Page 91 of By the Horns
Gwenna gives me a tiny smile. “I love you, too. It’s impossible not to love you, Raptor. You’re the best male I’ve ever met, and you’ve had my back always. Of course I love you. Even saying that sounds weak.” She pauses, frustrated.
“Go on.” Mostly because my ego is loving hearing all this from her. What male wouldn’t love to hear his woman gushing about how great he is?
She pulls my hand from her chin and tangles her fingers with mine once more. Her gaze stays on our joined hands, so different in size but soperfect together. “It feels like…you know the chalice at the King’s Onion? How it’s constantly dropping one onion after another? I imagine that in the morning they have to pick up a massive basket of onions, all the ones that dropped overnight. And just when you think it’s got nothing more in there, another onion rolls out. I’m not good with flowery words, Raptor, but what I feel for you feels like that cup. That no matter how deep I dig, I won’t hit the bottom of how I feel for you. That there’ll always be another onion ready to drop. It’s a terrible comparison, I know.”
It’s a remarkably touching comparison, actually.
She lifts her head and narrows her eyes at me. “Laugh at me, and I’ll bloody kill you.”
“I would never. Not when you’ve given me the greatest gift.” I lift our joined hands to my muzzle and kiss them.
“I thought me bouncing on your knot was the greatest gift?” She arches a brow, falling back on her playful banter. There’s bright red in her round cheeks that tells me she’s still feeling vulnerable, though, and I vow that I’m never going to make her feel like less.
“Second-greatest gift,” I amend, and smile down at her. “I adore you, woman. You know that, right?”
Her cheeks grow even pinker. It seems she does know that.
Forty-One
Gwenna
I’m a nervousmess as we leave the dorm and head across the square toward the nest that Hawk shares with Sparrow. Neither Arrod nor Kipp has returned, and Raptor thinks they’re with Master Jay, comforting him—or getting comforted—and won’t be back for a while. This gives us time to talk to Sparrow and her husband.
Gods, this truly is the longest day ever. I’m exhausted from everything that’s happened, but we’ve got a while longer before we can relax.
I cling to Raptor’s hand as we walk through the streets. He made me change clothes and wash up before we headed over, and I’m glad he’s thinking clearly. I’m in a daze. Every time I close my eyes, I can still hear Hemmen’s voice, speaking in the strange unearthly babble of the dead.
And now our Five is down to four. And four is not the sacred number. We won’t have enough to pass the guild test to become artificers, much less the individual tests. We’ve failed this year, all because Hemmen has been murdered. Gods. A coworker has been murdered and I felt his last moments, his fear as he died. A hard knot forms in my throat, and I try not to choke on my emotions. He didn’t deserve this. No one deserves this.
I tell myself that if Hemmen is part of this group of thieves, it means he wasn’t innocent. It means he was caught up in something he shouldn’thave been. But he’s dead now, and it seems cruel to get hung up on something like that. When I think of him, I want to think of him as the disheveled student who loved his books so much he slept with them in his bed. Not as a thief.
Not as a dead man, clutching his throat and screaming for help in my mind.
I shiver, pushing away terrible thoughts as we approach Hawk’s dorm. My hand is sweaty as I clutch Raptor’s desperately, but if he’s noticed that I’m on the verge of panicking, he hasn’t said anything. He just strides forward, assured, and knocks on the door. Then he glances down at me. “Let me handle all of this, all right? I’ll protect you.”
Not sure how he can protect me from the truth of what I am, but I appreciate that he’s on my side. I nod and brace myself for the worst.
Sparrow answers the door, Squeaker in her arms being carried like a baby. “Oh.” She looks at Raptor and then at me, her expression wary. “If you want Hawk, he’s with his students. They’re talking about…ah…”
“We know. We were there,” Raptor says.
“Oh, good. I mean, not that it’s good. It’s just good that you know already and I don’t have to break it to you.” She adjusts her grip on Squeaker. “I’m feeding the cats if you’d like to join me until he comes back?”
We step inside, following her as she heads through the dorm toward the kitchen. As she does, more cats emerge from rooms and follow her, meowing their hunger. I’d laugh at the sight except I don’t know that I’ll be able to even breathe until this entire situation is resolved. Sparrow sets Squeaker down on the main table in the kitchen and then goes to the counter, where a large boiled chicken sits on a plate. She shoos one of the cats away as it jumps up, and picks up a knife. “Have a seat, you two.”
Raptor glances over at me, but I shake my head. I can’t relax. He puts his big hand on my shoulder and I cling to it, needing the reassurance. “We’re here to talk to both of you, actually.”
Sparrow turns to look at us, her eyes wide. Her gaze lands on him and then on me. “Oh, by Asteria. He knows?”
I swallow the knot in my throat and nod. “He knows.”
“It’s true? She really is a mancer?” Raptor asks.
Sparrow waves her hands at him, the knife flailing in the air. “Not so loud!”
Fighting the urge to bury my head in my hands and moan with horror, I manage a tiny smile. “He figured out something when I knew about Hemmen’s death before anyone else did.”
“And the body,” he adds.
