Page 36 of Feast

“Yes, the leash is necessary, Ika. It is for your own good. You tried to run before, and if you had escaped, you would have surely frozen out there in the forest naked and alone. The leash is for your own protection.”

“My protection, huh?” Ika seemed unconvinced.

“To protect you from yourself.”

Ika’s face reddened again, but this time the source was clearly not embarrassment. She was angry, and Muk felt the hairs on his neck go up.

She was a biter after all. Gunnar had spoken truthfully. This Ika was not one to be toyed with when she was angry.

Muk quickly decided to change the subject.

“Your food will get cold.” He raised the platter so she could smell it. “It will be more enjoyable if you eat it while it’s hot.”

Ika’s nose twitched, her stomach rumbled again, and she gave in.

She turned to face him, and he caught a brief but exhilarating glimpse of the dark tuft between her legs before she took the wooden platter and placed it on her lap.

With her pretense of not being hungry discarded, Ika attacked her meal, crunching bacon and slurping hefty spoonfuls of porridge with her wooden spoon. She devoured the food with so much ferocity that Muk realized she must have been starving. He had assumed that she ate like an ukkur, one big meal a day, but perhaps that was not so.

“What are these?” she asked, pointing to the fried eggs. She did not wait for Muk’s reply before she started in on them.

“Gollan eggs. Haven’t you had them before?”

She looked so fucking adorable, her cheeks bulging out with food. She swallowed a big mouthful and answered.

“Of course I’ve had them, but never like this. Rolf always bakes them in their shells by the coals of the fire.”

Her eyes drifted to the cooking implements which Muk had stacked near the fire to be cleaned later. Metal pots and pans and utensils.

“Did you make all of that equipment?” Ika asked, gesturing with the strip of bacon she was now munching on.

“We scavenged the metal from nith vehicles. With the use of heat and other stolen tools, Gunnar fashioned them into more useful shapes. He is a very skilled craftsman.”

Ika listened intently and curiously.

“Does the food please you?” Muk asked.

Ika nodded sheepishly.

“It’s very good. Different, but good.” After a beat, she added, “Thank you.”

For a few seconds, their eye lines latched together, and Muk felt himself lost in those rich, dark depths. He could stare into Ika’s brown eyes for hours on end, studying the patterns and striations of the irises.

Then Ika broke their gaze and looked over Muk’s shoulder.

“Slaine is staring at me,” she whispered.

Muk cast a glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, his silent friend was looking at Ika with an intensity that burned hotter than any fire.

“He scares me,” Ika admitted quietly.

“He’s alright once you get to know him.”

“He doesn’t say very much.”

“Yeah. I’ve only ever heard him speak his name.”

“What’s wrong with him?”