Page 7 of ColdIron
He was logical like that. Apathetic. Feelings were complications he’d learned to shed centuries ago.
“He’s fucking heavy.” Caspian lagged behind, struggling to match the ground-eating stride Aelindor and I had settled into. The stride of those who didn’t tire.
“How?” I glanced back. “The boy’s skin and bone. He’s probably starved for weeks.”
I didn’t sound pitying. War hardened everyone. Sympathy was a luxury.
“He’s big, all right.” Caspian adjusted his grip. “I bet he’s got a couple of inches on me, and I’m already tall. It’s the bones that weigh the most. Dense. He’s built like a prizefighter.”
I was tired of his whining. How did all those women tolerate him?
“Just hurry up.” I scanned the sky. The haze was thinning. The sun would burn through soon. “This is the fringe of the feeders’ range. They hunt in the light.”
High noon. My weakest hour. I didn’t like putting myself in vulnerable situations. It went against every survival instinct I had.
Caspian lengthened his stride, boots thudding against the packed earth. Then, five steps in—a sharp curse. A dull thud.
I turned. “What now?”
Caspian had dropped the boy a few feet from a pile of human bones half-sunk in the dirt, their empty grins aimed at the sky.
“Why did you do that?” I snapped. “It’s not as if you’ve never seen a corpse.”
He just stared at the boy, his expression caught between shock and confusion, as if his charge had suddenly caught fire.
“Breasts,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“He has boobs. They kept bouncing against my back like two fucking soft balls.”
“For fuck’s sake. Some men develop breasts.” I kept my voice level, educational. “It’s a medical condition.”
“Since when did you become an expert on manboobs?” Caspian sneered, but uncertainty flickered behind his eyes. He glanced down at his own muscled chest, as if genuinely worried the condition might claim him in the near future.
“Happens to old men who let themselves go.” I sighed, exasperated. “If you insist on being difficult?—”
“The boy’s too skinny for big boobs.” The shifter dug in. “It’s disturbing. They’re too developed. I’ve slept with enough women to know.”
“Some men develop breast tissue, all right.” My patience was gone. “Are you done panicking?”
“A teenage boy should not have breasts like that,” Caspian insisted.
“Have you considered,” Aelindor said, not looking up from his scan of the horizon, “that the boy might not be a boy at all?”
4
NIKOLAI
The Fae prince studied the half-dead boy with those winter-blue eyes, his expression detached as always. The boy didn’t stir.
“Just pick him up, Caspian,” I barked. “We don’t have time for this.”
“We’ll make time.” Caspian’s jaw set in that stubborn line. “Something doesn’t add up.”
Instead of lifting the boy, he crouched and pressed a hand to his chest. Groping. His eyes went wide, and he jerked back like he’d been shocked.
“Shit—that’s a real breast!” He scrambled backward. “He’s not a boy. She’s a fucking girl!”
