Page 108 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Maybe when you’re calmer. Right now, your cunny’s in danger of starting a wildfire.”
“Knock it off!” My cunny was off limits to his commentary. “You know that’s not—I wasn’t—I’d never—”
Pete chuckled, enjoying my perturbation. Clearly, he’d only said what he had to ruffle my feathers. He didn’t really want to sleep with me.
How could he?
Well, he wasn’t disgruntling me without getting thoroughly disgruntled back.
Jamming hands onto hips, I wagged my head at Pete. “You really want to know what’s bothering me?”
“Oh, I’m justdyingto know, Shorty.”
“I’m bleeding.”
Pete snorted, his eyes falling to the new scab on my bottom lip—where the damn tree had whacked me. “That’s barely a scratch. Nothing to cry over, and it only just happened to you. You’ve been a wretch for—”
“I’m bleeding from my vagina, you idiot!”
Pete faltered back a step, his cheeks flushing.
“And I’m cramping, my back is hurting, I’m dead tired, and I don’t haveanythingfrom home to make it better! Not even chocolate!” Suddenly close to tears, I gripped my hair. “So,there—that’s why I’ve been so miserable. I don’t know how beyns manage these things in this awful place, and unless you’ve got some way to help me, which I sincerely doubt, you’d better keep your head down, your mouth shut, and let me be how I’m going to be. Got it?”
His startlement passing, Pete firmed his lips, then strode to Bob’s side. “Giddap,” he clicked.
Drained, I sank into my herbal bed, the wagon rolling on.
Not long after that, Pete turned us down a side road that led us out of the forest and onto meandering grasslands, and I counted all the ways my current life sucked, the distance between me and the Shadow Court closing.
Broodingbeneathmycloakin the wagon bed, I felt the wagon clatter to a stop and blinked back to awareness. Amiable voices conversed with Pete as dogs barked, Sionna leaping from our nest to join them. Who Pete spoke with and why we’d stopped before sunsdown, I had no clue. Didn’t give a shit either.
I feigned sleep to avoid socialization. Until snapping fingers made that impossible.
Expecting to find Pete smirking, I opened one eye and glared.
Two Middling beyns stared back at me.
“Oh, aye,” the taller, sultrier of the two cooed, her lined eyes sizing me up. Her skin was pearlescent, her hair hanging in ebony waves down a broad, curvaceous back. “She’s Danann all right, Olea. See those knives in her look?”
Olea shushed the first beyn, a closed lip smile spreading across her round face—the color of terracotta, a few shades lighter than Zahra’s. “Hello. Welcome to our camp.”
Rubbing my eyes, I sat up to scan my surroundings. Olea had welcomed me to a caravan of four vardo wagons of eclectic design and vibrant color. A fire pit smoked in the camp’s epicenter, brewing something in a hefty cauldron hanging above it. Two rough-looking feyrs worked beside it, chopping wood. Pete stood with them in jovial discussion. So, we hadn’t stopped there by happenstance. My captor knew these people.
Did they also know he was a harbinger? How did he explain my miserable, filthy presence?
“Pete said you could use our help,” the first beyn said, blinking at me when I didn’t respond.
“Why don’t you come with us?” Olea rapped the wagon, more direct. “I’d wager you’d enjoy a hot bath.”
That perked me up better than a shot of espresso. “That sounds wonderful. Thanks.”
They shared a glance at my accent, but neither of them commented as I made my way to the back of the wagon.
The bowed-top vardo they led me to was tiny but functional, full of character and color. The exterior was a deep viridian and decorated by flowering herbs, warbling wind chimes, and a clothesline replete with fluttering clothes, both a male’s and a female’s.
Inside was rife with the aroma of lavender. A sizeable bed, neatly made with bright, quilted bedding, spanned the entire width of the back wall. Above it, mounted shelves hugged the wall, housing books, trinkets, tins, and decorative plates. Several steps down was a minuscule kitchen with a woodburning stove, a quaint dining area before the only window, and—well, that was it. I toured the place with one glance and wondered where I’d be getting that bath Olea mentioned.
“This is cute. Small, but cute.”
