The Scourge (A.G. Henley) - By A.G. Henley Page 0,101
along we had no future together. The Reckoning just proved it. And now Peree's obviously changed his mind.
“Forget it,” I say. “I only wanted to know if you were all right.” He doesn’t respond, so I turn back toward the path.
“Took you long enough."
I whirl around to him, allowing anger to cover my anguish. “Were you listening? I thought you were dead! And in case the bandage on my head isn’t obvious enough for you, I was hurt! You could’ve come to check on me, too, you know.”
“I went in the caves once to find you, and my father was killed as a result.”
Is that it? He blames me for Shrike’s death? Guilt washes over me again. “I lost people, too.”
“How’s your . . .” He doesn’t finish.
“My what?”
“Your intended. I heard he was injured, and you haven’t left his side.” Bitterness oozes from his words.
“My intended? You mean Bear?”
“What, is there someone else, too? He put that thing on your arm that meant you were partnered, didn’t he?”
I throw up my hands. “And you gave me the bird without telling me what it meant! I feel like a piece of land people keep trying to claim by sticking stuff on me! Why doesn’t anyone bother to ask me before they decide I’m partnering with them?”
His breath quickens. A cautious note slips into his voice, nudging out the resentment. “What are you saying? You aren’t partnering with him?”
I take a deep breath to calm the raging storm of emotion inside me. Peree’s alive, and he doesn’t hate me. He’s only acting like a boar’s back end because he’s jealous. I can deal with that. I hold my arms out and twirl around slowly.
“What are you doing?” He sounds like he thinks I’ve lost my mind.
“You told me in Koolkuna that I had ties here, and you were right. But look, not anymore. I’m . . . untied. And no, I’m not partnering with Bear.”
He almost knocks me over when he grabs me. “I was going crazy the past few days, Fenn. First Shrike . . . then I didn’t know what happened to you . . . then I heard you were alive, but you were staying with Bear–”
I touch my lips to his, quieting him. Then I sketch the curve of his eyebrows and the length of his coarse sideburns. His lips curve under my thumbs. He takes my hands, still cold from the caves, in his, warming them.
“So . . . are you still looking for an ending to that story about the boy and the girl?" I ask. "I think I have one you’ll like.”
“Do you?” Peree murmurs. “What is it?”
“The girl loves the boy, too. She loves him, and she stays with him.”
“I don’t know . . . that wasn’t exactly what I was looking for,” he says, and I laugh. “Okay, twist my arm. It’s good.”
“You’re the only one I want to be with, wild boy. If you’ll still have me.”
His kiss answers my question, and a few more I would’ve been embarrassed to ask out loud. I snake my arms around him and rest my cheek on his chest. His heart is beating at a satisfyingly breakneck speed.
“Peree?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t know if Kadee told you, but we’re kind of . . . related.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Does it bother you?” I ask.
“It would if it were true. It would bother me a lot that I feel this . . . bothered, about my sister.” He nuzzles my neck. “But it’s not like we’re natural siblings. Does it matter to you?”
I smile. “Somehow I feel like it should, but no, not really.”
A group of children run past. Most of them head straight into the water like a flock of gabbling geese, but a few slow down and whisper to each other when they see us.
“I should go back up,” Peree says, “before the full-grown ones come along.”
I squeeze him tighter against me. “No, I invited you down, and you’re staying until you’re ready to go.” What did the Reckoning accomplish, if we don’t take this chance to change some of the rules?
“Always the brave one,” he says again, his voice warm this time. “But I have to warn you, I may never be ready to go.”
“That works for me.”
“Hey, Kadee wants me—us, now—to speak at the next Confluence, to tell everyone more about the Scourge, and present Nerang’s offer.”