by Imogen Sera
There were far more people than she’d expected, and they each looked like the man who’d snatched her in the night. A few were seated on the ground, but some were just hunched over meat, eating viciously. Every single one was nude, and she stilled as she took in the sight. There was something beastly about the way they were seated—the way they were eating—and she felt tiny and mortal and human compared to them in a way that she’d never felt at the palace.
A warm hand on her arm made her gasp and jump, and she turned to see Tate directly in front of her. He was clothed, she was relieved to see, and he held her arm and guided her to a nearby boulder, and then helped her perch atop it. She was pleased to be far from the other men, but couldn’t keep from watching them. There was something deeply unsettling about it.
“What is this?” she breathed as he sat next to her, and then turned to face him with wide eyes. “Who are these people?”
He shook his head and avoided her gaze. “Dragons. Not people,” he said. “This is the Dark Ash Tribe.”
“I’ve lived with dragons for over a year,” she said, shaking her head. “At the palace. I’ve never seen anyone like this.”
He looked at her strangely. “You live with men,” he said. “Men who can shift forms, but men nonetheless. They eat and sleep and live as men. The members of this tribe live as we were meant to—as dragons.”
“Is there a difference?” she asked.
He shrugged. “They certainly seem to think so.”
“Why do they eat as men, then?” she asked, pointing toward the campfire. “If they refuse to do anything else that way?”
He focused on the smoking mountain in the distance as he spoke quietly. “Game has been scarce,” he said. “They aren’t pleased by it, but better one beast that can feed ten men than ten beasts to feed one dragon.”
She turned her sharp gaze on him. “Why are you here?”
He raised his eyebrows slightly at her question, but didn’t say anything.
“Why are Juliette and I here, then?” she asked, sighing. “It hardly seems fair for me to not know.”
Tate was silent for a moment, and enough time passed that she thought he would ignore that question, too. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “He won’t explain his reasons.”
She shuddered. After a pause, she finally found the question she wanted to ask. “Am I...safe here, at least?”
“I believe so,” he said. “As safe as you would be anywhere else.”
Her gaze was trained on the men across from the fire, each wearing skin they were uncomfortable in, each eating as much and as quickly as they could so that they could return to the form that could end her in a second—the form that they truly were.
“I’ve never felt like this at the palace,” she said quietly. “I’ve never felt so human. I know that they’re all capable of this too; anyone there could tire of me and shift and kill me before I would even know what what happening. But I’ve never felt the danger of it before.”
She could feel his gaze on her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the strange way the men were eating, their shapes distorted and stretched by the flames.
“I feel as if I’ve stumbled into a lion’s den,” she murmured, and then turned to him with a hopeful look. “I wish I was home. Please take us home?”
He wasn’t looking at her anymore; he was focused on the flames, as she’d been a moment before. “I don’t think so,” he said finally.
She didn’t know what to say, so she focused on her food silently. She wasn’t used to demanding things, or threatening people, or getting what she wanted. How much more convenient it would be, she thought wryly, if she were the injured one instead. Juliette knew how to get what she wanted.
She could feel Tate’s gaze on her as she pointedly looked away from him. She could feel the heat from him, too, even from under her cloak. She shouldn’t have enjoyed it, not when he refused to answer her questions, not when he had decided to be stubborn and useless. But she couldn’t help but feel a tiny thrill up her spine as he studied her face; she couldn’t help but feel heat pool low in her belly as she threw her hair over her shoulder and realized that her neck was bare to him.
The men across the fire were finishing eating, and one by one, each would rise from his seat, and move away from the group slightly before shifting and taking flight and swooping overhead. She glanced upward, pleased by the full moon, watching as it was repeatedly blocked from sight by different wings.
Eventually, she and Tate were the only ones left, so she stood from the rock on unsteady feet and turned to him. “Take us home,” she said. “Consider it, at least—please.”
She turned from him and walked back to the trail before he could answer, squinting at her feet through the darkness.
Juliette was warm when she returned, warmer than Elsie had expected to find her. She pressed a tentative hand to Juliette’s forehead and then balled her fists, feeling helpless and afraid and so, so alone.
Six
The long-haired man was grunting. Elsie knew it was him as she walked down the path; it was the same noise that had awoken her in her bedroom.
She’d awoken to her limbs tangled with Juliette’s, both of them having been unconsciously chasing any source of heat. Elsie had pressed a gentle hand against Juliette’s forehead; it didn’t burn as it had the night before. She took it as a good sign, determined to be optimistic, and then extricated herself from the pile of furs. She’d wrapped the fur-lined cloak around her shoulders, and then headed for the door, determined to get answers.
As she rounded the corner into the center of camp, she saw right away why the man was groaning. There was a large shackle around his ankle, so tight that his foot was crusted with blood. His blood had pooled into the rocky earth below him, and she could see how much pain it was causing him by how he tried to keep his foot off the ground.
He was seated, his legs as crossed as they could be, his head slumped forward and resting in his hands. Elsie’s stomach churned as she watched him, but he didn’t look up, didn’t do anything aside from his persistent groaning.
She watched him for a moment, silently, as he hadn’t yet noticed her. The sight was so pitiful, so familiar, that something rose up in her chest and she slipped back to the little cave where she’d slept. The pail of water she’d been provided was still half full and only had a thin layer of ice over the top. She grabbed that and a threadbare tunic from the ridiculous trunk of clothing, and before she could talk herself out of it, she trudged back out of the shelter, right to where the man was chained.
He saw her that time; she’d made sure of it with heavier footsteps, with the sloshing water in her pail. He watched her steadily as she approached, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She kept her eyes on her too-big shoes, trying to not stumble over the unfamiliar terrain.
She stopped when she stood in front of him. He was silent as he watched her, and she sighed inwardly at herself as she set down her pail. She didn’t know what she was going to do or what she wanted to do; she just knew that she couldn’t ignore that he was there.
“Hello,” she said quietly, after a long moment of silence.
He didn’t respond.
“I’m Elsie,” she began. “Maybe I can… help clean your foot? It looks painful.”
He remained silent, but inclined his head.
She chewed her lip and knelt in front of him. “Do you talk at all?” she asked finally. From the look of him, she wasn’t sure he could.
“Don’t like to,” he grunted. His voice was gravelly and deep, and it clearly hadn’t been used in a long time.
Elsie just nodded and turned her attention to the blood and dirt crusted foot in front of her. The shackle dug into his flesh, too tight for it to be adjusted in any way. Up close, she could see that he avoided putting weight on it. She frowned up at him, then glanced around.
There were several wooden pails next to the large fire pit in the middle of the camp, and when she approached, she was r
elieved to see them full of water. She lifted one with more effort than she would have imagined she needed, and carried it back to where the man stood.
“This is terrible,” she breathed, and chanced a glance up at him. “Why did they do this to you?”
He didn’t answer, so she didn’t press the issue. She didn’t have a scrap of cloth or anything at all that might be useful as a towel, so she leaned forward and dipped her hands into the pail, and watched his face as she pressed them against his foot. He didn’t react at all, so she turned her attention to the task at hand.
It only took a few minutes for her to clean his foot. The blood and dirt were gone, and she could see the worn flesh underneath, but there was very little she could do about the open wound that was being inflamed each second by the shackle. She could at least keep it from getting dirty again, she thought. She found a sharp rock and after struggling for a moment, managed to remove several inches from the bottom of her nightgown. She didn’t need that part, she thought, because the cloak fell to the ground around her anyway. She lifted his foot once more and wrapped the wound in the length of cloth, wishing it was cleaner.
Her breath curled in front of her and her wet hands were aching with bitter cold by the time she’d finished. She was surprised by how deep the pain in them was, now that she had nothing else to focus on. She tucked them into her cloak, folding them under her breasts, feeling silly already for not having considered getting her hands wet in the frigid air.
She stood and flashed a small smile at the long haired man. He didn’t smile at her, he didn’t give any response at all—he just stared at her.
•••••
Elsie approached Tate’s cave with quiet trepidation. She supposed it was his cave, anyway, it was the one where he’d taken them the day before.
There was no fire where there had been one before, and the cave appeared deserted.She turned to back out and return to the cabin, when she heard what sounded like a thousand tiny whispers, straining against the rock. It seemed to come from the inky darkness toward the back, and feeling as if in a trance, she followed the noise. There was no back wall where she expected to find one, but instead, in the shadows, a narrow passage that seemed to lead down. She squinted against the darkness. That was where the strange noise had undoubtedly come from, so she put a tentative hand on the wall and began to walk slowly into it. She didn’t know why—didn’t know what had possessed her to move this way—her thoughts logical even as her actions were nonsensical.
She counted her steps as she walked: one hundred, two hundred. The air was warmer somehow, and ahead, she swore that she could see a faint glow, something to move toward, something she wanted...
She collided with something big and delightfully warm, and before she could even register that it was a person she was pressing her hands to it.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” Tate said with that same familiar rumble from the day before. “What are you doing? Your hands are ice, you’re going to freeze to death.”
She thought that she should really pull her hands away from what she now knew was his chest, but it was hard to care when they ached so desperately—so she ignored it. “I was looking for you,” she said.
She couldn’t see him at all, so when he took her by the wrist and pulled her back the way she’d come, she didn’t fight it. “There were gloves in that trunk,” he said as his hand settled for a moment on her lower back, guiding her over a step. “I know there were. Why aren’t you wearing them?”
She blinked as they rounded a corner and she could see again. She glanced up at him, and he was looking at her as if she were bothersome. She hated that look.
She pulled her wrist from his grasp and clutched her hands to her breast. “They were wet,” she said. “Gloves wouldn’t have helped.”
He looked at her incredulously. “They were wet? You got your hands wet in this cold?” He assembled wood in the fire pit as he talked, and a moment later a small flame was licking the bottom of the log.
She shrugged and breathed feebly on them. It didn’t make much of a difference; the now familiar numbness had crept through them again.
“Elsie,” he said, and stood in front of her. “You’re risking your hands. What were you doing?” He wrapped his big hands around hers, and she wanted to pull away, but the heat was so nice.
“Something stupid, I’m sure,” she replied.
“Tell me the stupid thing you did?” She was surprised to see faint amusement on his face. It annoyed her—he was the one in charge of these people, he was the one who must have allowed the barbaric punishment for the long haired man who’d taken her. She was angry, suddenly. Angry at being taken from home and angry at this backward tribe and angry at his lovely, infuriating face that looked like he thought she was being amusing. She didn’t want to be laughed at. She felt tears spring to her eyes and blinked them back as best as she could, and watch as his amusement turned to wariness.
“What did you do to the man outside?” she asked. “Why did you do it?”
“Orin,” he said, and watched her carefully. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “It’s a punishment decided by his family. For...taking you. That’s how they—that’s how we do things.”
“It’s disgusting,” she said.
He didn’t agree with her as she would have liked, but he didn’t disagree. “Did he bother you?” Tate asked.
Elsie opened her mouth furiously, and then shut it again, swallowing back the venom she wanted to spit.
“Tell me what you want to say,” he said, his hands still covering hers.
“It’s awful,” she said, more quietly than she’d meant to. “It’s barbaric. He didn’t bother me, but...I was bothered. Immensely.”
He watched her with what seemed to be regret. “These people—my people have very different ways than those who choose to live at the palace.”
“Clearly.” She looked beyond him to where flames were rising high out of the pit, so she pulled her hands from his and positioned herself as she’d sat the day before. Her hands were extended in front of her, her face as close to the fire as she dared.
He sat against the rocky wall and leveled his gaze at her. “Tell me how your hands got wet,” he said.
“From cleaning,” she murmured.
He raised his eyebrows. “Cleaning?”
“A foot,” she said.
“Not your own foot,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” she acknowledged.
He was silent for a moment as he considered her. She could see frustration on his face, maybe a hint of anger, but underneath there was something else, too.
“I’m not sorry,” she said after a long minute had passed.
“Obviously,” he said. “That was...thoughtful of you, but it would be better if you hadn’t bothered.”
She just watched him, flexing her fingers in front of the flames.
“Punishments are different here. They’re about atoning for transgressions in order to restore honor. That’s why families decide how they are to be punished. What you did was...kind, but it was a waste of effort. He needs to take what they’ve decided, so next time you see him his punishment will have been extended or he’ll have buried his foot in mud again to hide that you helped.” He said it gently, but it didn’t soften the words.
Her eyes burned as she stared straight ahead, ignoring his face. She didn’t know why she was embarrassed, but something like shame had overcome her. “I don’t think kindness is a waste of effort,” she said, petulantly. In this situation, she acknowledged to herself, it clearly was. She didn’t know if she could hate where she was any more than she did at that moment.
His eyes swept over her face, over her hands. She didn’t know why the heat in his eyes caused her stomach to clench, or why she wanted to move from the fire and make him take her hands again.
“Take us home,” she said a minute later. “Please. I want to go home.”
“Your friend needs to recover.”
“She’ll recover faster at home,” Elsie said. “She has a fever. That’s what I came to tell you.”
He was silent for a moment, then pushed his hair back and ran his hands down either side of his face before sighing heavily. “There’s an herb that grows nearby that’s used against infection. I’ll bring some to dinner tonight.”
Elsie bristled at the words, and at the way he’d obviously been put out by her news. As if they were a burden to him. As if they had any choice in the matter. “Or,” she said, her eyebrows high and her arms folded across her chest, “you could send us home where there’s an actual healer who can fix her in a minute.”
“Stop trying, Elsie,” he said, turning from her and disappearing into the darkness at the back of the cave.
She glared after him for a minute, then turned on her heels, pulled her cloak tightly around her, and stormed back to the cabin.
Seven
After getting nowhere with the infuriating man that morning, Elsie didn’t know how to approach him. She thought that she should plead their case as Juliette might—with coy smiles and teasing touches.
Elsie had buried that side of her away for a long time, hoping to never need it again. Juliette was injured, though; perhaps even dying. It seemed a small price to pay for a chance for the woman who’d argued ferociously for Elsie’s safety only the day before.
She’d washed the blood from her fingers out of her nightgown as well as she could, and she’d twisted her hair into a filthy braid in a hopeless attempt to look presentable. She knew she wasn’t though—she knew she looked ridiculous and pathetic and transparent.
She only hoped that the intent way that Tate had watched her might be a sign that things would work in her favor.
She ate dinner next to him, mostly silently, but accepted the herbs and instructions he provided her with a wide smile. He seemed surprised at the face.