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That frantic croak of a voice belonged to Fallon.
“Don’t you even dare to speak of her,” I snapped, rounding on him. “She’s the only reason you’re still breathing, Fallon. Keep her name out of your filthy mouth.”
“I did not even say her name!” he cried. “I do not even know it! I did not even know that she was here!” Fallon rubbed viciously at his throat. “Why did you not tell me? You could have sent me a message on my data tab!”
“Why the blazes should I have told you?” I snarled over his hound’s incessant barking.
“Because then I would have known!” Fallon exploded. “When the stampede started, I knew, or I thought, that you would be the only one potentially affected. No one else has a property this near to mine. And I know that you can ride a shuldu and that you’d know what to do if you were outside! You would not be in any danger. But then-”
His voice broke off and he dragged desperate claws through his pale yellow hair, his tail gesturing to the well-trampled and now-empty road.
“But then, there she was! I saw her fall! I had no warning!” His chest heaved, his eyes flashing white then brown, white then brown, before finally settling into their usual warm umber.
“You have no idea the shock of that, Silar,” he added quietly, sounding sick. “To suddenly see a vulnerable little female in the path of my cattle. And knowing in the deepest parts of myself that I’d never reach her in time.”
“I know exactly what it’s like.”
I’d seen the same thing he had. I’d watched my wife in the road. About to die.
Because of him.
“I need to see her,” Fallon said, his eyes going moon-white. “I need to make sure she’s alright. And apologize and-”
“You need to get off my property before I change my mind and kill you.”
My tail was already itching to find its way to Fallon’s throat again.
He cast a pained look towards the house. But he knew better than to argue with me.
Unfortunately, my wife did not.
Once again, she called to me from the house, shouting that she was “making some food and why don’t you bring your friend inside?”
My friend. My friend.
My fellow convicted murderer whom I’d nearly just killed in front of her.
Fallon, brainless fool that he was, was already ignoring my ire and directing his mount into a trot towards the house. I urged Tarion into a canter, quickly catching up with him.
“Wait,” I growled at him.
“She invited me!” Fallon reminded me defensively.
“Fallon, curse it all, wait.”
Something in my tone caught him up short right after he’d dismounted. He paused, stroking his mount’s black neck as I followed him down to the ground.
“What is it, Silar?” He eyed my bloodied tail with suspicion.
But I’d restrain myself. I’d been so afraid of Cherry finding out about my murderous past and now I’d almost gone ahead and killed Fallon in front of her. She wouldn’t have to wait for me to tell her the truth. I’d practically showed her.
I reined in my rage, the way I would a bucking shuldu, and held it tightly leashed.
“If you go in there… You cannot…”
“Cannot what?” Fallon pressed.
I bit out a sigh.
