He watches me steadily. Overhead, the sun is rising. He takes a bite of his own bread. “We’ll spend the day here so you and Myst can sleep, then return to the forest road tomorrow.”
“How considerate,” I mumble around a mouthful. “I’m surprised you aren’t chomping at the bit to get back to your precious master.”
He doesn’t take the bait. I wish he would—I’d rather have his quips than his pity.
The silence is painful as my meal settles heavy in my stomach, giving me cramps as the morning stretches on. Wolf busies himself with sharpening his knives as I stew in my feelings until, finally, I yawn into my palm. Exhaustion has a way of dulling anger.
Wolf glances at the yawn, then clears his throat. “I’ve been patient, Sabine, but the time for games is over. You’re never running away—you get that now, don’t you? I’ll always catch you. Always. So, tell me your lover’s plan.”
His tone is a command I don’t dare deny, after watching how easily he killed a wildcat. Still, it’s hard to spill my secret. I wish I could keep Adan to myself for just one more day.
Swallowing a dry bite of bread, I vacillate on where to start.
“His—his name is Adan. He came to the convent to—to castrate the goats,” I explain in fits and starts, feeling exposed under Wolf’s scrutiny, like a butterfly splayed on a mounting board. “He was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.”
Under duress, I tell Wolf the story of how Adan and I met. He didn’t have old Mr. Porter’s decades of experience, and the baby goats caused such a fuss that Sister Rose called me in to use my godkiss to convince the animals to submit to him. Together, Adan and I tended to each of the sixteen goats. I would hold them and whisper reassurances while he heated his knife. By the third goat, we knew each other’s names. By the sixth, each other’s greatest fears. By the sixteenth, I was ready to run away with him.
Adan told me about his huge, chaotic, but loving family. About his desire to study the healing arts. About his dream to see the ocean. He said there are port towns where no one cares where you’re from or who you are. His eldest brother made a good living in the shipping business, and Adan promised we could stay with him and his wife until Adan found work.
“I’ll come back for you, Sabine,” he said, stashing his knife among the tall grass behind the kidding barn.“One week from now, under the pretense of looking for my knife that I must have left behind. Be ready.”
His plan was for us to make our way to the port town of Salensa, borrow money from his brother, and then arrange for a third party to buy Myst. But the next day, my father’s letter arrived ordering the Sisters to prepare me for marriage to Lord Rian.
Right before they locked me away, I managed to get a bird to take a message to Adan. The bird returned a note back, which a beetle smuggled into my room through a crack. It read: At Middleford, escape your guard and ride east. Follow the signs to the Old Innis Mill. I’ll wait for you there, my love.
“So that’s where I was going,” I finish in a small voice. “To the Old Innis Mill. From there, Adan knew backroads to get us to Salensa.”
When I finish the story, Wolf looks disgusted. Well, it isn’t surprising that someone like him isn’t into love stories. He probably likes tales of soldiers dying in bloody, gruesome battles.
My body shudders with exhaustion, and I can’t suppress my yawn. Wolf’s expression shifts, and he rolls out the blanket near the fire. He nudges it lightly with his toe.
“You should sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to tie my wrists?”
“No. I don’t intend to close my eyes.”
The truth is, I’m so tired that even my bones are singing for the blanket. I stretch out between Wolf and the fire, dragging one side of the blanket around my shoulders. Immediately, the weight of fatigue sinks over me.
“Good night, Basten,” I mutter.
It’s midmorning, and I don’t know why I called him by his real name, but I’m too tired to hunt for the right words.
He pauses a beat as though caught off guard at the sound of his own name—as though it reminds him of something he lost long ago. A second passes before he says softly, “Good night, Sabine.”
Chapter 10
Wolf
As Sabine dozes next to me, I keep rehashing how she swooned over that idiot goatherd. The most beautiful boy she’s ever seen? I groan up toward the trees. May the gods kill me right now. She’s been locked in a convent for twelve years—he’s the only boy she’s seen. If all it takes for Sabine Darrow to fall in love is a couple of hours with some idiot, then by that logic, after a few days together she must be fucking head over heels for me.
But she’s not. She hates everything about me.
I don’t blame her. All I’ve done is force her across half of Astagnon while men ogle her. And make her sleep on the ground. Oh, and break the neck of her latest four-legged friend. Though to be fair, it was either me or the wildcat.
At least it’s clear nothing happened between her and the goatherd, not even an innocent peck. That boy really is a dolt. If I had Sabine Darrow ready and willing in some goat shed, I’d do a hell of a lot more than daydream about the goddamn ocean . . .
Shit. I really need to stop thinking like this.
Beside me, Sabine mumbles something incoherent in her sleep. She tosses, knocking the blanket off her feet. Her expression contorts like she’s having a bad dream, and it’s all I can do not to stroke the loose hair off her face and hope it helps her sleep.
I’m so damn proud of my little violet. I know she’s disappointed that her escape failed, but she doesn’t realize just how far she made it. She did better than anyone would have dreamed a sheltered noblewoman could: Covering Myst in mud, sticking to the stream, staying downwind to hide her scent, setting the wildcat as a trap. Not to mention fighting me tooth and nail. I wonder if Rian knows what a headstrong girl he bought himself. Will he like a feisty bride? If she were mine, I’d goad her just so she would writhe underneath me again, her cheeks flushed pink and that fire in her eyes . . .
Shit. Shit. Knock that off, Wolf.
Sabine curls into a ball, cold without a blanket on her feet. She tosses again in her sleep, this time rolling up against me. When her arm brushes my leg, she wiggles closer like she’s a deathrattle snake in search of warmth.
My breath stills. I could replace the blanket around her feet, but then she might not stay curled against me. And I really, really like the weight of Sabine Darrow at my side. Far more than I should.
Watching her sleep is such a goddamn tender scene that my chest feels too tight to breathe.
Briefly, I close my eyes. Is this what it’s like to have a woman? I’ve only ever known whores and the occasional courtesan who will deign to sleep with the Valveres’ huntsman. All those times, we sure as hell weren’t sleeping soundly. But there is something so damn intoxicating about just being in Sabine’s presence. I don’t care that she’ll never be mine to take to bed. Being near her is enough.