toy with it and play a few of the discs the library kept on file.

I blow the dust off the top of the machine, and pop one of the CD’s, labeled Classics of the 50’s and 60’s, into the player. The first song, according to the titles on the back of the disc, is one my mother sang back when I was a little girl, before she became consumed by the church. When her voice was soulful and full of life.

Share Your Love With Me by a lady named Aretha Franklin. Music fills the room, a sound I’ve missed so much. I sway to the beat and peruse the bookcase along the wall, holding up the lantern to see the titles on the spines. Smiling, I run my fingers over them, stopping on one I recognize from a literature class I took back in Szolen.

Pride And Prejudice.

Beside it is one I haven’t read, and I pull it out to find a black and white image on the cover of what could be the nape of a man, or woman’s, neck.

I flip through the pages, stopping on an excerpt that I whisper aloud as I read. Slamming the book shut on my finger calms the shock moving through me, particularly at the word cunt. Swallowing hard, I open it again and pick up where I left off. Another few paragraphs, and the titillation forces me to close it again. I’ve certainly read my share of love scenes in books, but nothing so graphic.

So erotic.

I thumb through the pages once more.

“What is that?” a voice says from behind, and I let out a small shriek, dropping the book.

Titus stands in the doorway, his taut muscles shining with sweat as he holds a stack of wood he must’ve recently chopped. He pauses to allow Yuma inside, then kicks the door shut after him.

“It’s just a book. That I found. Nothing really.” Clearing my throat, I lift the fallen book from the floor, placing it back on the shelf. I grab the one next to it instead, certain the humiliation is written all over my face.

“No. What’s the sound?”

After he sets the firewood on the floor, I notice red splotches of what appears to be blood. All over him.

“What happened? Are you okay?” I don’t know why the sight of him bleeding is so alarming, when only a day ago, I wanted to kill him myself.

“Got a mule deer hanging out back.” The pride in his voice is undeniable, and I realize, stripped of the chains and the fighting, the Alpha stuff that I still haven’t quite grasped, this is Titus--a simple man who enjoys hunting and nature. “It’ll be enough meat to last a while.” He jerks his chin toward somewhere behind me, and I turn, following the path of his gaze with a frown.

“Oh. The music? You’ve never heard music before?”

“Where’s it coming from?” Leaning to the side, his frown deepens as he studies the invisible crooning over my shoulder.

“It’s a machine that they used to play before the Dredge. It’s called a CD Player. And these …” Twisting around, I snatch the case from the table, holding it up to see the song is At Last by Etta James. “These are compact discs that play the music.”

The dubious expression on his face doesn’t seem to disappear with my explanation, but isn’t like I can go into too much depth, as I don’t quite understand how a bunch of etched circles lasered into a piece of plastic equates to music, either.

“I, um … boiled a bunch of water, if you’d like to clean up in the bath. Took forever, but there’s enough for both of us.” At his recoil, I realize what I’ve said and shake my head. “I mean … separate baths. You take yours, and I can take one after …” My eyes catch on all the blood smeared over his body. “You drain it and clean the tub out.”

“Take yours first, then.”

“Won’t that bother you? Being covered in all that blood?”

With a shrug, he shakes his head and sets logs inside the fireplace.