by Lee Savino
We were wrong. We should have done everything to bind Sorrel to us, make her truly our mate. Touched and teased her until she clung to us. If we’d claimed her properly, when the time came for our patrol, we would’ve fought not to go. Or at least made it clear that we weren’t abandoning her. It was a mistake, leaving her.
Sourness turned my stomach. We would make it up to her, do anything to bring her closer. Thorsteinn with his strict rules, and me with my touching and teasing and playful methods.
This morning proved she responded to them. I would’ve kept her there, limp and lissome on the pelts, if I hadn’t planned a training day. Of course, plans could change…
“What are we doing here?” Sorrel asked. Outside, she came alive. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glowed bright. I ran a hand down her back, and enjoyed her shiver, the anticipation running through her body. Maybe we didn’t need to train. There was a patch of soft ground, there, under the hemlocks…
“Vik.” Sorrel poked me. I caught her hand and kissed the palm, right at the juncture of her wrist. Another shiver. I touched my tongue to the sensitive spot, enjoying her wriggling a moment before letting her go. That would teach her to poke me.
“You remember your lessons?” I waved a hand around the clearing.
“A little.” She frowned and a little line appeared between her brows. “It’s been a long time.”
Too long. Our fault. “Here,” I tossed her my long knife. It stuck in the ground at her feet. “We practice throwing today.”
I directed her to throw at the trunk of a dying tree. After a few throws, I stood behind her and corrected her stance, taking every opportunity to run my hands over her body. Her first perfect throw came soon after, and I rewarded her, caressing her chest and collaring her throat to rub my face in her hair. She still smelled like me.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked after I pulled away. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. After we were done throwing, I decided, I’d prop her on a rock, spread her legs wide, and lick her to completion.
“You’ll see.” I took out my second knife and tossed it at the tree. It stuck beside hers, quivering, their handles almost touching. We marched together to fetch our respective blades.
“The pack will not like to see a woman armed and fighting.”
“If they are upset, it is no concern of mine. They are not your caretakers. We are. Besides,” I removed my blade with a quick yank, and she did the same. “If anything upsets them, it will not be your blade work. It’ll be the sight of a woman wearing men’s clothes.” I nodded to her strange attire.
I’ll never forget her face when we presented her with the clothes she wished to wear. She grasped them close, her mouth trembling. It was the closest we’d seen her come to crying.
I frowned at that. Had we ever seen her cry? Not even when she broke her leg on that long, awful route from the abbey to the mountain, racing to elude the corpse King’s clutches.
“I know I am a strange sight,” she said. “The other spaewives teased me.”
“Your friends?” My voice dropped to a growl.
“They are not all my friends.”
“I thought you were close with them.”
She shrugged. “I tried, but they did not like me. I was different.” Her face was carefully blank.
“Because you made a bow and tried to hunt? Because you preferred breeches to dresses and ran from your chores to climb trees.”
“Yes,” she said distantly. “They used to tell on me.”
“And then the nuns beat you.”
“And then the nuns beat me. They used switches until it became clear I would not cry out. They hit me hard enough to mark my skin, but I would make no sound. I would not give them the satisfaction. Some of the orphans jeered at me, telling me next time I would cry.”
I turned away to hide the sudden flash of rage. “They did not stand by you? One of their own?” I would hunt them down and make them pay.
“Some of the orphans went out of their way to make sure I was punished. The worst was…” She bit her lip.
“Who? Who was the worst?” If Sorrel wasn’t speaking of women, I’d challenge them myself. As it were, I might call on them to be punished. Publicly whipped.
“Rosalind.”
I sobered at the name. Rosalind was the one who lay unconscious, hit by a stone from Sorrel’s sling.
“Is that why you hurt her?”
“No,” Sorrel said quickly, but she didn’t not offer why. She threw her knife and hit the target perfectly, then plucked my own knife out of my hands and threw it too.
* * *
Sorrel
I bit my lip as Vik stalked to the target and wrenched out the knives as if they personally offended him. He returned, but instead of handing me the knives, threw them himself. When I went to fetch them, I struggled because they had sunk so deep.
“Here,” Vik’s shadow fell over me as I tugged the first knife free. I staggered back and he steadied me with large hands at my hips. “Let me.”
As I grasped the second knife’s handle, his hand closed over mine. Together we freed the second knife. He turned me to face him, holding the knife between us.
“If you have an opening to throw the knife, use it. Aim for the torso so you have a better chance of hitting something. Complete the throw and run. Promise me you won’t make a stand.”
He brushed the hair from my face and cupped my chin.
“Why did Rosalind torment you?”
I tried to turn my face away and he held it still.
“You were both orphans,” he peered at my face. “Spaewives collected into the abbey. Why did you not band together, and free yourself?”
“I tried. I wanted us to.” I’d told Thorsteinn and Vik of how I learned to hunt and forage while I was at the abbey. I trained myself to live off the land, so one day I might disappear. Find a home in the woods and fend for myself. “I wanted to run away, and I was willing to take my friends.”
“Including Rosalind?”
“At first, maybe. But after she betrayed me.” I shook my head. “We did not speak, even though I knew she also had plans to leave.” Rosalind was one of the girls the friar singled out for attention. I had thought she would join me in planning to escape. Instead, she turned me in to our keepers. After all this time, the betrayal still hurt.
“She was with you in the lodge of unmated spaewives,” Vik murmured.
“Yes. She was there.” We avoided each other for days before falling into old patterns. The girls were curious why I had been with two warriors all winter. Where are they now? Why did they leave you here? When I hadn’t answered, hadn’t know how to answer, Rosalind spoke up for me. Isn’t it obvious? The warriors who mated her didn’t want her anymore. Rosalind was the first to vocalize the truth. She laughed at my stunned expression. It’s all right, Sorrel. We’re all unwanted here.
“Did you speak to her?” Vik asked, breaking me from the cruel memory. “Did she have plans to leave?”
I searched his bearded face as he searched mine. “I thought you told the Alphas I led her astray.”
He made a frustrated noise. “We told Alphas what they needed to hear. Now I want to hear from you. You said Rosalind left and you followed. I am trying to understand.” His face was earnest.
Vik and Thorsteinn said they wanted the truth. But did they? Thorsteinn thought me wild and demanded my obedience, but Vik… perhaps there was a chance he’d believe me. Even if I couldn’t tell him everything.
“Rosalind spoke of leaving the mountain, yes. She was troubled.” It felt wrong to speak ill of a woman lying close to death but saying this did not betray her. “The night she left, though, things were… strange.”
“Strange? How so?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. How could I describe what I only felt? “It was dark, but the moon gave me enough light to see. I raced after Rosalind, but she always stayed far ahead. I followed her golden hair. There were patrols, but…”
I shook my head. “The mists obscured us. Rosalind and I walked through the mists and it was almost as if the warriors couldn’t see us.”
Vik’s face was blank. I ducked my head. “I told you it was strange.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “But stranger things have happened. Sorrel—do you think magic was somehow involved?”
“I don’t know. I just felt I had to catch up with Rosalind. I felt it was my fault that she left. I had spoken of wanting escape. I didn’t think she’d be brave enough to try it.” I spoke to my feet, miserable. “So, you see, when you told the Alphas I led her astray... it was true.”
“You feel guilty because she left of her own accord?”
“Yes. It is my fault. She left, and now she’s hurt. It’s all my fault.”
“Not from what you’ve told me,” Vik said slowly. “It sounds like there were other forces at play. Sorrel, what happened after you left the mountain?”
I shook my head. “You know what happened.”
“I know you and Rosalind left the mountain. I know the Berserkers found you both, her unconscious with a wound on her temple, you standing over her with a sling. I want to hear your version.”
“What does it matter?”
“What you have to say matters to me.”
I pressed my lips together and he nudged me. “Tell me, Sorrel. I will listen.”
He would listen, but could I tell him what I suspected? That Rosalind had been in league with the Corpse King, and I had to stop her before it was too late.
“I didn’t want to hurt Rosalind,” I said finally. “I had to. To save our lives.”
“What?” His head cocked. “What do you mean? To save your lives... were you in danger?”
If I told him anymore, I would name Rosalind a traitor. I couldn’t do that. If she lived, she’d wake to face the Alphas wrath. If she died, I couldn’t lead the pack to think she was a traitor.
With a sigh, I hung my head.
“It’s no use,” a harsh voice rang out behind us. Vik sighed as Thorsteinn stalked into view. The grey eyed warrior arched a brow as he stared down his nose at me. “She will not tell us the truth.”
He was right, but it was no longer a matter of will. I wanted to tell them. I touched my lips, willing them to move.
Anger heated my body, but I didn’t argue. This was my penance for harming Rosalind. Let everyone believe what they wanted to believe.
* * *
Thorsteinn
Sorrel turned from me, her jaw tight. Her dark hair fell across her face, a veil between us.
Did you have to interrupt? Vik tossed his knife at me. It bounced off my bare chest, handle first, which is how I knew he wasn’t trying to kill me. Not that a simple knife throw can kill a Berserker. I retrieved the knife and tested the blade against my palm. The sharp edge sliced a stinging red line across my rough and calloused skin. It healed immediately.
“Was I wrong?” I asked aloud. “Sorrel, did you have something to say?”
“No. Nothing.”
I raised a brow at Vik. See? She does not trust us.
She never will if you taunt her.
You taunt her all the time.
That’s different. He held up his hand, silently ordering me to throw his knife back. I let it fly at a mark just past him and he plucked in out of the air. She likes it when I tease her. What you say hurts her.
Regret bit me. I pushed it away. I don’t care, as long as she obeys. Out loud I said, “Time to put your hunting skills to work. We need meat.” I unstrapped a bow and sheath of arrows from my back and tossed them at Sorrel’s feet.
She picked them up, examining them carefully. I saw the glimmer of excitement on her face, even as she tried to hide it. “I thought you were hunting,” she said, slipping the strap over her shoulder.
“I was,” I said. “But not for meat. Come on.” I started into the forest. Something whizzed by my face and stuck in the tree trunk. An arrow, the feathered fletch quivering an inch from my face.
I turned on my heel and glowered, shoulders hunched like I was going to pounce. Sorrel met my eyes, glare for glare. Calmly, she plucked the bowstring. “It still works,” she explained. If I wasn’t so angry, I wanted to spank her, I’d be proud.
Vik was laughing like he was drunk. “You’re the one who armed her.”
“You’re the one who taught her how to shoot.” I included him in my glare, and he laughed harder.
“He did not,” Sorrel protested, her black brows knitted together. “I taught myself. There were days at the orphanage I had to eat what I hunted, or I wouldn’t eat at all. And I shared with the orphans who were denied food.”
Vik stopped laughing. “They were cruel to you,” he growled. “We should’ve razed the place to the ground when we had the chance.”
“It’s gone now,” Sorrel said, but her face still held the pain of a thousand horrible memories. “The Corpse King destroyed it, and everyone perished. That’s what the Berserkers told me and the other unmated spaewives. All the nuns died. All but Juliet.”
“They got what they deserved,” I growled.
“Perhaps.” Head bowed, Sorrel marched past me. One stride and I caught up to her. It took two of her steps to match my one.
“You do not think they got what they deserved. They mistreated you.”
“I was used to it,” she said simply. “At least, they never promised to care for me, then abandoned me all the same.”
I stepped in front of her, halting her in her tracks. “We never abandoned you.”
“You dropped me at the lodge of unmated spaewives. And then you left.”
“We planned to return.”
“And do what?”
“And keep you.” I tapped the underside of her chin, tilting it up. She still didn’t meet my eyes. I did not like the blank, distant look in hers. “Claim you.”
“You didn’t want me. They teased me for it, and I finally understood.”
“Who told you that? Who teased you?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you left.”
“We returned.”
“After it was too late.” She jerked away and took a step.
I blocked her path. “It is not too late,” I snarled. “You belong to us. You will submit. You will yield.”
She didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. Defiance was written on her face.
“You will yield,” I promised her, and stepped out of her way.
3
Sorrel
We spent the rest of the day hunting while the sun sank slowly. Thorsteinn and Vik used throwing knives and I proved more than a match with my bow. At last we headed home with the bodies of small game strung on a stick propped on Vik’s shoulder.
I felt like game myself, tied and trussed between two warriors. They hadn’t done anything to make me submit but their presence reminded me
Especially, when, suddenly, Thorsteinn pushed me behind a boulder, and pressed me down. “Kneel,” he whispered harshly. I glared but he wasn’t looking me.
“Other warriors,” Vik murmured, and I understood. I wasn’t supposed to be tromping around woods, happy and free. I was supposed to be locked up in a cage or thrown in a pit, or whatever counted as punishment
I sank down behind the rock and tucked my knees against my chest.
“Stay,” Thorsteinn ordered, like I was a pet. He disappeared before I could snap at him. The wind brought shouted greetings and snatches of conversation. I waited listening. Is this how it was to be? Never allowed to roam on my own. Forced to hide so no one looked on my despised face. So far Thorsteinn and Vik’s punishment proved very light. But what sort of life would I have if I stayed and bonded with them? Would I ever be able to mingle with the pack or my friends? No one believed I had done no wrong. Crouched behind the stones, listening for scraps of conversation, I had to conclude my own warriors were ashamed of me.
I crept around the boulders, trying to get a better view. The wind picked up, carrying
a pleasant sound—a lighter voice raised in song. It came from behind me. Ducking to stay hidden by the rocks, I dashed behind a line of bushes and crawled until I could stand. Beyond a briar thicket, a woman’s shape rose and bent. A spaewife, toiling over a garden with a hoe. She stood and wiped her brow with a sun browned arm, and I recognized her.
“Hazel,” I whispered. “Hazel.”
She startled, raising her hoe like a weapon. That almost made me smile. She had always been one of the bravest orphans.
She peered into the bracken. When she saw me, her eye grew round. “Sorrel? You are here? Are you in hiding?”
“Not anymore. I was caught. My guards are close.” I jerked my thumb back towards Thorsteinn and Vik, hoping they hadn’t noticed me gone.
“Are you all right? My mate said you were almost taken by the Corpse King. Again.” She seemed concerned. Maybe she hadn’t heard of my crimes. Or maybe she just believed I wouldn’t do something so awful without good reason. “What happened?” She pushed her hair off her face, leaving a dark smudge of dirt.
I shouldn’t tell her the truth. But then, I couldn’t repay her worry with lies.
So I told her the truth. “Rosalind left the mountain. I ran after her.”
“Truly?” Her eyes grew even wider. “Why would she run?”
“I don’t know.” I had my suspicions, but best keep to what I knew.
Hazel bit her lip and looked away. I knew what she was going to ask before she said, “They are saying you killed her.”
A flash of painful horror. “Is she dead then?”
“Not yet. Sorrel, what happened?”
I scooted closer so the wind wouldn’t carry our voices. “I cannot tell you. I cannot. Maybe if she wakes…”
“Tell me one thing,” Hazel’s eyes bore into mine. “Did you try to kill her?”