“I longed to come to you,” Natt continued, even quieter. “I longed to speak of this to you. But I knew the men had followed my scent to these lands, and searched for me here, and sought to find what had drawn me here. I could not risk leading them to you, and thus teaching them that they could lure me, through you. I feared that they might use you, or hurt you. Or worse.”
Oh. It all made sense, suddenly, horrible,horriblesense, and Ella’s eyes were blinking hard, her fingers sweaty and clammy on his. “But you came last night,” she whispered. “Why?”
There was an instant’s stillness on his form, Natt’s eyes still shuttered, distant, far away. “I heard,” he said slowly, “of this party. I heard you were to be wed. And” — he drew in another long, heavy breath — “it seems I am not at all as noble as I had wished, for I could not face this. I could not bear to see you taken by a man —thisman — when you should yet by rights be mine. When I yet had the right to take this vengeance upon my enemies.”
The vengeance again. Ella couldn't seem to find an answer to that, and she swallowed hard, her eyes trapped to his distant, blank eyes. Waiting.
“I knew there should be time for me to do this,” he continued, “whilst they were all at this party, but I did not know how to draw you from it. It was the gods’ own gift that you ran, and came to me.”
Ella’s head was nodding, of its own accord, and a betraying sniff had escaped from her nose. Natt had risked his ownlifeto come to her, to speak to her, and she’d said — she’d told him —
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth,” she pleaded. “In the hunting cottage. Why didn’t yousayany of this, Natt.”
But there was only bleakness in those eyes, pained and distant. “You spoke your wishes to me,” he said. “You chose this man, over me, even after I sought to show you the joy I could bring you in his stead. I could not” — his chest hollowed — “dare to tell you this man hunted me, when you might have rushed back to tell him this, and sent him after me at once.”
“But,” Ella said, helpless, lost, “but Natt, I never would have done that.Never.”
There was a hoarse sound from Natt’s mouth, perhaps almost a laugh. “But you have changed,” he said, bitterly now. “You wished for your riches, and this new life away from me, where you think you arereal. When I asked you to leave this, and come away with me, I tasted yourfear.”
Ella couldn’t follow, couldn’t face this, couldn’t even argue it — and when Natt’s flat black eyes finally flicked back toward her, it was like heknew. Like he saw through her, into her, all the way to her soul.
“It was nineyears,” she heard herself say. “I thought you weredead.”
Natt didn’t even argue this time, didn’t push back. Just gave a small, tired-looking nod, and sagged back onto the sheepskin, his mouth letting out an undeniable hiss of pain.
“Ach,” he said, to the cave’s ceiling. “Many days, I thought I was dead also.”
And before Ella could speak, or even think, he closed his eyes, turned his head, and slept.
15
Ella spent a cold, miserable night, huddled on the cave’s hard stone, trying and failing to sleep.
But the thoughts kept whirling and shouting in her head, louder and louder as the endless hours plodded by. Alfred had hunted Natt. For nineyears. Alfred had almostkilledNatt, multiple times. Natt had been a fugitive, a prisoner, trapped and running, all this time. While Ella had spent all these years thinking of clothes and gossip and parties, and plotting to gain a lord husband.Thatlord husband. A husband whose horrible men were stillhere, lying in wait, ready to hunt and kill.
The cold finally got the best of Ella, perhaps halfway through the night, enough to make her tentatively nudge her numb body up against Natt’s heated one in the darkness. And when Natt’s big arm shifted to curl around her, yanking her close without censure or blame, she very nearly sobbed as she rested her head on his warm shoulder, her body tucked tight against his.
She finally slept, then, but only lightly, flitting in and out of dreams. And the instant Natt’s warmth shifted beneath her, her eyes snapped open, and her body jerked up, off him, away.
But notawayaway, and she could see Natt’s eyes blinking in the faint morning light, the confusion creasing at his brow. He looked better this morning, not nearly as worn and broken as he had yesterday, and as he carefully eased himself up to seated, his eyes on hers were wary, watchful, alert.
“Lass,” he said, slow, careful. “You are still here.”
Ella swallowed hard, and lifted her chin. “Yes,” she said, more haughtily than she meant. “I am indeed still here. I have decided” — she drew in a breath — “that I am escorting you back to your mountain.”
Those black eyes blinked, once, and then flicked to the cave’s exit. “Why.”
Ella’s cheeks felt suddenly warm, and she pulled her knees up to her chest, hugged her arms tight around them. “Because you — youkidnappedme.”
But that excuse was beyond flimsy now, and Natt only arched a black eyebrow, and looked at her, and waited. And Ella looked back at him, and drew up breath, and strength, and courage.
“We can’t risk you being attacked like that again,” she heard herself say, too quickly. “And you said they shouldn’t, as long as I’m still with you. Which makes sense, because they clearly didn’t know what to do with me, right? They surely don’t want to risk escalating the situation with me, or have me get Lord Otto or the authorities involved. Not when Otto is allied to the orcs, and I’m supposed to marry Alfred in a month.”
Natt just kept watching her, those careful eyes not betraying anything, and Ella drew in another oddly shaky breath. “So as long as I’m in the way, you’ll be safe,” she continued. “And I should have time to be in the way, right? My mother still thinks I’m with Alfred, and Alfred’s men are still here, waiting for you. No one really knows I’m gone. And they won’t, for at least another few days. Right?”
The words were tumbling over one another by the end, but Natt had seemed to follow easily enough, his head giving a slow, careful nod. “Yes,” he said, “there ought to be time for you to do this. But” — those eyes sharpened on her — “these five men are yet close, lass, and they shall not stop tracking me, now that they have caught my scent. And they may yet go to your mother at any moment. Or ride off after your betrothed.”
“Indeed,” Ella said, voice crisp. “And I shall be exceedingly glad to tell anyone else who asks — including all the proper authorities — that due to the unwarranted bloodthirstiness of Alfred’sfriends, I found myself with a badly injured employee, in an entirely untenable position. Only, my mother shall hear that this occurred on our journey, and Alfred shall hear it was while I remained here. But” — Ella hauled in a breath — “from either angle, my only available option, at that point, was to escort you home at once. Before youdiedon my property, and exposed me to theexcessivelydangerous liability of violating this tenuous new peace-treaty, by means of having a dead orc’sbloodon my hands!”
