Page 316 of These Tears

Soap made of berries. Smoke from the cabin. The faint floral scent of the oil Sunna gave her.

Leah’s scent.

Heat feathers low in my abdomen with such violence I have to straighten and force it back under control by merely breathing.

She chose this.

She knows the way home.

I repeat the facts silently while following the next mark.

Her trail angles north-west, away from the stream and into denser spruce. She avoids the open space between two stones, shortens her stride and tests the earth before placing her weight.

She learnt.

When we first returned to the cabin after England, she attacked every rise. I caught her every time. Bent her over each one before she reached the top and made her drive my name into the soil until it etched itself into the soul of the world. My name. In her voice.

Now she studies that same ground.

The pride rising through me is entirely indecent. Sunna taught her what could feed her or poison her. Anders taught her to read the mountains. But the way she moves when she believes danger follows?

That is mine.

Rotten at the root. But mine.

I hear her boots beyond a fallen trunk, the faint hitch that enters her stride when she tires, as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.

The sound stops. My eyes fall to the ground. No tracks continue across the pine needles. At their edge, one boot print lies over another, the second tip scuffed back towards me. She doubled back.

She’s playing with me.

A branch snaps somewhere to my left. As I turn towards it, I hold my breath and let the silence become enough to satisfy the demon in me.

I move.

Seven steps. Eight.

My feet halt beside a stream and I crouch when I see a sliver of fabric in the distance.

A smile pulls at my mouth.

She stays hidden behind a trunk long enough for confidence to loosen her next step.

I remain where I am, head lowered, while she eases out from cover and moves deeper between the trees. Her rhythm is careful at first, then quicker when distance gives her the assurance she needs.

A vicious something unfurls within me. I lower my head further because the smile is already there, pulling too wide at my mouth.

She’s beautiful.

I wait.

Wait…

Until the forest claims her.

The stream conceals me as I circle around, wet moss accepting my boots without protest. The wind comes at me, carrying her scent through timber and leaves.

The ache is already burning at the base of me. Every hair on my body lifts as I pour every ounce of patience into myself. It takes everything… everything not to sweep her off the damp earth and have her against the nearest trunk.