“Fried the brain,” William said.
“Yeah. The slavers left the body where it was and stopped feeding her. It took us eight days to find her, and then only because of Grandma. She had gone off into the swamp a week before—she does that every year—and when she came out, she called Raste Adir the way I did today. Used one of the slaver corpses we had put into the freezer. I should’ve done it, but back then I didn’t know how.”
Cerise swallowed. “When we found the camp, it was full of holes and children. Some were dead—the slavers didn’t take good care of their merchandise.”
“Did you kill them?” William’s voice was a ragged snarl.
“Oh, yes. Left nobody alive. I would’ve tortured every single one of those motherfuckers if there was time. When we pulled Lark out of that hole, she was weak but alive. She could stand by herself. Seven days without food, she should’ve been weaker.”
Cerise closed her eyes. Telling him was like ripping a scab off a wound.
“You think she ate the body?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I’m just glad she’s alive. She came back odd, William. At first it was the hair and the clothes, and then it was running away to the woods and not talking. And then there was the monster tree. Mother was the only one she trusted. Now only I’m left.”
“There is a real monster in the woods,” he said. “It went after Lark and I fought it.”
She raised her head. “What do you mean a monster? Was it one of the Hand’s freaks?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What did it look like?”
William grimaced. “Big. Long tail. Looked like a giant lizard sprinkled with hair here and there. I cut it and it healed right in front of me.”
Damn it.
He looked at her. “I don’t know what it is, but your Grandmother does. She was singing it a lullaby in Gaulish.”
Grandmother Azan? “And you kept it to yourself?”
He raised his free hand. “I wasn’t sure if this was a pet, friend of the family, some distant relation, maybe another cousin . . . let me know when I’m getting warmer.”
Cerise pulled herself free of his arms. “It’s not a family pet or a relative! I don’t know what the hell it is. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“Ask your grandmother.”
“She’ll be asleep. She did some hard magic today, and it will take her a few days to recover.”
Cerise slumped forward. His hand ran down her back, kneading the tired muscles, the warmth of his fingers soothing her through her shirt. He stroked her like she was a cat. “So will you be pissed off if I kill it?”
“If it comes after us, I’ll cut it to pieces myself,” she told him.
His hand strayed lower and he took it away. He was back in control. The fierce creature she’d seen that morning hid again.
Cerise leaned back against him. His arm wound around her waist, pulling her closer. He was strong and warm, and sitting in his arms filled the sore empty spot inside her with quiet content.
“When I was twenty, I met a man,” she told him. “Tobias.”
“Do you have his picture on the wall, too?” he asked, and she sensed traces of a growl in his voice.
“Top left corner.”
He turned. His face grew grim. “Handsome,” he said.
“Oh, yes. He was very pretty. Like a movie star from the Broken. I was so in love. I would’ve done anything for him. We were all set to marry. He was almost part of the family. Dad even let him handle some of our business.”
“And?”
A familiar cramp gripped her heart. She smiled. “I found a discrepancy in the books. Some money had gone missing from the sale of the cows. Tobias took it.”
“Did you kill him?” William asked.
“What? No. I cornered him and he tried to deny it, but I guess I must’ve been too scary, because in the end he told me all about his master plan. He was going to get as much money as he could and take off for the Broken. He tried to lie and tell me he did it for us and that he was going to convince me to come with him, but I could tell he was lying. It was always about the money. It was never about me.”
“What did you do?” William asked. She couldn’t tell by his voice what he thought about the whole thing.
She grinned. “Well, he wanted to go to the Broken. Kaldar and me, we put him in a sack and took him down through the boundary. Kaldar stole a car, and we drove him down to New Orleans, to the big city, and left him, sack and all, on the courthouse steps. The Broken is a funny place. They really don’t like it when you show up there with no ID.” She tilted her face up. “Would it bother you if I’d killed him?”
He looked at her. She must’ve thawed a little, Cerise decided, because she had to force herself not to lift up and kiss him.
“No,” William said. “But I know it would bother you.”
She snuggled closer to him. “Your turn.”
“What?”
“Your turn to tell me a story about yourself.”
William looked away. “Why?”
“Because I told you mine and asked you nicely.”
William growled under his breath. Amber rolled over his eyes and vanished. How in the world hadn’t she put two and two together before?
“There was a girl,” he said. “I met her in the Edge. I liked her. I did everything right. I said all the smooth things, but it didn’t work. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t. I guess, she didn’t need another fixer-upper in her life. She had two brothers to take care of, so she went off with my best friend. It was good for her. He’s steady, and he always knows the right thing to do and does it.”
She winced. “You’re not a fixer-upper.”
He bared his teeth. “Don’t kid yourself. You saw me this morning.”
Cerise took a deep breath. “Do you like me the way you liked that girl?”
“No.”