Page 37 of Wench

‘I need to make my own choices. To eat when I choose. To starve if I desire. To wander where I want.’

He studies her a long moment, expression unreadable. Then his expression softens with resignation.

‘I’ll make you a deal,’ he sighs. ‘Eat tonight, and tomorrow . . . I’ll take you hunting.’

Her heart stutters. ‘Hunting?’ she echoes. ‘You expect me to believe you’d arm your captive?’

Lox’s lips quirk at the challenge. ‘You’ll track the game and loose the arrow yourself; dress and cook it. Nothing will touch your tongue that doesn’t first touch your hands.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then you can continue gnawing willow bark and pride.’ His gaze flicks to the basket in her arms. ‘I doubt you’ll last much longer.’

‘I’ve lasted longer on less.’

His head tilts, antlers striking a lattice of lamplight across the ceiling. ‘You mistake stubbornness for strength.’

It’s a lifeline. An olive branch.

But Marian knows better than to make a fae bargain. ‘You think I’ll stumble blind into whatever spell you’ve spun across that tray? Eat, and wake to find myself bound to you?’

His jaw hardens, pride bristling. ‘Unlike mortal men, I don’t need trickery to bind my women. If I wanted you tethered, little fox, you’d already be tied by the roots beneath this floor.’

The words crackle in the air, dangerous and intimate all at once. Marian’s pulse leaps traitorously, but Lox breaks the tension with a flick of his gaze toward the tray. ‘Eat tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you to the Eastern Ridge. No glamour. No games. That’s the deal.’

She chews at her bottom lip. It’s been almost a week since she’d last drunk the tonic her mother swore would guard her from fae magic. Is there a chance its protections still linger in her tissue?

Deals with the fae are death warrants, but the aching in her stomach has become a second heartbeat. Her mind scours for loopholes, for protections. Finally, she straightens, forcing her voice to steady. ‘Swear on Sherwood Forest that the food is untainted, and that it won’t change me.’

Lox stills. The lamp flame catches along the curve of his cheek as his mouth twists to the side, as if ruminating on her offer. Then, to her surprise, the faintest glint of approval warms his eyes.

‘Clever of you to ask for the only oath that carries weight with us.’ He sets his palm flat to the small table beside the tray, fingers splayed until the rivulets within the wood begin to glow. ‘On Shéruel, who remembers the first breath of the green, and on Wodenna, who keeps the old bones of the world, I swear that any food I bring you will be free of glamour or binding. It will not twist your mind or your marrow. It will not claim you. It will feed you and that is all.’ His mouth tilts a fraction. ‘The only change you risk is becoming less irritating.’

Relief moves through her body in a slow, reluctant thaw, and she hates that he can see it. She sets the sad handful of forage on the sill and crosses to the table. He steps aside, though he does not retreat far.

Marian’s always been good at resisting. At turning desire into something sharp and deflective. But Lox doesn’t push or leer. He simply gestures toward the tray like an invitation to surrender, not to him, but to herself.

And she is so very tired of fighting the things her body needs.

The chair legs scrape softly over the wood as she sits. Heat rises from the plate in tiny ghosts that lick her face. Her fingers tremble when she picks up the knife. Self-respect wants her to pretend she is not desperate, but hunger does not care about pride.

She cuts a strip of venison, lifts it to her mouth, but pauses before it crosses the threshold of her lips. ‘Are you just going to stand there and watch me eat?’

His mouth tilts. ‘Someone has to ensure you keep your end of our bargain,’ he answers, tone dry. ‘You mortals are famed for your slippery vows.’

Marian says a silent prayer to the saints that her mother’s tonic still lingers and lifts the morsel to her mouth. Her eyes never leave his as she bites. Salt and smoke spill across her tongue. Fibres give under her teeth, the meat tender enough that the knife could have been a suggestion. Fat slicks across her palate and something inside her loosens with a moan she can’t silence. She swallows and the ache in her belly sharpens, eases, then returns, but smaller, like a fist unclenching one finger at a time.

Steam beads on her upper lip. Her hand tries to remember manners, slow and measured, but her appetite keeps urging her faster. She fights for a rhythm that doesn’t look like desperation and loses steadily, bite by bite. The mash is earthy and sweet; the greens crackle with oil and a kiss of vinegar.

Lox watches every motion like he’s cataloguing it.

Her eyes flick up between bites, grazing the line of his throat before drifting to the antlers crowning his head. Up close, she can see the tines are not smooth; they carry faint striations, pale where new growth has come, darker where age has set a deeper colour.

‘Enjoying the view?’ he asks, mildly amused.

Marian’s eyes fall to her plate. ‘I’m sorry. I-I-I didn’t mean to?—’

He lifts a hand, cutting her apology short with an easy flick of his fingers. ‘Eat,’ he says, gentler than an order, firmer than a suggestion. ‘And look, if it pleases you. Curiosity is not a crime here. Ask what you like; most mortals never stand close enough to wonder.’