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“Why did you follow me?” he asked, his head tilted to the side.

I opened my mouth to talk, but the smell of blood on his hand made me ignore his question.

I grabbed it with my left hand, shining the light onto his. “What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”

But without awaiting his answer, I looked to his other hand to see a rabbit hanging head down while he held its back paws fisted tightly in his hand.

“What happened?”

“I went out hunting. I heard noises and thought I’d go check it out. I catch these at night most of the time,” he explained, sounding as if nothing ever happened.

“Why did you leave?” I asked, my frown deepening and my tears mixing with the hare’s blood on my cheeks and lips.

“I just told you, Vespyr. I left to go hunt.”

“No. No, you left because you were mad at me for trying to fix things between you and Papa. You shouldn’t have left!”

A heavy sigh escaped my chest as I tried to stay calm.

All this was starting to make me feel anxious.

“Hey…shh,” he comforted, brushing the back of his two fingers along my cheek. “You must’ve been sleepwalking. You’ve done this before. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I’m so used to being alone, you know?”

His words hurt, and I hated the thought of him being hurt because of me.

“I’m here, Fen. It’s my fault,” I whispered, reaching for his shoulder and then moving my hand to the crook of his neck.

“I guess I’ll have to get used to you being back. It’s been too long.”

I nodded, knowing how hard it was for us to be apart while he lived out here with Papa.

How could it be that I had no idea if he was right about me sleepwalking? Of course, I remembered all the nights I woke up back home and wandered around my room while my brain was still asleep, but didn’t remember doing the same out here.

I was too scared, but then, I was good at pushing aside things I was afraid of, to then never think about them again.

“Did the hare make that noise?” I asked, wanting to be sure.

“Yes, sweet girl. Don’t worry. There’s nothing out there that can hurt you.”

I nodded and looked back at the fairly large rabbit.

“These are hard to hunt,” I pointed out, looking back up at him.

“Yeah, they are. But I’m a good hunter, Ves. You know that.”

I did know.

Still…everything that had happened tonight seemed strange and unreal.

“You’ve got blood all over your face, sweet girl. Let me clean you up.”

He lifted his hand to his mouth, cleaning his own bloody fingers with his mouth before he reached over to rub his spit all over my cheeks and lips.

I kept my eyes on him as he continued to get rid of the blood already drying on my skin, and when he pulled away his hand, I lifted my arm to rub my sleeve across my face.

“That’s better. You’re pretty again,” he said, studying me closely. “But I like you with blood all over too.”

My eyes were starting to feel heavy as his words lingered on my mind.

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