Page 40 of Moonless

She lowers the cup. “Lifting a cup didn’t open my shoulder.”

I set the furs down and kneel to ease the cloth clear.

“It reopened while you ran.”

“While I ran from you.”

My fingers stop at the collar. True. She waits, watching my face.

I smooth the linen and draw the shirt back over it. “Keep the arm down.”

She sets the cup on the floor herself. I take the old bedding outside.

By midday, I’ve checked the bandage twice more. The second time, she lifts the edge of her collar before I reach her. The pad’s dry. It was dry at dawn too.

I have food to bring in and the lower boundary to walk. I leave water beside her pallet and enough meat for the afternoon. She sits with her knees drawn up, looking at the portion.

I go out and close the slab behind me.

The lower path takes me through the trees above the stream. A deer has fed along the slope since dawn, stripping leaves from the young growth. I follow far enough to see where it crossed the water, then turn toward the ridge.

The far circuit would take the rest of the afternoon.

I look back up the slope. From here, the mountain’s face is bare rock, with the den’s opening lost among the folds. The pad was dry when I left. Her water was within reach.

I go back to the deer trail.

The wind’s coming down the slope into my face, and the deer’s in it, close and warm.

The deer’s feeding at the edge of the trees with its tail to me. Its head comes up, and I stand against a trunk while it chews. The head goes down. The fur along my spine lifts, and I cover the ground between us at a run.

It hears the last stride and gets a bound in before my hand closes on its neck. I bring it down under me and set my fangs in below the jaw. Blood comes hot into my mouth. It kicks against my thigh, and I hold on until it stops. I swallow before I let go.

I drag the deer down to the water and open it from the breastbone with my claws. Blood runs over my hands and up the wrists. When I reach for a tendon with my right hand, two blunt fingers slide over it.

Hitto. They still smell of her under the deer’s blood. I turn my hand and cut the tendon with the index claw.

There’s enough meat here for days. I bind the cuts in the hide, drawing the knot tight between my fangs, and lift the whole load. On the climb back, I stop at the patch of roots and fill the spare fold.

The sun’s still well above the ridge when I return.

When I come through the bend, she’s sitting with my cloak across her knees, looking toward the patch of daylight high on the wall.

“That was a short evening.”

I lower the load beside the hearth. “The deer was close.”

“You found all of it.” She puts the cloak aside and gets up. I open the hide, folding it back from the meat.

“Sit.”

“I’m looking.” She comes to the hearth, keeping clear of the bundle.

There are enough roots that some roll against her bare foot. She nudges them back with her toes.

“How long are you stocking this prison for?”

Prison. With a bed I built her this morning.