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Her eyes closed.
Her earthen, dirty skin glowed.
And the wolves that’d been silently following us ran to her and lay flat on their bellies, pressing their heads to her feet.
She jumped as warm wolfen fur crowded close.
Whatever spell she’d cast vanished.
The bees fluttered off.
The glow in her skin snuffed out.
And she backed away from the bowing wolves as if afraid of their worship.
I merely stood where I was, my heart pounding, my spirit soaring, my mind straining at the binds of my forgetfulness.
In a shadowy part of my past, a sliver of memory wriggled free.
A memory of a girl who’d travelled the world, followed by animals of every kind. She cried, and rivers flowed. She laughed, and trees emerged.
The memory vanished, swallowed up by darkness.
But it was enough to make my chest rise and fall with hope.
Chapter Twenty-One
. Runa .
I STOOD ON THE KILL zone where blood soaked into soil and wolves took turns to eat their fill. Nausea clutched my throat as I studied the once swift-footed deer that was now a torn and bloody carcass.
The stranger grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward death. “Come. Let’s eat.”
Eat?
I couldn’t eat that.
I could barely eat meat that’d been stored for a season and grilled over a fire—giving the spirit time to loosen its hold on its discarded form. To eat flesh that was still warm and covered in blood?
I’m going to be sick.
I dug my heels into the ground, pulling against the stranger’s grip. “I can’t.”
He paused, his smoky eyes catching mine.
I braced myself for his scorn.
I drowned beneath shame because I wasn’t like the others. I wasn’t like him or the Nhil. I had a visceral reaction that made me strange and questionable.
Niya wasn’t here to offer me vegetables and to laugh away my oddness. There wasn’t other food that’d been gathered or prepared by a clan who worked side by side.
There was just a pack of wolves, their teeth crunching against bone, and the smack of their bloody lips as they happily devoured their prey.
I swayed on the spot as my spine tickled with the same sensation I felt when flesh hit my tongue. The deer’s spirit washed through me, gracing me with a glimpse of its life—of prancing in sun puddles and nibbling on sweet shoots. It accepted that it no longer had that life, but something was beneath that acceptance.
Grief.
I closed my eyes, chasing the thick sadness, slipping into the deer’s memories as easily as if I wore her skin.
A fawn.
She had a fawn.
A fawn who would perish now that she wasn’t there to nurse it.
My eyes ripped open, and I tripped toward the stranger. I didn’t stop to hide my unmortal gift. I didn’t pause with worry about how he would view me. I merely grabbed his hand and blurted, “She had a young one. We have to find it.”
He sucked in a breath, curling his fingers around mine. “How could you possibly know that?”
I didn’t have time to explain.
Tearing my hand from his, I ran into the thicket.
Away from the fresh kill.
Away from the sated wolves.
Away from the stranger’s confusion.
I have to find her fawn.
Sharp debris and slippery leaves bit underfoot as I wrapped an arm around my bouncing breasts, trying to still them and ease the pain of running.
My nudity shot starkly to mind.
I’m bare.
I hadn’t stopped to notice.
After travelling so long wearing nothing but the weather, I’d forgotten the last month of wearing clothes. I’d grown used to being naked while painted in Pallen’s symbols. But those symbols were now smudged and gone.
My cheeks burned.
I’d been around the stranger while bare. He’d carried me in his equally bare arms. He’d seen every inch of me just like I’d seen every inch of him.
My mind exploded with images of his maleness. Of the strength of his etched stomach and the masculinity of his muscles.
His wounds had healed. His fevers had vanished.
That wasn’t possible.
Nothing had made sense since I’d stepped into the trance with Solin.
My head ached.
I tripped over a fallen branch, struggling to stay upright.
What was real anymore?
What to trust? What to believe—
“Wait!” The stranger’s voice chased me, gaining faster than I could outrun. “Stop!”
I didn’t.
I dropped my arm and ran faster.
I had to find the fawn. Before it was too late. Before the wolves could flush it out and slaughter it.
A chilly gust wafted over my spine just before the stranger appeared beside me. His legs blurred in darkness, his speed uncanny and unnatural.
I slammed to a stop.
He matched me, breathing hard. The swirling shadows around his legs dispersed until I questioned if they’d even been there.
Moving toward me, he held up his hands as if to prove he wasn’t a threat. “If what you say is true and there’s a fawn out there, you can’t hope to save it. Its mother is dead.”
“Your wolves killed her.”
