Page 14 of Ties of Bargains

He took the skewer, staring at the hunk as if he wasn’t sure how to go about eating it. “No proper plate and utensils?”

“Are you volunteering to wash a whole stack of dishes once we’re done?” Val chopped off another chunk for herself, stabbing it on a stick as well.

“No, I guess not.” He shrugged but still eyed the meat warily.

“It’s safe for you to eat.” Val waved her spit at him, the swishing motion through the air helping to cool the meat.

Harm frowned at the meat, as if weighing his options. “I suppose it would be best to save my human food for my escape. Now that the journey is going to be longer than expected.” He finally took a tentative bite.

If that logic was what got him to stop being picky, then she wasn’t going to correct his assumption that escape was possible.

Daisy bounded into the firelight and skidded to a halt in front of Val. The dog plunked her butt down, her tail wagging, as she tilted her face up in a huge-eyed, begging posture.

Val bit into the meat and ripped off a chunk with her teeth. Then she juggled her own skewer while she sliced another chunk of meat from the carcass. She chopped it into smaller bites, making sure there weren’t any bones, so that Daisy wouldn’t choke. Then she set the pile of meat on a flat rock.

Daisy dove onto the meat, all three of her heads making an appearance as she snarfed the food down.

Val barely had time to take another bite before Daisy was back, begging for more.

She spent her meal alternating between eating and cutting up more meat for Daisy. Harm managed to finish his meat well before she finished hers, even with his persnickety, small bites. Such a mannerly human prince. Too bad for him that good table manners wouldn’t keep him alive here in the Fae Realm.

Not unless he used them to seduce Queen Titania. But he didn’t seem the type.

Harm glanced around before scrubbing his greasy fingers on the moss by his feet. “Will we arrive at the Court of Revels tomorrow?”

“No. The day after tomorrow. It will be a long walk.” Val held out her greasy hands to Daisy, who licked them clean. Once the grease was gone, Val wiped the dog slobber onto her trousers before she pushed to her feet. “We should head for bed. We have an early morning tomorrow.”

She didn’t want him asking too many questions about the Court of Revels. Not that she was feeling guilty about handing him over to Queen Titania or anything like that. He was a package, and this was her job. No reason to get a conscience over it just because this particular package had the wide-eyed innocence of a friendly puppy.

“There’s…only one tent.” Harm eased to his feet, eyeing her, then the tent. “Will I be sleeping outside?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Val rolled her eyes as she useda stick to scatter the remaining logs and coals so that the fire would burn itself out during the night. “I’m not letting you that far out of my sight even with the tether. A monster would get you in your sleep before you’d wake up to so much as scream.”

Not that the flimsy canvas of the tent would do much to stop monsters. But Val would need to keep the human close enough that she and Daisy could defend him if they were attacked by monsters or sprites or whatever might stumble across them here in the Fae Realm.

Harm swallowed and glanced at the tent again. “But…last night…you said…” He trailed off, as if he couldn’t think of a delicate way to phrase his question, as a red flush rose up his neck. “It’s hardly proper.”

Val huffed and ducked to crawl into the tent. “Just get in here.”

She crawled inside, sitting on the end of the bedroll she’d laid out on the right side of the tent. She started unlacing her boots.

After a moment, Harm pushed aside the flap at the end and tentatively peeked his head inside. His shoulders relaxed beneath his stiff coat. “You could have mentioned there’s a divider down the center.”

It wasn’t much of a nod to privacy. The divider was more a curtain, and it wasn’t attached to the floor. With the tent so small, their bedrolls were only inches apart regardless.

“If you roll onto my side of the tent, I will stab you.” Val didn’t even bother to glare at him but continuedtaking off her boots and setting them at the end of her bedroll.

“Understood.” The word scratched out, as if his throat were tight.

Good. She made him nervous. She preferred it when her packages feared her. It made things simple. The ones who wanted to be her friend were far worse.

“Stop dawdling in the door. You’re letting in a draft.” She unbuckled her knife and set it next to her pillow where she could easily reach it in the night.

Harm hurriedly tumbled the rest of the way inside, and the flap swung shut, plunging the inside of the tent into darkness.

For several minutes, she could hear Harm shuffling around as he tried to set up his bedroll in the dark. She hadn’t set it up for him, of course. Why would she?

Once Harm had finally settled, Val gave a whistle.

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