Oh well. Never mind.
I shrugged and said, “I heard it somewhere and if I have to eat rabbit, it might as well taste good.”
He studied me then said quietly, “You are strange.”
My hand on the handle stopped moving, I glared at him and bit out, “I’m not strange!”
His eyes moved over me then came back to mine before he kept speaking in a soft voice. “You are not you.”
Hmm. What did I do with this?
It was the perfect opener. The problem was, I was guessing since he had lots of weapons, and none of them were guns, grenades or bazookas, he rode a horse and he didn’t have a camp stove but an iron spit, that this world also didn’t have movies. So he probably wouldn’t respond positively to the fact that the me Cora of my world might have been (a guess) switched with the Cora of this world that he knew.
Then again, they had curses in this world that we didn’t have in my world so maybe they had magic. Maybe he’d get it.
“Uh…” I started but couldn’t think of what to say.
“It won’t work,” he told me and I blinked at him.
“What won’t work?”
“This change,” he stated.
Oh dear.
“Uh, Noc –”
“What you did was unforgiveable,” he cut me off and I sucked in both lips and bit them at the harsh look on his face. “I will protect you, keep you safe from harm, keep you alive as I vowed to do as your husband and because your sister holds a place in my heart. But for no other reason. You cannot carry logs and cook meat and make me think you sweet. I know you. I know this is not you. What I also know is that the only energy you will expend is to connive and maneuver to take best care of yourself. Don’t make the mistake of thinking me a fool.”
I swallowed then began, “I –”
“Planned it from the beginning,” he finished for me. “Hunting,” he went on, “gave me time to think. You took me because you had no choice but also because you could not have Dash but it meant you could have what I could give you, your home, your life lazy as you like it. But you schemed the whole time knowing that you couldn’t have Dash but not wanting Rosa to have him either. So you got what you could from the arrangement but made sure your sister didn’t get what she wanted most in this world.”
Wow. That hurt. And, obviously, it was totally untrue.
“That’s not true,” I whispered.
“I am no fool.”
“It isn’t true.”
“It’s pure you.”
I held his eyes and he stared into mine, his handsome, scarred face a cold, blank mask.
There was no way I was going to convince him. Apparently, the Cora of this world wasn’t all that great.
And I didn’t like being her.
This whole thing sucked, like a lot, but now it sucked even more.
I broke eye contact, started turning the handle again and used the gathered juices to baste the rabbits.
I looked at him again when he rose.
“Call me when they’re done,” he ordered, turned on his boot, strode to the opening, shoved the hides aside and disappeared.
I stared back at the fire and I told myself it was the smoke that made my eyes wet.