Page 21 of Betrothed

She hissed in pain. It was much fainter than it was that first week, but still very much present. For the first time, Zax did not stop and apologize. He only spirited her up the tree, bounding between branches until he slipped through the window. He even drew the curtains after, something he routinely forgot to do after a lifetime of living with no curtains or even windows.

He set Fawn in the nest, where she lay, reeling.

They knew. Someone must have spotted them and passed on the story. What would they think? Surely, they couldn’t believe she would run off with him voluntarily. Errol likely wished he had agreed to hunt Zax down after all, that he was cursing himself for letting her go.

Her thoughts slammed to a stop as she watched Zax hurry to the window and pull back the curtain to look outside. He hadn’t taken her away like that when the hunters had gone past. Only when he had heard her husband’s family.

Which meant…

Fawn stared at him, a suspicion brewing. Did he know about her husband’s family? How did he find out? Why didn’t he tell her?

Because he wants to keep you, she reminded herself. He would never give you back without a fight.

She had been so blinded by his sweetness that she had forgotten the most important thing about men—even Skullstalker men. They didn’t really care what their wives wanted. Only how their wives could serve them.

Fawn had to get out of here. She couldn’t let Zax know she had heard.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded hoarsely. “You didn’t do that with those hunters. Is it something dangerous?”

“Yes,” Zax said, still peering out the window. “Another Skullstalker. Not one that I know.”

Fawn sat up, careful of her twinging ankle. “I thought there were so few of you left.”

“There are,” Zax said after a beat. “I never expected to see another around here except Wick. But it is not Wick. It is someone new, and young, and feral. Like I warned you about. Do not look outside!”

The angry, bitter part of Fawn wanted to point out that her dull mortal eyes couldn’t possibly see her husband’s family from all the way up here. But she kept silent, as she had done so often when she knew men wouldn’t like what she had to say.

Zax pulled back from the window. Then he went around the treehouse, pulling the curtains down on every window except one, which he climbed onto.

“I will pour you a bath,” Zax said, grabbing the hanging water pots off the nails he had hammered into the wall.

Fawn pushed herself up, leaning on the wall to stand up. Her foot throbbed but held fast.

“I thought you said it was dangerous outside,” she said, heart racing. Was he going to go out there and… what? Kill her husband’s family so no one would come looking for her?

“The river is safe,” Zax said. Even as he said it, it sounded flimsy. But he ducked out of the window before she could say anything more, and Fawn was left straining to hear a distant scream or a cry for help.

Nothing came.

Fawn let out a shaky breath as Zax emerged through the window with the first boiling pot of water, the rest of them surely waiting below. He looked more relaxed, and there was no blood on him or excess water that suggested he had needed to wash any gore off.

Errol and Chastity were most likely safe. And they were still searching for her. Fawn tried to be relieved, but mostly she just felt stressed.

Zax filled the bathtub with a narrow-mindedness that she wasn’t used to. Then he reached for her, presumably to carry her to the bath.

“I can walk,” she told him.

Zax faltered. But he dropped his arms.

Fawn walked carefully over to the bath. If she went slowly and put barely any pressure on her injured foot, it was fine. Painful, and surely damaging if she did it often, but doable.

“Call for me when you are done,” Zax said quietly.

He walked to the window. He was distressed, Fawn realized. He thought his captive wife would be taken from him.

Strangely, Fawn was not particularly angry that he had taken her away when he heard them. What enraged her was the fact that he hadn’t told her. Granted, she had never mentioned them to him. But if he knew what they were to her, he should have mentioned it. He would have if he truly cared about her.

Not that it mattered. She was always going to leave. But before that happened, she needed him to think she would never leave him, even if she could.