by Erica Woods
A beautiful, soft blush colored her cheeks as she shyly looked away. I kept an eye on her, pleased that the color was staying despite her going back to watch the bloody gore fest on the screen.
Before I could tease her about her blush, I became aware of another presence. We had company. Not wanting to disturb Hope—who was still staring blankly at the screen—I threw a quick glance over my shoulder.
Lucien. Standing in the doorway staring at Hope with an unreadable mask in place, he looked like a silent sentinel.
He must have felt my gaze for his eyes snapped to mine, annoyance brimming, and I couldn’t help but tease him. Tilting my head in a silent question, I raised my brows and gave him an arrogant smile.
With the kind of deadly silence I was convinced he’d been born into, Lucien bared his teeth. Along with the narrow-eyed glare he aimed my way, it should have been threatening enough to silence me—and had I been anyone else, anyone not considered a brother, I probably wouldn’t have survived that look—but the devil in me loved riling the haughty male. So instead of backing down, I threw an arm around Hope, sent Lucien an innocent grin, and enjoyed the sight of his teeth grinding together.
But since this was Lucien—cold, controlled, stick-in-the-mud Lucien—it didn’t take him longer than a few seconds before all traces of emotions were wiped away. He sent Hope an inscrutable look before leaving.
A self-satisfied smirk spread across my face before I remembered the arm I’d thrown around Hope. Suppressing the flash of joy piercing my heart at the feel of her warm, trusting body pressed up against my side, I looked down at the little female and grinned when she winced at the bloodshed on the screen.
“I’ll let you pick the next one.”
24
HOPE
The next morning, I hurried down the stairs before the first rays of the sun could warm the pillow I’d begrudgingly vacated. Since Ruarc hadn’t told me what time we would start preparing for breakfast, I’d gotten up at five-thirty in the morning, determined to convince him I would be an apt student; always on time, always prepared.
Or, as prepared as I can be, I thought glumly, looking down at the pencil and sheet of paper I’d found in the desk in the library the night before.
Looking around the spacious kitchen, I let out a sigh of relief. Ruarc wasn’t here yet, which meant I had some time to battle the eager butterflies trying to escape my stomach by crawling up my throat.
Ugh . . . Shaking off the disturbing visual accompanying that thought, I took a seat by the table. Ruarc would probably be here any minute. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d teach me first.
Occupying myself by picturing the different possibilities, I barely noticed the passage of time. It wasn’t until a gruff voice spoke right by my ear that I realized I’d fallen asleep.
“W-what?” I stammered, jerking upright.
“What’re you doing?” Ruarc glowered down at me.
“I . . . I was waiting for you.”
He frowned. “Why?”
My heart sank. Had he already forgotten about our cooking lessons? “So you could teach me. T-to cook. Like you said yesterday.”
“How long?” Ruarc cocked his head, his broad shoulders and compressed lips making him look more like an angry warrior than a patient teacher.
“How long, um, what?” I stared up at him, shoulders sagging when I saw the vein by his temple. It was pulsating. That couldn’t be good . . .
But how am I supposed to know what he means when he refuses to finish a sentence! I gritted my teeth, resolving to hide the shiver of fear I always felt when he looked so angry and forbidding.
“How long have you been here?” The words were harsh and clipped, pushed out as they were through a tightly clenched jaw.
Was I supposed to have gone to find him when I got up, or was there another way I had failed? “Uhm . . .” I looked out the window, noting the clear, blue skies and beaming sunshine. “I’m not sure.”
Ruarc closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Fine. It’s fine.”
I blinked up at him, trying to figure out what was happening. “Should I have looked for you?”
“No!” he snarled, before repeating in a slightly more modulated voice, “No.”
Did he not want me here? It was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me before, but now that it had . . .
Ouch.
I squeezed the dull gray material of my shirt—another one of Ash’s—between one hand. It hurt knowing I was, yet again, unwanted. A bother. Someone to be hidden away and forgotten.
Wanting nothing more than to slink back upstairs to lick my wounds, I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Well, then . . .” I attempted a brave face, upset at the wobble I felt when I tried to smile, “I’ll just go back upstairs.”
When I tried to stand a heavy weight pressed down on my shoulders. Twisting my neck to see what had stopped me, I swallowed hard.
Ruarc’s big, heavy palm covered every inch of skin from the bottom of my neck to the top of my arm. A long finger rested over my collarbone, the calluses on his hands sending sparks of lightning up and down my spine.
In the past, a heavy hand anywhere on my body would have sent me into panicked shivers while cold sweat broke out on every surface of my body. But now . . .
This touch didn’t feel foreign or wrong. It felt . . . nice. Nice in a way I’d forgotten touch could be. I looked down, marveling at the harsh contrast between his lightly tanned, calloused hand and my too-pale, unblemished skin. A frown tugged at my lips when my eyes were drawn to the myriad of crisscrossing, thin lines covering his hands, and the lighter, more spread out white scars on his fingers.
“Why?” he grumbled, turning around and putting a pan on the stove. “Giving up?”
“No!” The response was automatic. A quick, instinctual denial of a perceived weakness. “You seemed angry, I . . . I thought maybe—”
Ruarc spun around, pinning me with a glare. “You want to learn or not?”
“I do!” I stood as well, inching closer to his spot by the stove. “I’m sorry,” I said, not quite knowing what I was apologizing for.
Ruarc grunted.
Well, at least he didn’t ignore me. That was a start, right?
The next half hour flew by. Ruarc didn’t say much, but then he didn’t have to. He conveyed most his thoughts by glowering, glaring, or grunting. The three g’s, as I silently dubbed them. Once in a blue moon—or less, since I wasn’t quite sure how often they occurred—he would give me a rare half-nod, the highest of compliments in Ruarc’s limited vocabulary.
“No,” he snapped as my hand hovered over the pan brimming with the beginnings of an omelet. “Salt at the end.” He didn’t explain why he had salted the mix before it went in the pan, or why it was okay to salt the fried tomatoes in the pan but not the eggs. And I didn’t ask. Instead, I shook my head and obeyed the master—a truly apt description if you based the term on the incredible flavor of the dishes he not-so-graciously let me help him prepare, rather than his teaching skill.
While we were waiting for the omelet to finish, Ruarc turned to me, a strange expression hovering over his harsh features. Breaking eye contact—something I’d noticed Ruarc rarely, if ever, did—he glowered at his hands.
Curious, I followed his gaze. They looked normal to me. Although his right hand did keep jerking; like he was stopping himself from repeating some nervous habit.
When he noticed me watching he stiffened. Accusing silver eyes met mine and I was floored by the pain hidden in their depths. Immediately, my heart ached for him. Ached for whatever had happened to him, or whoever he’d lost. Before I could say anything, offer a measure of comfort or a kind word, the pain was gone from his eyes, leaving only a glowing fury behind.
Without thinking, I reached out. Before my fingers could curl around his, he reared back, piercing me with the ferocity of his reaction.
“Do you . . . Do you pity me?” The quiet rage in his voice sent chills down my neck.
My heart thumped. Once. Twice. Then it swelled, swallowing my fear and leaving behind a feeling of kinship.
“I would never.” A solemn promise. This was important to him—I felt it in my bones. And I understood. Here we were, two grown people who both feared—or in Ruarc’s case, detested—pity and all the terrible feelings that particular response dredged up.
The glower didn’t leave his face, but after searching my eyes, the stiffness left his body and he drew a deep breath. “Good.”
That’s it?
Gathering my courage, I asked, “Why would you think I pitied you?”
Instead of answering, he cursed under his breath and jerked the pan off the stove.
“Ruarc?”
He glared. “Taste this.” A fork was shoved under my nose with so much force it would have gone straight through me if Ruarc had less control of his limbs.
Taking a small bite of the newly cooked omelet, I moaned at the flavor. “It’s good!”
Ruarc’s only reply was a grunt. At least it sounded a little less angry than his previous ones, which I considered progress.
“Ruarc . . .” Taking another deep breath, I was about to repeat my question when I noticed his tense shoulders. I paused, taking a moment to look a little closer. There was a strain around his eyes, his lips were pressed together and his neck was pulled taut. Every line of his body screamed of his discomfort. Did I want to add to that, possibly bring up bad memories by asking questions that would only satisfy my own curiosity?
The answer was a resounding ‘no.’
“What are we making for dinner later?” I was rewarded for my choice when some of the tension buried in his muscles dissolved.
He looked at me, took his time studying my face, like he was committing it to memory, before his lips curled back in a toothy half-grimace-half-smile that pulled at his scar and made him look even more menacing than before. And yet . . .
I’d never been less scared of him.
“Lamb,” he grumbled.
I returned his smile with a hesitant one of my own. “Sounds good.”
That terrifying-but-appealing smile of his was gone, but I could have sworn the corners of his mouth curled up when I brushed my hair away to peek up at him.
Would I see it again?
A bubbling sensation sparkled in my throat. It took my confused mind a moment to understand what it was, and the realization was shocking. It was a giggle. It was trapped in my throat, and as soon as I recognized it, it disappeared.
And it was all because of him. Because of Ruarc. He’d made me want to laugh with that smile that wasn’t a smile.
Had he always showed his amusement that way, or was it something he’d picked up to make potential enemies wary? It would work, too. A man that looked terrifying even when grinning from ear to ear was a man to be feared. The way his eyes warmed kind of ruined the ‘terror-effect’ but maybe he—
It isn’t an act.
The muscles in my legs quivered. I wanted to sink to the floor.
Eyes can’t pretend, they can’t lie. So the smile wasn’t something he’d practiced. Ruarc . . . Ruarc didn’t know how to smile.
Sadness gathered like a heavy cloud in my chest. He’d bared his teeth in an imitation of a smile, like the muscles were unused to moving that way. Had he lived a life so devoid of happiness that he’d never learned that simple, human expression? Even I, despite my stay with the Hunters, had my early childhood to look back on when everything else lent itself to despair. Why didn’t Ruarc have that?
Any humor I may have felt was wiped away, leaving behind a horrible sensation in the pit of my stomach. It felt heavy. Nauseating. Carried the cloying sensation of guilt and pain.
“What?” Ruarc snapped, voice cracking like the barbed end of a whip.
Whatever emotion had shown on my face, Ruarc had not approved.
I won’t add to his pain, I won’t, I told myself, trying to think of a plausible excuse. It was hard, especially when I had no idea what I had looked like. “I was just thinking . . .”
Ruarc glared, eyes hard and unforgiving.
“About the lamb.”
His eye twitched.
“Poor lamb,” I sighed, knowing it sounded like I meant it because . . . well, I kind of did.
He looked startled, eyes roamed over my face. Looking for clues, maybe? Then, his face cracked and I saw all the teeth I could ever wish to see as he showed me a full-on display of pearly-white chompers.
Err, I mean, as he showed me a startling grin.
I blinked up at him, amazed at the gift he’d given me and feeling sad at how quickly it disappeared.
“Don’t,” he commanded, voice a smidgen less surly than normal, “or you won’t be able to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Slaughter her.”
“What!” I shrieked, spinning around while my eyes ran over every inch of the room; as though the poor lamb was hiding somewhere in the kitchen.
“It’s part of your cooking training.” His lip twitched. Probably in anticipation of eating the hapless animal.
“I can’t!” Dear god, how could he ask me to kill an innocent creature?
Oh, hypocrisy. I was willing to eat the little darling, but not if it was not already dead?
Ruarc leaned back against the counter. “Then you fail.”
“Fail?”
“Your training.” He was staring at me with a strange intensity.
“I-I . . .” I couldn’t kill anything. I just couldn’t. With pleading eyes, I silently begged him for mercy. I could eat vegetables. Really, for the rest of my life, I would eat nothing that required killing. If I stuck to a vegetarian diet he couldn’t possibly force me to—
Wait . . . Why was his eye twitching? And his mouth . . . it was jerking. And was that a tooth peeking out?
“Are you . . . are you laughing at me?”
A few more teeth showed as a short burst of sound broke from his wide chest. It sounded rusty, unused. Just a short bark of a laugh, and then it was gone.
“You were joking?” A small, hopeful smile spread across my face.
“Yes.”
“That’s . . . that’s great,” I said. “I really couldn’t kill anything.” A small shudder of revulsion rippled over my skin, and Ruarc stiffened.
“The salt,” he suddenly growled, turning to stare daggers at the salt shaker I’d left next to me on the counter.
I looked down at the item in question and tried to understand what brought on this abrupt change of emotion. It seemed every time things went better with Ruarc, I did or said something to upset him. And every time, without exception, I had no idea what it was that I did wrong.
And it doesn’t help that the man can go from amused to a killing rage faster than I can blink.
Not meeting his glare, I silently handed him the salt, watching from the corner of my eye as he shook it over the finished omelet with a vigor that, to even my untrained eye, promised way too much salt.
“Did-did I do something wrong?”
“No.” Plates clattered against the counter as Ruarc yanked them out of the cupboards. The ugly screech of metal and porcelain colliding filled the air when utensils were carelessly thrown on top.
The sound made me shudder with remembrance, and Ruarc stopped to look at me. His silver eyes were hard, but after taking a deep breath, he stilled. A strange expression descended over his face, and then, with mechanical movements, he began setting the table. This time he was more careful, and the ugly noise ceased along with my trembling.
“H-here, let me help,” I offered with a small step toward him.
His harsh features were tight, eyes flaring when he growled, “No.”
Feeling myself deflating, I turned and closed my eyes. I just needed a moment to recover my equilibrium, to let go of the confusion and sadness that swamped me at how this had turned out.
At least I heard him laugh.
It hadn’t been a nice sound by any means; harsh and low an
d growly, the rusty sound had grated at my ears, but it had still made heat spread through my limbs, made my heart grow lighter and freer.
I want to hear it again.
Once the table was set, Ruarc pointed to a chair with a raised eyebrow and a look in his eyes that clearly stated I better obey or else. After I adhered to his caveman demands he proceeded to ignore me.
Jason, Ash, and Lucien all came strolling in a few minutes later. A cheery greeting from Jason, followed by a warm-but-reserved, “Good morning,” from Ash, were both better than the regal nod Lucien deigned to offer me, eyes just as cold and disdainful as ever.
When we were all seated, the other guys pretended to ignore Ruarc’s bad mood. In fact, no one spoke to him until they tried the omelet.
“Jesus,” Jason sputtered, choking and spitting the food out into a folded napkin. “What on earth happened to the eggs?”
A furious glare and a snarled, “Nothing,” from Ruarc followed.
“No, really, they taste like you sprinkled them with fertilizer.”
A plate went flying as Ruarc smashed his fist down onto the table. “Quiet!”
“Jason,” Ash began, voice so calm you wouldn’t think he had almost been hit in the face with a plate full of cheese, “this was Hope’s first attempt. We should—”
“Wasn’t Hope,” Ruarc interrupted with an angry grumble.
Lucien arched a brow. “That is surprising,” he said, raising his glass to his perfect lips and taking a sip of water. I didn’t know what came over me, maybe I was just fed up with his hostile behavior, but suddenly I found a piece of my spine. Attempting to imitate Ruarc, I scrunched up my face, narrowed my eyes and sent him my best glare.
Lucien choked and water went flying across the table. For a second not a sound could be heard. Having lost my courage as the tense silence stretched, I shrank back in my chair, waiting for the blowback sure to follow. Instead, Jason let loose a deep, belly laugh, the same one he’d shared with me the day before. It warmed me all the way down to my toes, and I dared a tiny, grateful smile in return.
Even Ash seemed amused. His eyes were warm when they rested on me, and, even though his expression was mostly unreadable, one corner of his mouth tilted up ever so slightly. “Did Ruarc teach you that fearsome grimace, banajaanh?”