Page 20 of Unleashed

She felt their heavy gazes on her as she tossed her soap into her bag, gathered her clothing, and hurriedly dressed, the moisture on her skin making it a struggle to pull the fabric into place. She didn’t look their way even as she sat down to tug on her boots.

Once she was done, she lifted her bag into her lap and opened it. “Are you hungry?” She shook her head. “Dumb question. Of course you are.”

Vortok rose and walked over to her, watching over her shoulder as she rummaged through her bag. She pushed aside the blanket and pulled out the wrapped meat from the bottom.

“It’s not much,” she said, peeling the cloth open, “but it might help a little until we can hunt.” She plucked her knife out of the bag, sliced off a piece of meat, and offered it to Vortok.

Balir was there suddenly, silent and white as a ghost. He halted Vortok’s reach by clasping a hand over the big valo’s forearm. “Just as when we were children, Vortok. We must wash before we accept her food. We are overdue.”

Vortok frowned, gaze shifting from Balir to the food. He stared at it longingly for a few moments before releasing a deep sigh.

Nina looked up at Balir, studying his features. He kept his expression well masked, hiding his inner struggle, but she sensed the turmoil under the surface. He was locked in a fierce battle with his own hunger, clinging to the sliver of control he maintained over his beast lest it come forward and take control again. She dipped her gaze to his free hand, which was trembling faintly, and folded the cloth over the meat again. She dug her soap out of her bag and held it out to Balir.

“Go ahead and clean up,” she said, offering them a smile. “I’ll wait.”

With some hesitation, Balir accepted the soap, breaking off a piece to hand to Vortok. The valos walked into the water side-by-side. Nina couldn’t imagine what they were going through, even if she could pick up on many of their thoughts and feelings through her psychic ability. To be locked up as beasts for a thousand years…

Balir and Vortok waded into the deepest part of the stream, which only reached the middle of Vortok’s thighs, and sank down into the water. Nina watched as they washed, watched as they moved their hands over their bodies, as refracted light sparkled in the rivulets of water running over their ridges of muscle, as moisture beaded on Vortok’s fur and in his bushy mane.

She sensed something ease in them as they rinsed away the grime of their long imprisonment, sensed their beasts recede a little more.

To distract herself, Nina removed her waterskin from her bag and crawled to the water’s edge, leaning down to refill it.

Balir emerged from the stream first. Water cascaded off his pale, finely-scaled skin, and he flicked more of it from his long, pliable tail. After some vigorous scrubbing of his mane, Vortok followed. He paused on the bank to shake what seemed like buckets-full of water from his fur. Laughing, Nina raised a hand to block her face from the torrent. He glanced at her and grinned.

They were still dripping wet when they settled down next to her, but they looked better,healthier, with the dirt and blood washed away.

She cut a second large piece of meat for Balir and held a strip out to each of them. “Here.”

Nina was forced to reevaluate whatlargemeant when Vortok accepted his piece. He offered her a rumbling thanks and ate nine-tenths of the strip on his first bite.

Balir seemed more restrained as he took his piece, and was slightly more eloquent in his thanks, but she saw his lips peel back to reveal his sharp teeth an instant before he turned away. He ate quickly, and the sounds he produced were those of a predator feasting on a fresh kill.

She sensed their shame, particularly Balir’s, but it was overpowered by their beasts’ cravings. Their hunger pained her.

“Where do you think Aduun went?” she asked, hoping to distract them from their emotions as she rooted around in her bag for the pouch of nuts and dried berries. Upon finding it, she opened it a poured some into in her palm, holding it out to Vortok.

He smiled. It wasn’t an attractive smile, but its genuineness brightened his eyes, and that provided all the charm it needed. She dumped the mix from her hand onto his open palm and watched with no small amount of wonder as his huge, thick fingers delicately plucked up one tiny nut or berry at a time and tossed them between his lips.

“To scout, or to brood,” he said. “Both, probably.”

Balir turned back to Nina. “His thoughts have been dark since Kelsharn betrayed our people.” He accepted her offering of nuts and berries, though the set of his lips as he ate suggested he didn’t care for their taste. “He carries the weight of all that has happened upon his shoulders, and it has been slowly crushing him.”

“It’s not his fault,” Nina said softly. “The Creators deceivedeveryone.”

“Whether the fault is his or not, he’s taken it for himself.” Balir straightened, turning his head and falling silent for several seconds. “I can only relate what I have observed. He alone can speak the truth of his heart.”

Somewhere beyond Balir, the undergrowth rustled. Vortok twisted to look in the direction of the sounds, and Aduun emerged from the tall grass a few moments afterward. His short fur looked clean; he’d likely entered the water somewhere else along the stream, out of sight, to wash himself off. He held several stalks of a long, pale plant in one hand.

Moonweed.

“Would you like something to eat?” Nina offered a piece of meat and a handful of nuts and berries to Aduun as he approached.

His gaze shifted from the meat to the mix and back again. The muscles of his jaw ticked. “No. Better to save the food that will last, in case we have no luck when we hunt.”

“Oh.” She lowered her hands. He was right; they didn’t know how long they’d be here, or how difficult it would be to obtain food. She’d just thought…

It had been so long since they’d eaten, and they were sohungry. She just wanted to give themsomething.

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