by Aldrea Alien
“What part, exactly? The multiple partners or that one of them is a man?” He caught her smirking in the measly firelight. “Or does being an elf override what’s in our smallclothes?”
He gawped at her. By the gods, not her as well. Why did everyone think he cared whether or not the people he slept with had pointed ears?
“You wouldn’t be the first to believe that just because he’s elven, it doesn’t count as being with a man,” Authril added.
“No, it’s not—” He fumbled to find the right words whilst gabbling incoherently. “I-I’ve been with a great deal of humans, too, thank you.” He listened to the words pouring out his mouth and groaned. “That came out wrong. I mean, the bigger percentage of women I’ve lain with, which is not a massive amount overall, have been human… And that wasn’t much better, was it?” He flopped onto the ground, his arms spread. “Just bury me here, if you please. I think I’ve dug the hole deep enough.” If he kept this up, he was going to hit bedrock.
“Is it just women you’ve lain with? You are intimate with the hound, are you not? Or was that merely Tracker stirring the pot?”
Dylan sat up. “N—” The denial was almost out his mouth before he could stop to think. Strange how, even after what’d transpired, he so readily reached for the lie. Professing that he hadn’t slept with Tracker was almost as bad as denying he found the hound attractive. “I have been, yes. And I’m sorry.”
Her nose scrunched in confusion. “What for?”
He thought she’d be rather more upset than this, especially finding out the way that she did. Everything he’d ever read suggested that people outside the tower took a dim view on the casual way intimacy was handled within the walls. “You’re taking this remarkably easy, considering we’re…”
“What? Lovers?” She shook her head, a small laugh curving her lips. “Tracker was right, the bastard. We didn’t have any agreement that it’d be just us. Even then, I’m just a soldier and you’re a spellster who’s destined to be leashed. I enjoy your company, but we could never be more than friends.”
He grunted. “It’s good to hear I won’t lose your friendship over this.” He’d already lost so many things. Bowing his head, he went to stand and begin his first circuit of the camp. “Sleep well.”
Authril grabbed his arm. “Since you do consider me as a friend,” she said, her voice pitched low. “Can I say I’m concerned about you?”
Dylan resumed sitting with a thump. “Me?”
“You’re sleeping with a man who has been trained from birth to hunt your kind. To kill them if they prove troublesome. We only encountered him because he was doing his job. He even had a dagger to your throat. Don’t you see anything wrong with all of that?”
“Track wouldn’t have hurt me.” At least, he hoped that was so. “He thought I was responsible for the missing women.” The hound had already admitted his error, why was she pushing the issue?
She stared up at him, her gaze piercing even in the low light. “Tell me truthfully: Is he forcing you to bed him?”
Dylan laughed. “You know, he asked me the same thing about you the night we left Oldmarsh.”
She raised a querying brow at him.
“No! It—” The first time had been a bit of a shock, granted, but… “It’s most definitely not like that.”
“I see.” There was a coldness to the words. And sharp, like a jagged piece of ice. “I’ll admit I am a little pissed, but not at you. Not as much as I am at him.” She sneered at the tent. “I told the bastard not to touch you.” Her brows lowered, knitting together. “How long has it been going on?”
He ducked his head, hoping the light was dim enough to hide his burning cheeks. “Since the tower.”
She swore. The words were hushed and garbled, but most definitely not ones to use in polite company. Taking a deep breath, the warrior stood. “I’ll leave you to your watch.”
Dylan waited until she disappeared into the tent for some time before beginning his check of the perimeter. His mind would not stop buzzing, dividing his focus between the task at hand and how he was going to deal with everyone knowing, of everyone having seen him naked.
His watch proved rather less eventful than Authril’s. He spent much of it gathering bits of wood for the fire. When the time came to wake Katarina, he stuck his head into the tent the women shared, taking great pains to only disturb the hedgewitch.
Dylan paced outside the tent whilst he waited for her to emerge. He barely gave her time to be properly orientated to their new surroundings before turning on his heel. He’d taken a handful of steps, when Katarina spoke.
“If I may have a word with you before you depart?”
“Not you too,” he groaned, slowly facing her. “Look, I don’t want to talk to everyone about my…” His tongue moved silently as he fought to come up with a suitable word. “My—”
“Relationships?” the hedgewitch helpfully suggested.
His blood went cold hearing the word. That was perhaps the complete opposite end of what he’d been thinking. “My sex life,” he finally mumbled.
Katarina gestured for him to follow as she made her way to the fireside. “Authril said you two have been—”
“Authril said?” he blurted. “So my sex life is the stuff of gossip now?” Bad enough everything else had happened, now they were discussing it as if his actions were worthy of idle chatter? This is what I get for not dealing with it sooner.
“She’s concerned about you. You wouldn’t have been in the best emotional state back at the tower and for the hound to choose then to instigate intimacy…” She trailed off, but he knew exactly what she was getting at.
“It was nothing new. He’d been attempting it practically since we met.”
“But for you to concede then looks—”
“I know what it looks like,” he muttered under his breath. “But he never forced me to creep into his tent every night for the past two weeks.” His face grew hot as the admission slipped out. Speaking with Authril had been different. It didn’t feel right divulging this sort of information to the hedgewitch, but maybe now that she knew the truth of how much of a whore he was, she’d leave him alone.
Katarina’s brows shot up, twisting the top half of the scar on her face. “That was not the impression Authril gave, but—” Her sigh carried a rather unnerving amount of relief. “Even if manipulating you had been his goal, then I think he might’ve fallen into his own trap. The way he looks at you…”
Dylan frowned. Marin had said the same thing not long after they left the tower. “What’s that supposed to mean?” How did the way Tracker look at him make any difference? “He looks at me the same way everyone else here does.” He’d been checking ever since the hunter mentioned it and hadn’t caught any change in the man’s expressions that the others seemed to notice.
Katarina clapped her hand over her mouth, a muffled giggle escaping her fingers. “You poor blind man.” She gave his shoulder an affectionate pat. “You haven’t noticed, have you?” Smiling softly, she shook her head to one side. “No, I suppose not.” The dwarf tilted her head. “Tell me, what exactly do you call this thing between the two of you? Is it serious?”
“S-serious?” He swallowed. “It… it’s not… We—” Us. The way Tracker spoke the word echoed in his mind. What were they? He took in Katarina’s smirk, the knowing glitter in her eyes. “What?”
“Well, ever since we started for Wintervale, he has… changed. He seems more at ease when you’re near. I thought it was just because of what we found in the tower and him wanting to ensure your safety, but—”
“He’s just concerned for my wellbeing,” Dylan said in a breathless rush. He had noticed a few changes since they’d captured that bandit, a sort of enhanced interest in Dylan’s safety, which had only grown since Whitemeadow. Tracker was likely unaware of what he did. “He’s only doing what the hounds are trained to do. Keep me safe. Get me where I need to be.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt of that,
but I think there’s rather more to it.”
What more could there possibly be? Dylan gasped. Surely not. “You think he’s…?” He let the sentence trail off, not daring to finish it. By the gods. She thought Tracker had feelings for him. Dylan shook his head. The hedgewitch was wrong on that front, misinterpreting the man’s change in his demeanour towards Dylan for something deeper. If there was any such thing happening, it was because the hound had been getting practically nightly attention between the tower and Whitemeadow. “It’s just some mindless fun,” he mumbled. “That’s what he said.”
She hummed consideringly, tapping her lips with a forefinger. “Do you think he said it to convince you, or himself?”
Dylan opened his mouth, ready to explain, then shut it. Seeing the smug certainty on her face, he could almost believe she spoke the truth. What if she did? The question meandered through his mind, scattering his thoughts like a mouser amongst its prey. His chest tightened.
Katarina clasped his arms. Concern creased her brow. “Are you all right? You’ve gone pale.”
He wet his lips, trying to work the words up his throat. “Providing you’re right, what would I do with such knowledge?” He’d never given even the thought any contemplation before. Never had a reason to. What did people normally do when faced with the notion? “Go all out and profess my feelings for him?” A ridiculous idea.
She smiled up at him and patted his arm. “It’s not my area of expertise, but I suppose what you did would depend entirely on what your feelings are.”
“I don’t—” His voice broke before he could stop it. He’d meant the words in jest, but she seemed serious. Strange, the thought that someone believed feeling something so… intimate for him was a possibility. A little too surreal to be true. Spellsters and love didn’t mix. Expressing any great level of affection towards your friends had been risky if showed wrong, being in love was dangerous. It led to mistakes, to pain. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should think on it.”
Dylan watched her disappear into the bushes to check the perimeter, his vision blurring. Whatever Katarina thought was going on between Tracker and him, she was wrong. He was a weapon. A thing. The lieutenant back at the army camp had the right of that. Dylan might be considered as being a little rarer now, but he was no less discardable once his usefulness had run out.
People did not fall in love with things.
Rolling onto his back, Dylan cracked an eye open and stared at the tent roof. Dawn. He rocked his head to one side, half expecting to find Authril lying next to him, that somehow the whole night had been nothing but another dream.
But there was the hound, still asleep at his side and wearing somewhat less than he’d been when Dylan returned to the tent after his watch.
Voices drifted in from outside. Incoherent, but clearly that of the women. All three of them. Judging by the light leaking through the canvas, it seemed the hound and himself had slept in. Wonderful. As if showing his face wasn’t going to be difficult enough.
Dylan sat up and shook the man’s shoulder, the bare skin under his palm was almost scorching. When had Tracker undressed? And just how little was the hound wearing? “Track?”
The elf’s russet brows drew together. Groaning, Tracker scrunched his nose. “Five more minutes,” he mumbled, batting Dylan’s hand away.
“You’ve had more than enough rest.” He redoubled his efforts, rolling the hound onto his back and out from under the blankets. Gods, he’s naked. Well, that certainly wasn’t going to make things any easier to explain if one of the women poked their head in here. “And why do you have no clothes on?” At least the man wasn’t also erect.
Tracker propped himself up on his elbows, shooting Dylan an indignant look. “I was hot. What? Am I expected to spend the night sweating in my undergarments? Because I would vastly prefer not to.”
Dylan was almost about to apologise, when another thought came to mind. “You’ve slept clothed before.” He recalled quite vividly how the man always had to disrobe whenever Dylan paid one of his nocturnal visits. And not just his smallclothes.
“Yes, but it is quite a bit warmer in here with company.” His gaze ran over Dylan. “Especially when said company opts to sleep in everything bar his cloak. At least you took your boots off this time.”
Warmth flooded his cheeks. “Just hurry up and get dressed,” he mumbled. “Everyone will be waiting for you.” With that, Dylan tugged on his boots and slunk out of the tent.
All three women sat around the campfire, eating. As a unit, they glanced up at his appearance then, one by one, their gazes dropped back to their food.
Although his flushed cheeks would’ve vastly preferred he returned to the tent, his grumbling stomach drove him onwards. He settled between Authril and Katarina, his movements decidedly wooden. The hedgewitch wordlessly handed him a thick cut of bread and a slab of cheese.
Dylan frowned at the food. He was pretty sure they’d already exhausted the supply of cheese Tracker had bought from Whitemeadow. No doubt, this had been liberated from last night’s bandits. That also possibly explained the little bottle of brown liquid Marin was currently drinking.
“I would’ve thought Tracker would be awake by now,” Katarina said. “He’s usually the first one up.”
“Maybe he had a hard night,” Marin quipped, giving Dylan a wink. “We should let him sleep it off. What do you think, Dylan?”
“He’s awake,” he replied, trying to keep his head down and ignore the knowing smirk on the hunter’s face. Damn it. If he’d just been able to keep it in his smallclothes for a few more days…
Grumbling under his breath, he distractedly picked at the bread until it was little more than a mess of doughy crumbs. It was a little too fresh feeling for it to be from their own stock. More pickings from the dead?
A rather unwelcome quiet fell over the camp as they chewed. There were the normal sounds of the forest, the birds whistled their morning songs, the insects chirped and buzzed, the trees creaked…
The only sound issuing from their camp came in the form of the occasional gulp.
Dylan put aside the rest of his breakfast, his stomach no longer eager to stuff itself. Shit. He stood and stalked off towards the undergrowth with the intention of relieving himself, his passage taking him past the tent he shared with Tracker. This awkwardness was his fault. If he’d just been using his brain instead of thinking with…
Well, he hadn’t and this was what he’d be dealing with until they reached Wintervale. Or possibly Riverton. He might not be able to avoid travelling with Tracker or Authril, but they could go on without the others. He’d just have to risk whether or not the hound’s mistress believed the truth without a hedgewitch’s testimony that he was at least in the scouting party. What proof did they have that anyone would even believe her?
“Good morning, my dear women,” Tracker said.
Dylan turned as the hound’s words were greeted with a shriek from Marin.
Tracker stood just outside the tent wearing not a stitch of clothing. Grinning, the man stretched. One eye cracked open, seemingly ensuring the trio got a decent look, before sauntering over to where the waterskins sat. “Hope you all had a pleasant sleep in your cramped little tent.” Picking up one of the skins, he poured a great deal of water over his face.
Dylan’s gaze followed the water trickling down the hound’s front. Swallowing, he swiftly turned his attention elsewhere.
“Track…” Marin said, the word muffled with her face buried in her hands. “Look, I’m sure it’s very impressive, if you go for that sort of thing. But I have already seen way too much sausage in the space of a day so, for gods’ sake, put on some clothes.”
“I must say,” Katarina added. “Those tattoos do sort of lead the eye downwards, don’t they?”
The hound grinned. It might have been Dylan’s imagination, but there seemed to be a hint of wavering uncertainty in the corners of his mouth. Such doubt was wiped clean by the faint quiver in
the man’s laughter. “It was never my original intention, my dear hedgewitch, but the overall effect is quite striking, yes?”
“That it is and I would very much to discuss the reasoning behind some of them, but at a later date. Why don’t you put some clothes on for now, before you catch a cold?”
Sniggering, Tracker marched past Dylan on his way back to their tent. “You feel a little better now, yes?” the hound whispered. “Because if there is anyone else I need to flash, do let me know.”
Dylan chuckled. Oddly enough, seeing the hound a little nervous about exposing himself to their companions did much to settle the queasiness in his gut. “I’m good.”
“Then go eat.” He thrust his chin towards the camp fire. “Healing yourself last night must have taken something out of you.”
By the time Dylan had finished relieving himself, Tracker was dressed and had settled next to where Marin sat on the opposite side of the fire to the others. The man accepted breakfast with little more than a courteous nod as Dylan returned to his previous spot.
“So,” Marin drawled. “You and Dylan.” She nudged the hound. “How long has that been going on?”
Dylan frowned. He’d been under the impression that Authril had spoken to both women during his time on watch last night. If she didn’t know the answer, then clearly that wasn’t so.
Tracker smiled at the hunter. “Dear woman, I would never kiss and tell.”
Since when? Although the man uttered only the names of dead people, bar Treasure, that didn’t stop Tracker from mentioning his past exploits.
“Been doing a whole lot more than kissing, I would say,” Katarina murmured.
The hound smirked at her over his shoulder. “And what would you know of the subject, my dear hedgewitch?”
“Far more than you think,” the dwarf replied, smiling. “Just because I’ve no desire to do it doesn’t mean I don’t know how it’s done.” She cocked her brow at him. “Or that I haven’t done it. Purely for academic reasons.”