Now, my stomach clenches with longing, but it’s all I can do to fish the cockleshell he gave me out of the grass with my bound hands and hug it to my chest.
I’ll show you the sea, Sabine.
Another voice squeaks its way into my head, this one in the here and now. A tiny nut-brown mouse noses out of the grass by my feet.
Food?
Its curious little face breaks through my frustration. I can’t help but smile.
For you? I tell it. I’ll gladly share.
Shifting my feet under me, I manage to lower to the ground and pluck off a piece of the rabbit meat to hold out, though Wolf’s rope certainly doesn’t make it easy. The mouse’s nose works double-time as it scampers closer.
“What are you doing?” Wolf’s bark from across the fire makes me jump—I’d thought he was asleep.
“There’s a mouse,” I answer coldly.
“I know there’s a fucking mouse. I heard it rustling the grass ten minutes ago. What are you doing?”
One of his eyes is open, glaring at me suspiciously like feeding a mouse is somehow part of a grand escape plan.
Scoffing, I don’t give Wolf another second of my time and turn back to the mouse with a smile reserved only for it. In a softer voice, I murmur, “It’s hungry.”
The mouse creeps up to my hand, whiskers exploring as it happily accepts the scrap of meat, making a dining table out of my palm.
Wolf is silent for a long time, but I feel his eyes studying me. His energy chews up the air around us as surely as the fire devours the wood.
“Never seen a mouse before that you didn’t want to stomp?” I mutter in a hard tone. “I’m not surprised you’ve never had a pet. Or anything else to love, I’d wager.”
He adjusts his position, arms clenching tighter. “I’m trying to figure out what you hope to gain by feeding a fucking mouse.”
A sigh slips out of my lips. I’m prepared to have choice words for Wolf, but when I turn to him, I’m surprised to see that his suspicion has vanished. Instead, he looks positively fascinated, even gobsmacked, by what I’m doing.
Something about that look softens my anger.
Taking a deep breath, I explain, “It isn’t always about personal gain. All creatures, even a mouse, deserve to be understood.”
Judging by his pinched brows, this concept is completely foreign to him. There’s a challenge in his voice when he says, “Even the wildcat that will eat that mouse later tonight?”
“Yes, even the wildcat.”
His jaw works for a moment, and then he says in a guarded tone I haven’t heard before, “And me? Can you understand what’s in my head?”
An owl hoots from the dark canopy, unseen high in the trees.
I roll my eyes. “My gift only works on animals. You’re a person.”
His eyes devour me as he says in a dangerously low voice, like a warning, “No, little violet. I’m a Wolf.”
A shiver runs through me, spooking the mouse enough for it to scamper away. The darkness of the night feels palpable, heavy. The fire burns low, sending sparks skating toward the stars overhead. Suddenly I can’t look at Wolf without feeling like he can sense every fear in my body.
I roll away from him, curling up in the grass, using my bound hands as a pillow. My heartbeat wallops.
Does he sleep?
Does he stay awake all night, guarding me? Watching me? Jailing me?
The owl hoots again like it’s sending out a warning to all the forest. The clouds are loud overhead as the wind drags them across the stars.
When I dream, I dream of wolves.
In the morning, Wolf’s shadow blocks the dewy morning sun.
My heart kicks into a gallop, and I keep my eyes mostly closed, afraid to alert him to the fact that I’m awake.
He’s standing over me. Why is he standing over me?
A breeze ruffles my borrowed shirt hem, and it dawns on me that while tossing and turning in the night, his shirt has ridden up over my hips. My bare legs and the curve of my ass are on full display. With my wrists and ankles bound, I must look like a trussed pig for him, ready for the feast.
He hasn’t hurt me yet. Maybe he never will. Maybe his blind loyalty to my future husband will keep him from sampling the goods.
At least, that’s what I’ve told myself until now.
Steeling my nerves to mask my fear, I snap open my eyes and glower, “You promised you wouldn’t look.”
His eyebrows raise as his gaze drags from my legs to my face. A hint of amusement wrinkles the skin around his eyes. “I wasn’t looking at your ass, Lady Sabine. There’s a deathrattle snake curled up at your back.”
Oh.
My face flushes as I sit up. Twisting around, I spot the snake’s black-and-red pattern coiled against my flesh.
“Don’t move,” he orders, drawing his knife. “I’ll kill it.”
“Don’t you dare!” I gently nudge the snake awake with my bound hands. It raises its head, flicks its tongue at me in silent thanks for the good rest, and then slithers off toward the woods. “It was only seeking some warmth.”
As the venomous snake disappears into the underbrush, Wolf stares at me with that same gobsmacked look as when I fed the hungry mouse. Finally, he pinches the bridge of his nose, mutters something under his breath, and then starts kicking dirt onto the fire.
“Get up. It’s dawn. Time to move.”
I hold out my bound hands pointedly, and he uses his knife to slice through the ropes on my wrists and ankles.
Rubbing my wrists, I make my way to where Wolf tied Myst to a tree. She tosses her head insistently.
Worried for you, she says.
“I know, my brave girl,” I whisper, running a calming hand down her velvety muzzle. “We’ll both be okay.”
Leave now? Run?
I sigh, glancing over my shoulder at Wolf packing his rucksack. “It still isn’t time.” She knows about my plan to run away with Adan to the extent that a horse is able to comprehend complex ideas. She wasn’t fond of Adan any more than she is of Wolf, but that’s only because she’s overprotective of me and generally distrustful of men.
I wonder who she learned that from, I think wryly, remembering all the times I complained to her about my father.
“Soon,” I whisper.
Escaping will be trickier than I thought, now that Wolf has determined my aims. Of course, Lord Rian’s stipulation that I ride with no lead or bridle is actually a godsend; Myst and I can bolt whenever we like. But we have to be smart about it. I didn’t anticipate my future husband would send a godkissed huntsman to escort me.
Myst and I can run, but Wolf can track us anywhere. A few hours’ lead on him doesn’t mean much when we’ll have to stop eventually for rest and directions. I have to figure out a way to run so that he can’t follow us.
After combing my fingers through the knots in Myst’s mane and tail, I feel Wolf move up behind me.
He says almost apologetically, “My shirt, Lady Sabine.”
My hand falls on the rough linen collar that smells like him. Of course, word cannot get to Lord Rian that I broke a single one of his rules. No one can know that I was clothed for even a second of this ride.
Keeping my back to him, I start to tug his shirt over my head, but before it’s over my shoulders, he takes ahold of my braid like seizing a stallion’s reins. He coils it around his fist and then yanks my head back.