Siobhan met his eyes levelly. “There’s no guarantee they will. When your men attacked, most of the people here fled to either Goldschmidt or Winziane. Some have chosen to remain in Winziane. Others are trickling back to Goldschmidt. But it will take considerable time and money to repair this city, and at the moment no one has any money to spare. Those that do choose to return will have many years of hard work ahead of them and it might be a full decade before Stott recovers.”
The kid did not ask any further questions but looked around at the destruction with wide eyes. He himself was only ten. It must be strange to think that it would take the rest of his childhood to restore the damage he had done.
As the sun started to set, Siobhan clapped her hands together cheerfully, and said to Alexander, “Well, we’ll leave now.”
Alexander put a hand to the stone, getting ready to push himself up to his feet.
“Oh no, you’re not going. You’re staying here for the night.”
Those crystal blue eyes went wide in his face. “But there’s nothing here!”
“That’s not our fault, it’s yours. You are the one that ordered everything destroyed or taken away. I think it will do you good to experience what life is like after a war.” Siobhan’s cheerful tone seemed almost sadistic in the moment. “Don’t worry, we won’t leave you here forever. We’ll come to get you.”
Alexander went taut, his body leaning forward, eyes glued to her face. “When? When will you come get me?”
“Eventually.” With that, she walked away.
It was pure shock that kept Alexander rooted to the spot. He looked around frantically, mouth opening and closing, as if his mind could not accept the fact that he was being left in such a desolate place.
Rune watched him from the corner of his eye in disapproval. The kid was not good at adapting to sudden surprises. That was a bad trait for a leader to have.
As soon as they had turned the corner, Siobhan silently motioned for Rune to get on the rooftops. While they were waiting for the sun to go down, it would be his job to keep track of the kid. There were so many broken awnings and windows, that Rune found multiple handholds in all the buildings. It was an easy task for him to get up on a roof.
“How is he doing?” Tran asked.
“He’s just sitting there.” Rune really did not understand that reaction. “Shouldn’t he be looking for water or food or something?”
Tran gave a shake of the head, the gesture one of pity. “Yes, he should. But we are survivors. We know how to take whatever luck is handed to us and run with it. He’s never had to think on his feet before. If we leave him here for more than a night, he’ll likely get himself killed in some fool way.”
“Which is why we will not be leaving him here for more than a night.” Siobhan gave a year’s worth of sighs. “He’s really just sitting there?”
“Hasn’t moved an inch,” Rune confirmed.
“Tell me when he moves.” To Wolf and Tran, she said, “Do the two of you have good tactics to scare the boy with?”
Strangely in sync, they gave her matching evil grins.
Siobhan did not find this comforting. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re planning.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t trust us?” Wolf responded with a hand over his heart as if she had wounded him.
“I don’t,” she told him bluntly and without the least bit of apology in her tone. “Your idea of scary and my idea of scary are worlds apart. So walk me through what you are planning. I have no intention of giving a child a heart attack.”
Rune had been part of the planning of course. He was actually looking forward to some of it, but now he had a feeling that Siobhan would veto the best ideas. She was going to take all the fun out of this. He just knew it.
They had several hours of waiting before darkness fell. Siobhan and Wolf went off to talk about something and gather up things they thought they could use. It was Rune and Tran’s job to keep track of Alexander. Rune stayed on top of the roofs so he could have a bird’s eye view while Tran kept his feet on the ground. He was not a good person to put on a roof—he stuck out like a sore thumb.
Tran snapped his fingers. “You know, we don’t have to wait for dark in order to do one of our plans. Try staring at him really hard and give him that I’m-being-watched-feeling.”
That was a good point. Even though Siobhan had vetoed most of their ideas, she didn’t mind if it was something that was ghost-like behavior. The staring shouldn’t be a problem. Rune could attest to the fact that the feeling of being watched was one of the more disturbing sensations.
Focusing, Rune stared hard at the back of Alexander’s head, with just enough bloodlust to send a shiver up any man’s spine.
Alexander did not even twitch.
Tran waited several seconds before asking, “Well?”
“The kid has the survival instincts of a rock.”
“He’s not doing anything?”
“He’s breathing. That’s about it.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing that you kidnapped him,” Tran mused. “Left alone, someone really would have assassinated him ten years down the road.”
Rune couldn’t argue because Tran was likely right. “My eyes can’t keep this up much longer. Have to stop.”
“Might as well. It’s not working anyway.” Tran mulled things over for a moment before asking in an uncertain tone, “He will be scared by the noises, right?”
“I’m beginning to wonder.”
They sat in silence as they waited for Alexander to move. Rune was no stranger to this sort of situation. He had waited for a target to move many, many times in the past. The only way this differed was that he wasn’t supposed to kill anyone.
“Rune.”
“What?” He responded, without looking away from his target.
“Wolf said that he won the bet because Denney told Conli about you two last night.”
“He’s right.”
“But Conli didn’t say or do anything this morning.” It was a statement, but Tran’s nuance turned it into a question.
Rune rubbed at his jaw with an open palm. “I am just as confused as you are. He didn’t say anything to me last night either.” As an afterthought, he added, “Denney said that he is still in denial.”
“Maybe he is.” Tran seemed to find this funny, as he snickered softly to himself. “But really, he should be rejoicing. Denney has always needed a man like you.”
That stopped Rune mid-breath. Daring to take his eyes away from Alexander for a moment, he twisted so that he could see Tran’s face over the edge of the roof. “A man like…me?”
Tran met his doubt with a steady grin. “That’s right, a man like you. Strong, protective, reliable.”
He might be all of those things, but didn’t relationships require more to work? “But there’s still so much that I don’t know how to do.”
“In courting? Rune, there’s not a man alive that knows everything he needs to about how to court a woman properly. As long as you know how to apologize, when to apologize, and which gift to bring with you while you are groveling, you’ll do fine.”
“You’re not joking, are you?”
“Not a bit.”
Rune had some ideas of Denney’s favorite things and so he could probably come up with the gift if he ever did need to apologize, but how to apologize was a different matter. He made a mental note to speak with Markl about that when they returned to Goldschmidt.
“As for Conli, don’t worry about it,” Tran advised. “He’s been worried for years about who would end up being Denney’s partner. Now that it’s happened, he just has mixed feelings about it happening so soon.”
Tran was the second person to say something like that to him today. While they might be right, he still intended to have a good talk with the man once they returned.
Turning back, Rune found that Alexander had finally stood from his stony seat and moved. “He’s walking down the street.”
“Toward u
s or away from us?”
“Away.” Rune pointed towards the east. “He’s heading more towards the heart of the city.”
“I’ll fetch Wolf and Siobhan. Don’t lose sight of him.”
“On it.”
Night fell and the games began.
Siobhan had positioned herself on one of the rooftops, so that she could see what would happen, but it turned out to be useless. There were no street lamps lit, no lights streaming from windows, nothing but the stars and moon overhead to offer any illumination. Her eyes simply weren’t good enough to catch more than broad silhouettes. Especially in these jumbled city streets, she couldn’t do more than see buildings. How Rune or Tran could find their way around and keep an eye on Alexander was beyond her.
She sat huddled next to Wolf, straining her ears instead of her eyes, as she had a better chance of hearing something before seeing it. The night air had a slight chill to it, and she wanted to keep moving closer, but didn’t quite dare.
“Siobhan,” his deep voice sounded overly patient, “just cuddle in with me. Your teeth are near chattering.”
She still didn’t think it quite fair to do so when her hormones hadn’t given her a full answer yet. But he was right that her body was still cooling and she would end up freezing if this kept up. So she promptly glued herself to his side, stealing warmth as much as possible.
“Are they doing anything down there?” she wondered aloud. “I’m not hearing anything. I thought they would be making a lot of racket.”
“Tran’s flitting in between buildings right now, making himself a ghost-shadow. From the way the kid is flinching back and forth, he’s seeing Tran move.”
“Oh, so that’s working. Good.” Siobhan hoped that was all Tran was doing. Wolf wasn’t likely to tell her if he went overboard. No one but her seemed to have any sympathy for their arrogant guest.
She stayed still and quiet but could not hear or sense Tran’s movement below. Siobhan had to take Wolf’s word for it. This seemed to go on for an indefinite stretch of time before her two ghosts changed tactics. There was a long dragging sound, like something heavy being hauled along the road, and then several sharp knocks against the walls. Because Siobhan had strained her hearing to the limit, the noises startled her badly, and she nearly leapt out of her skin.
Wolf grabbed her arm in a steadying motion. “What’s wrong with you? It’s just Tran and Rune.”
“I know.” She put a hand to her heart, trying to keep it from thumping out of her chest. “But it still surprised me.”
“How can it surprise you if you know what’s coming?”
“Now how was I supposed to know they would choose right at that moment to make body-dragging sounds?” she snapped back acidly. Her retort might have gone over better if not for the fact that someone made a loud clanging sound, which set her nerves jangling all over again.
“Siobhan,” Wolf said patiently, “are you going to be like this all night?”
She wished that she had proper lighting so that she could glare at him. “You don’t find this the least bit unnerving? We’re in an abandoned city, a war zone, without any light to see by. That doesn’t put you on edge?”
“Of course it does,” he soothed.
That patient tone in his voice irritated her for some reason. “Then why aren’t you twitchy like I am?”
“Because you are more sensitive to horror that I am.”
For that, she punched him in the arm.
Of course it didn’t hurt him, only amused him, and he chuckled. “If it makes you feel better, you can snuggle with me.”
She was cold enough, and unnerved enough, that she didn’t hesitate to take him up on the offer. Siobhan was basically in his lap already so she did nothing more than lift up his right arm and slide over. He accommodated this easily and wrapped his left arm around her midriff. She settled into this new position as comfortably as she would have her favorite armchair.
From below, Tran’s voice rose in a song, one unlike any she had ever heard before. It was melancholy, and eerie, the melody pitched into a minor key that set a tingle going up and down her spine. Listening to it, it sounded like the dead mourning their lost lives.
“It’s Tran,” Wolf reassured her softly.
“I know. I know it’s him, but that song of his makes it seem like he’ll call ghosts out of the walls.”
“Why are you so bad with ghosts and the like?”
“Because I had mean brothers who thought telling scary stories in the dark was fun.” They hadn’t learned their lesson and were doing the same thing with their children. Siobhan had become the kind older aunt that understood that scary things were just scary and was perfectly willing to hide under the blankets with them. She wasn’t about to confess to the kids they still scared her too.
“This isn’t working,” Wolf said to himself as much as to her. “At this rate, you’ll have heart failure before dawn. Here.” He cupped the back of her head and turned it so that her ear was directly above his heart. “Listen. Match your breathing with mine. Don’t focus on what they’re doing, focus on me.”
Tuning something out was easy to do if she had another thing to focus on. She did as instructed, closing her eyes, training her hearing on the steady thump-thump of his heart. As she did this, her breathing automatically synced with his, and the rest of the world slowly faded to a background hum. The tension riding in her shoulders drained away and her nerves no longer thrummed with restrained panic.
She should have done this sooner. Siobhan knew for a fact that very little could get past Wolf. Even if it was a ghost, he’d somehow manage to defeat it. Perhaps, if he’d been with her as a child, she’d never have developed a fear for ghosts in the first place. How could she, with such solid reassurance at her side?
It was much warmer, for some reason, as well. Too warm. Her face felt flushed. Siobhan almost drew back a space to avoid overheating, when she realized it was something else entirely making her feel that way. Her stomach was clenching, nerves singing pleasantly, and even though they didn’t have skin-to-skin contact, she felt him in a way she hadn’t before. During the past ten years, this man had picked her up, or held her, or embraced her in a variety of ways. But in this moment, it was different than all of those other times.
Siobhan’s eyes fluttered open and she stared blindly ahead. Weeks ago, she had been hit with the question: Could she ever see Wolf as a man?
Now, in this moment, the question was suddenly answered: Yes.
For the first time, Siobhan was acutely aware that she was a woman, and she was being held by an incredibly attractive man. In fact, her feminine instincts were chastising her for not realizing all of this sooner. All of those days thinking about this seemed like such a waste of time when the answer had been sitting in front of her all along.
There was only one real question left. She’d been told, people had assumed, but until she heard it directly, Siobhan could not act. So she gathered up her courage, and sat back enough so that she could look up.
The light from the moon was barely enough that she could see it when he looked back at her, but the expression on his face was nothing but a blur of shadows. It was his voice, and the flex of his arms, that told her what he was feeling. “What is it? Not working?”
“It’s working,” she answered, picking her words carefully. “I have a question.”
“Alright.”
“Erik. Answer me true. Are you in love with me?”
His breath caught, body tense with surprise. For a full second they stayed locked in that position before he responded with quiet resolution, “Yes.”
“Good.”
“Wha—mmph.”
Siobhan’s kiss caught him by surprise, but Wolf was a master of turning the moment into his favor, and he responded with alacrity. They spent several enjoyable moments entangled together before he separated enough to pant against her mouth, “If you’re doing this as a distraction, because Rune and Tran are scaring you, I’ll go ki
ll them right now.”
“Not,” she denied cheerfully. “I’ve known for weeks that you were probably in love with me. You’ve been my friend for so many years, it took a while for my head to work around the concept of being more. It all just clicked.”
“Just now?” he asked dubiously. “While we’re on a rooftop, in this war-ravaged place, with Tran baying at the moon?”
“You know, put it like that, and it’s terribly unromantic.”
“You understand my confusion, then. Especially since you’ve been acting skittish around me for weeks.”
“I told you that Sylvie asked me a question?”
“The question being…?”
“If I could see you as a man or not. Well, I finally figured out the answer. I did promise you’d be the first to know.” She would have explained, but even Siobhan wasn’t sure why her heart had reacted so strongly to this moment. It just had. “Are you confused enough to stop kissing me?”
He didn’t even pause to think about it.
Wolf kept her pleasantly distracted for the rest of the night.
ӜӜӜ
Rune’s eyes were excellent in the dark. It was a side-effect of his former profession. Being in bad lighting like this was hampering him some but he could see a respectable amount. Still, when he glanced up to check on Siobhan and Wolf, he doubted his eyes for a moment. In fact, he blinked several times, not sure if they were playing tricks on him or not.
“Tran,” he hissed, motioning sharply for the man to climb up.
It took Tran a few minutes to find hand and footholds enough to climb the one story building, and then the rest of the way to the little balcony Rune had perched on. When he managed it, he whispered back, “What?”
Rune pointed toward the two on the rooftop two streets over.
Tran stared in that direction for a long moment, leaning forward as if straining to see clearly. “Those two…are they kissing?”
“You see that too?”
“Ahh,” Tran sighed in happy satisfaction. “So they are. Good.”
Rune was relieved as well. Wolf had waited a long time for that to happen. Still…he glanced around and had to wonder, “How did Wolf get her in the mood here, of all places?”
Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) Page 17
