Page 117 of Moonless
He stops with his hand at his hip. His head tilts, and his eye goes somewhere past my shoulder. It takes him a moment. Then it comes back and goes over me again, the pale fur on my brow, then the fangs, then my claws.
“My father told me about Gulon.”
I let him look. I’d like to know what his father told him.
“You’re telling me that’s what you are?”
“Yes.”
“Then where—” His eye goes past me, up the slope.
Not up there. “That is all I will tell you.”
He shifts his feet and turns a little, so his good eye’s on both of us. “Your people—”
“Keer.” Kestria lifts her good hand between us. “Talk to me.”
He looks down at her, and she lets the hand drop.
“I need to go back with Rauk for a little while.”
Back with me?
“Fuck no. You’re coming home with me. Now.”
He steps toward her, and Axan follows. The last time Keer got his hands on her, she screamed my name.
I put my palm on her good side, keeping the claws off the shirt, and move her back behind me.
Keer stops close enough that I can smell my blood on his breath.
“You heard her.” I stay where I am. “She decides where she goes.”
He looks past my arm at her, then straight at me.
“You kept her prisoner. Why the fuck would she want to go back with you?”
I don’t know why she would, either. She’s behind my shoulder, and her brother’s standing right here to take her home.
I turn my head enough to see her, but I keep the men in sight. She’s looking up at me already, with dirt dried under her eye where she’s wiped her face. She’s been crying.
She knows the turns in the passage. She’s stood beside my father’s shirt and held Jouni’s fox. I move my arm out of her way anyway.
“You can go with them. I won’t stop you.”
She stares at me.
“Rauk—”
“I trust you.”
I wait. She can reach her brother without touching me. I think she’ll go.
She glances at the gap I’ve left, then up at me.
“I want to go back with you, Rauk.”
Both my ears turn toward her. Perkele. I nod, because I can’t get anything else out, and it takes me another breath to turn back to the men.
