by V. K. Ludwig
Max stroked his hand over her tummy and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “I mean a purpose beyond those things.”
“They’re coming back,” Ayanna mumbled, scattering our looks across the event.
Rowan pointed at Autumn, his eyes squinted and his forehead in lines. “You’re not going on the lake like that, right?”
“No worries, I won’t let her,” Max said. “But let me assure you she put up a fight when I told her it’s too risky.”
“Nothing ever happens with my sister that doesn’t include a good fight,” he chuckled, then his face turned grim, and his gaze darted across the many clansmen who had assembled for the event. “Anyway, have fun while it lasts.”
He walked away and headed toward his wife Darya, who pulled their daughter Rose on a makeshift sled across the snow.
I gave Adair a questioning stare. “Why did he sound as if he’s expecting trouble?”
He brushed his hair back into the bun on top of his head and rearranged his scarf. “There’s always trouble when everyone comes together. It’s difficult for some men to see all the women, married couples and the kiddos. Reminds them of what they will likely never have. Add a couple of beers to it or a big jug of mead and… well, you got trouble.”
He sat down on a large piece of driftwood which protruded frozen from the edge of the lake, pulled off his boots and stomped his feet into his pair of ice skates.
“Well…” I released a sharp breath and gave everyone around me a quick wave. “Guess I won’t get around it, so I better go get it out of the way.”
I sat on the ground, inches away from the ice, and let my feet slip into the large ice skates. Then I rolled onto all fours and pushed myself up, flailing my hands in circles by my side until I found my balance.
Before I stepped onto the ice, Adair stacked four plastic crates on top of each other and tied them together with strings of rope.
“Check this out.” He gave a shove, and the plastic edge moved gracefully across the surface. “My dad made us one of those when he taught us. Just hold on to it, and I’ll take the other side and stabilize it for you.”
He grabbed the corners and led it toward me, a bright-eyed look on his face.
I leaned over slightly and held on to the edge, balancing one skate on the slick surface. “I don’t know, Adair. There’s so much going on here, and everyone’s all over the place, and the kids are screaming, and —”
“Hey. Look at me!” He leaned in closer. The moment his blue eyes locked with mine, a curious flutter settled inside my stomach. “I might not be able to hold you, but trust me when I say that I got you, okay?”
“Mmh… okay.”
I dragged the other blade onto the ice, my knees wobbling as soon as he pulled the crate gently into motion.
He gifted me one of those sincere smiles he didn’t often show outside of our home. “See, it’s not nearly as difficult. Try to keep your blades straight and level with the ice, and don’t let your legs turn too stiff or you’ll struggle with the ridges on the ice.”
“What ridges?”
Cha-clunk.
A vibration swayed my calves.
I threw myself against the crate, my legs tense, and my fingers digging into the diamond-weave of the brittle plastic.
“Eaaasy,” Adair whispered. “Loosen up those legs, or you’ll land with your ass on the ice at the very next one. I can already see it coming.”
“I wish you could hold me.”
“Well, yeah…” He leaned forward, his fingers shoving inside his gloves. “You realize I can’t, or I’d have my hands all over you already.”
“Stop distracting me.” Familiar longing swirled up inside of me, adding trembling knees to my already shaky stance. “How come you’re gliding backward without turning around, and I can’t even manage to keep my balance?”
“Because I’ve done this all my childhood.”
The sound of metal scratching across the frozen lake surrounded us, but each man, woman, and child passing by was nothing but a blurred outline in the corners of my eyes. Adair’s cheerful face was the only thing I could focus on, along with the way his eyes sparkled as he pulled me across the surface.
“Faster?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s close enough to a yes.”
He swung his legs behind him, one after another, putting on speed and guiding me across the ice. The more my mouth turned upward, the more his eyes brightened. At that moment, I wanted to be close to him, and the fear of the consequences barely held me back.
Or perhaps it didn’t hold me back at all, because Rowan’s angry voice bellowed from somewhere at the edge of the lake. “Six fucking feet, Adair!”
Adair startled and gave a shove against the crates, throwing me off-balance.
Cha-clunk.
Another ridge, ripping the icy ground from underneath me. My eyes squinted at the sun and the occasional cloud in my brief state of zero-gravity. One sputtered breath later, a clonk resounded inside my head, and a dull pressure spread across the back of my skull.
“Ruth!” Adair’s voice called out.
After that came a silence.
Silence and the sensation of gritty snow rubbing against my cheeks, the ice crystals scraping along my skin.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Fingers snapped inches from my nose. “Can you hear me? Please say something!”
“Ouch!”
He gave a shaky laugh, concern still furrowing his brows. “You can say that out loud! Damn it. I am so sorry, Ruth, I shouldn’t have gone faster.”
I rubbed my wet gloves across my eyes and kept them shut for a moment. “This is so embarrassing. Can you help me up please?”
His answer took longer than I liked, and came with nothing short of agony lining his face. “You know I can’t, but Hazel is already running over. She’ll make sure you’re alright.”
“What a fucking shitbag you are,” came from behind me. “Goes around acting all tough but can’t even keep this girl safe from his own stupidity.”
The more I tilted my head back, the more the source of the voice came into view. Fists clenched by his sides, an upside-down Uncle Peter stood behind me, his lips shoving and pouting.
My eyes darted to Adair, anxiety swirling up inside my stomach.
He shook his head, slowly and deliberately, his eyes wide. “I really don’t think this is a good time for it. How about you wait until —”
“This is the perfect time for it, considering you just let one of the few women we got hit the ice. What kind of guard does that?”
“Alright then.” Adair took a deep breath, worked himself onto the metal blades of his skates, and cocked his head. “You’ve got a problem with how I’m doing my job?”
Uncle Peter skillfully skated around me and moved the tension a few feet away.
I pushed myself up to sit. “Adair!”
“No, you stay there.” He gestured me to stay down. “You’re safe. Don’t worry.”
I didn’t worry. At least not about myself. Though the unexpected tone of Uncle Peter had me rattled. He had never talked like that before…
From afar, Rowan and Hazel hurried to the lake, their boots inching across the slick surface. Women and children either kept their distance or left the lake, while most men stopped their doing and watched us with their arms crossed in front of their chests.
“Ben was right at the store,” Uncle Peter continued. “What makes you so special that you get to be her guard, while I and the other men go empty-handed? How about you hand her over to me? At least I would have made sure she doesn’t get hurt on the ice.”
“Oh, you think you’re better than me?”
“Did she let you fuck her?”
Uncle Peter’s question drained the blood from my veins and replaced it with an easily-forgotten truth: out here, a woman was only as strong as the men who protected her.
Adair’s nostrils flared up. “What? No! You need to pump the brake be
fore —”
“If Rowan would have assigned me as her guard, I bet I’d have my child in her belly by now, and she’d still beg for more.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!”
“She’d suck me day and night because she’d know I’ll keep her safe. But Rowan didn’t make me her guard, did he?” Uncle Peter snorted and swung his fists onto his hips. “He assigned you arrogant prick, and that’s a fucking waste of a fine woman, considering she won’t let you claim her. You know why that is?”
Adair’s chest heaved. “Why?”
Uncle Peter thrust his wiry chest out and let his metal blades glide toward Adair until the only thing separating them was the malicious sneer on his face. “Because she knows you’re not good enough for her.”
“Shut your mouth!” Adair shoved against Uncle Peter’s chest who slid backward by a couple of feet. “She belongs to me. Okay? She’s mine, and now you better back the fuck up before —”
“Before what?” a guy snarled from the edge of the crowd, his lips pulled back and his teeth flashing. “You don’t know it yet, but you’re on the losing side here, boy. And once that’s been remedied, we’ll find that girl here a proper man.”
Uncle Peter pressed his lips together and glanced around uneasily, picking up his fists and dropping them as if his mind debated over what to do next.
All the while, the blood inside my veins seemed to freeze, but the sensation of it had nothing on the chill of Adair’s look — a mismatched blend of pride and shame and fury.
“Ehh…” Uncle Peter stammered. “What does she want with a guy like you anyway? You’re nothing but a fucking jerk, Adair. You know what Ruth needs? A guy who can show her a good time, instead of letting her hit her head on the ice.”
I glanced around for help, but most people had left the lake and observed from a safe distance by the edge. Rowan’s shouts hollered louder with each second, but not yet close enough to cut through the hostile air choking on my neck.
From there, it all went fast.
Adair let out a paralyzing shout. He kicked his blade against Uncle Peters ankle, who pulled back his leg and flailed for balance. The guy’s punch came as fast as it came unexpected, and Adair let out a breathless oomph while the fist ground against his ribs.
“No!” my scream catapulted from the back of my throat without consent, leaving behind a taste of fear and desperation.
Uncle Peter’s eyes darted between Adair and that guy, his lips tightly pressed together and with a jitter on his leg. He pressed his eyes shut, bent his knees, then throw himself against Adair full force, throwing them both onto the rock-hard ground.
“Stop this insanity!” Rowan shouted, only feet away from intervention.
“Help him!” came out of me, my worry for Adair so palpable in those two words, the taste brought me to the edge of unconsciousness.
“Help him?” Rowan bellowed. “He’s killing Peter!”
My head swung around. The other guy was gone. But there in front of me, Adair sat on top of Uncle Peter, punching his fist against his jaw with such force, I feared it might go right through him.
Blood splattered onto the frozen surface of Wolf Lake, forming little veins as it traveled across the ice.
“Stop it!” Rowan shouted.
Adair let out a scream, then picked up his fist once more.
Two seconds later, he dangled from Rowan’s arms which he held tightly wrapped around Adair’s neck.
Hazel threw herself onto her knees and slid those final few inches toward me. “Are you okay?”
“He’s choking him!”
Hazel didn’t bother turning around to look. Instead, she gave a quick snort and flashed a bright light into my eyes. “He’s just getting him to calm down. Once they get into a fight, it’s hard for some to keep it together and they go all out. Are you nauseous?”
I shook my head, watching how Adair scrambled onto all fours, coughing, and heaving and struggling for air. A mix of spit and saliva drooled over the edge of Uncle Peter’s lips, dripping onto the ground and speckling the lake.
“This was fucking amazing,” Rowan whispered with a huge grin on his face, but it still didn’t measure up with my confusion.
“This sure looked realistic,” he went on. “Though I gotta say, I’m not sure that punch was necessary, Adair. I’ll stop by later, and we’ll discuss it all.”
Adair struggled himself onto his feet. Then he pointed at me, his voice hoarse and depleted. “Get in the truck! I’m taking you home.”
Chapter 12
Adair
“What do you mean with this was all staged?” Ruth grabbed the towel-wrapped ice cubes from the coffee table, lifted my shirt and let the freezing cold press against my ribs.
A paralyzing sensation crept across my skin and penetrated into my side, numbing the throbbing pain. Never did I expect Uncle Peter might pack a punch like that.
“Remember the day Rowan had us meet at the graveyard?” I asked, and waited until she pulled her knees against her chest and gave a nod. “He persuaded me to get into a fight with Uncle Peter, so he can infiltrate whatever group is plotting against him.”
“So… you made me fall on purpose?”
“What? No! It was an accident, and I already told you I’m sorry. This was just terrible timing, but I guess Uncle Peter saw it as the best opportunity and did as Rowan commanded.”
She flipped the towel and placed the other side back onto my skin. “Well, Rowan was right. It looked very realistic.”
I stared down at my side where a cluster of tiny red dots spread from underneath the towel, turning more and more purple each second I looked at it. More painful, too!
“Nothing I can’t handle. It’s just a bruise.”
“I wasn’t so much talking about you,” she said, a hint of criticism lining her tone. “The way you attacked Uncle Peter with no restraint… and the blood…”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“It’s not that.” She gestured me to press the towel against my body. Then shoved herself all the way to the other end of the couch, pulled her knees against her chest once more, and wrapped them tightly in her arms. “Was it necessary to beat him up like that? It’s just that… I don’t know… the rage in your eyes and the things you said about how I am yours. It made me feel… weird.”
The paralyzing numbness climbed through my ribs and into my core as if Ruth had caught on to something I hoped didn’t exist.
Truth was, I spent the past hour wondering how much of my performance was staged… and how much real. Way too real. Fuck. The twitching along my tendons when I leaned over Uncle Peter was so damn real, I knew better than to tell Ruth the truth. Chances were she’d fear our intimate arrangement created a sense of claim inside me. Or worse, she might assume I was falling for her.
The muscles around my heart clenched. Luckily, a knock on the door and the shuffle of feet ripped me out of my thoughts, and released my chest from this unwelcome sensation.
Ruth shook her head as if she had to rid herself of her own cloud of thoughts, marched over to the door and let Rowan step inside. Uncle Peter followed right behind him, his jaw purple and puffy and far worse than I had expected.
“Mind if we sit down?” Rowan asked and pointed at the three-seater across from me.
The springs on the couch screeched when Uncle Peter let himself fall deep into the cushion. He swung his legs onto the coffee table, one foot crossed above the other, making an unfinished game of chess vibrate under the movement.
“Make sure you don’t move the pieces.” I pointed at my queen. “There’s still a chance I’ll win this one.”
“No, there isn’t,” Ruth said with a smirk on her face and sat back down, bringing feet between us that felt a whole lot like miles to me.
“I’ve got good news and bad ones.” Rowan sat down and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his thighs. “Good ones first. Adair, you did not break Uncle Peter’s jaw, and Hazel said the molar
that now wiggles will root itself back down. Get where I’m going here?”
He eyed me like the pointy end of a knife, his brows bumping at the center of his forehead, and his foot tapping an impatient beat.
I looked over to Uncle Peter, who held his palm against his temple as if compressing a migraine, his gaze everywhere but on me.
“I’m sorry I lost control out there,” I mumbled.
Rowan swung his hand behind his ear and cocked his head. “Sorry… couldn’t quite catch that. You were saying?”
I took a deep breath. “I said I’m sorry, okay? But he punched me first.”
“I had to make it look realistic!” Uncle Peter shouted.
“Well so did I! You went way overboard with what you said. Talking about Ruth like that with other people around. Where did you pick up that kind of talk, anyway? Is that how you spent your time while you were alone out there?”
He turned his head as far as his spine allowed him and let the couch swallow him half, his fingers pulling the chaffed skin on his lower lip. “I’m not proud of it, okay?”
“We didn’t come to talk about past regrets.” The moment Rowan had spoken those words, there was nothing left behind but an uncomfortable silence, the tick of the wall clock the only thing making it bearable.
“It’s no secret I ran with the wrong crowd for a while,” Uncle Peter continued, his voice ragged and his gaze in a place that was nowhere near this room. Then he shook his head and looked at Ruth. “I’m sorry for the things I said in front of you, but I hope you understand why I didn’t have another choice.”
She gave him a sad smile. “I figured something wasn’t right. You’ve always been kind and good before that.”
“Ha…” Uncle Peter’s laugh trailed off quicker than it had blurted out of him. “There’s nothing kind about me, and certainly nothing good.”
“You want me to call in a shrink?” Rowan asked and let his gaze flick upward. “Feels like a group meeting for the deplorable here, and I haven’t even dropped the bad news yet.”
I took the ice cubes off my side, stood up and reached it to Uncle Peter, who took it with a dip of his head and shoved it against his jaw.