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Makes sense that Kiaran would wake up and go in search of food.
But then where is Taj?
The dining hall is warm, the fire burning merrily in the hearth, and the long tables are already crowded. There are loaves of bread in the middle of the tables and each person has a bowl with what smells like the stew from last night.
My stomach cramps with hunger.
Stew sounds good.
Finding my men sounds even better, but where are they? Meeting curious, suspicious stares, well aware that my hair is a nest and my dress all wrinkled and smelly, that my undergarments probably smell like my slick, I make my way deeper into the hall.
And find Taj trying to pull Kiaran off a burly, bearded man who is so red in the face he might be having an apoplexy.
“Ignore him,” Taj is saying. “We’re leaving today. Let’s not have another fight.”
“He called me a pointy-eared bastard!” Kiaran says.
“That you are!” the man roars and Kiaran goes after him again. “Fae-blooded freak!”
“We should go,” Taj says. “Dammit, Kia. Let go of him, now!”
Growling, Kiaran releases the bearded man who sits back down, smirking. “Freak yourself!”
Disaster averted, Taj drags Kiaran to a table and plonks him down. “Stay here. I’ll find some food.” He glances at me and his dark brows wing up. “Ari?”
“Yes. Just a moment.”
Something has drawn my eye from across the room.
On the back of a bench hangs a soft, light blue mantle with fur trimming, made from wool but finely woven—and in my mind I can see it spread over a bed, or rolled like a candy pillow, the fur warm and slightly ticklish.
I want it.
Need it.
After looking for my men, what I should be doing is put my arms around them, touch them, smell them—but instead I’m mesmerized by this blue mantle, blue like a robin’s egg, like a summer sky, looking soft like a baby’s skin…
Before I realize, I’m making a beeline for it. Nobody seems to be guarding it, so I lift it off the bench and bring it to my face.
Oh, so soft… I rub my cheek over it. It smells all wrong, but that can be easily fixed. I’ll wash it and then let my men rub themselves all over it, saturating it with their alpha perfume.
It will be perfect… for something I can’t quite describe. Our bed? Our home?
I turn to go, the mantle in my arms, only to be stopped by a nearly inhuman screech.
“Thief! That’s mine, give it back. Thief!”
Oh no…
I turn around to find an older woman in an extravagant blue gown scowling at me, reaching claw-like hands for the mantle I’m holding.
“Give it back!”
“I’m sorry, I…” I look down at the soft mantle. “I need this.”
“What are you saying? It’s mine.” She reaches for it and I take two steps back. “Give me back my mantle!”
“I can’t.”
