Page 42 of Betrothed

“This is the way?” Fawn asked. “You’re sure?”

“I have made this journey several times,” Zax reminded her.

“You also mentioned you got lost a lot.”

“It is a large mountain,” Zax said defensively. “And this area goes around in circles many times. I sometimes miss the path that leads to my brother.”

Fawn began to say something else. Then she gaped, grabbing his shoulder. “Wait!”

Zax came to an abrupt halt, scanning for enemies. But Fawn only slapped his chest until he let her down, then ran over and grabbed a rock lying next to the stony mountain wall.

“Look,” she said. “It’s perfect!”

She held it up. Zax peered at it curiously, unsure what she meant. It was small and gray and unremarkable, except…

Zax squinted. There was a spot of purple mineral embedded near the top of the rock, off to the side.

“It looks like you,” Fawn explained. “Like your eye.”

Zax was suddenly overwhelmed. He took the rock gladly, running his claws over it. He had been overjoyed to give Fawn her freckle rock, and so heartbroken when she’d thrown it back at him.

“I love it,” Zax declared. “Thank you. I will keep it until it crumbles to dust.”

Fawn smiled, looking relieved. She had been doing this more often since she returned to him and all was revealed: finding ways to show him she cared. It made Zax feel like the luckiest creature in the mortal realm.

Fawn looked up at the stars, which were just beginning to twinkle. “This reminds me of the glow worm cave. We should go back there after all this is done with.”

“I would like that,” Zax said softly.

He pocketed the rock and moved to pick her up again. Fawn let him, pulling at one of his bone-fangs. “Where did you learn so much about romance?”

“From my brothers,” Zax said, surprised. He thought he had mentioned it.

“No, I know. But they can’t have told you about—about glow worm caves and rocks! Did they?”

“No,” Zax said, unsure if he should be concerned. “I just… thought about the things I wished to share with my beloved. Things I longed for.”

He paused, watching Fawn’s face as she stared up at the stars. She looked sad, but the distant kind of sad that she only got when she was thinking about her past. Sadness and anger: his wife was so full of both. They tangled among each other until Zax could hardly tell them apart.

“What do you long for?” he asked.

Fawn sighed. “For my husband to polish his own shoes.”

“I wear no shoes,” Zax said excitedly, half in jest.

“Even better!” Fawn laughed, then she sobered. “I don’t know. When I was small, I daydreamed about dancing with my love.”

“Dancing?” Zax repeated.

Fawn laughed again. Then she noticed his earnest expression, and her gaze turned curious. “Everything your brothers taught you, and they didn’t teach you how to dance?”

“They did mention it,” Zax said hastily. “They just did not tell me how it worked.”

He did not mention that he thought it was a form of play-fighting, which was the only context his brothers spoke of it.

Fawn nudged for him to let her down again. After listening for any encroaching footsteps, Zax did.

“Like this,” Fawn said. She took his hand and placed it on her shoulder, settling the other against her waist. Then she slid her hands around his shoulders, feeling the scars there. They throbbed once, and Zax wondered if the pain would ever fade. But for once, the pain receded fast. As if Fawn’s touch was soothing them.