I plant my elbows on my knees and lean forward, hands clasped, watching her polish off an entire strip before I lift a brow and say, “Hungry, Moonbeam?”
“Precious One’s stomach growled like a beast. Too much poison. Not enough meat.” Still fisting the other tenderloin, she backhands one of Pyrok’s many empty bottles, sending it skittering across the table. “Hunger brews weakness. I am helping.”
The cut of her tone shoots a chill up my spine, and I meet Pyrok’s side-eyed glance.
Raeve drops her messy meal in the container and lifts it to her lips, gulping the gathered blood in deep, rowdy draws.
Pyrok screws up his face. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but I cut him off with a lift of my hand.
“I’m gonna go and toss my guts down the privy,” he mutters, then shoves up, leaves his bottle on the table, and makes for the washroom faster than I’ve seen him move in daes.
Something I expect Raeve to comment on.
Instead, she sets the container in her lap and gets back to masticating the meat, pointing one bloody finger at my lodged blade. “Why is this tiny weapon trying to slaughter the table?”
“I was using the blade as a map marker.”
Her cool gaze hunts me from behind the veil, blood still dripping from her lips as she says, “What did thismapdo to you, mate of my Precious One?”
Mate of my—
“There’s a nest on that mound, in which sits a sterile egg,” I say, something innate urging me to use the gentlest tone I can muster. “According to a reliable source, it also holds a moonshard.”
Raeve goes stone still. What’s left of my stew frosts over, my next exhale a puff of white.
“From which fallen beast does thismoonshardbelong?”
Though I can’t see her eyes, I feel the cold slit of her gaze. Like a blade slicing deep into my soul, threatening to pop something integral.
“Slátra …”
She shoves up so fast the container clatters across the table with the flopped tenderloins, splattering blood across the map. “We gonow,” she bites out with such primitive authority it feels as though some invisible beast has its maw bared and slightly parted, teeth hovering over the vulnerable skin at my neck.
She wobbles. The only warning I get before her knees buckle.
I leap around the table and catch her before she hits the ground, holding her close while she heaves breath. Like she just sprinted from something and is only now finding a moment to fill her lungs.
“Raeve?”
She shoves back her hood and visor, squinting at me for a moment before her eyes widen, all the color dropping from her cheeks as she feverishly scans me over. She leans back and grabs my hands, appearing to count my fingers before she breathes a sigh of what seems like …relief?
Odd.
“Is everything alright?” I touch her cheek, brushing my thumb across her brow—
She untangles from my grip and pushes to her feet, leaving my arms achingly bare. “I was—sleepwalking. I do it sometimes. Should’ve warned you.”
My brows pinch together.
On my knees beside the table, I watch her smack her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her gaze dropping to the mess she made with the tenderloins. Noticing the blood on her hands, she rolls her eyes, then snatches Pyrok’s bottle off the table, drawing five long glugs without a single breath between.
“Raeve?”
She slams the now-bloodied bottle back on the table, using the back of her arm to wipe her mouth. “Hm?”
Her response comes without a single glance in my direction.
“What’s going on?”
