Page 146

“Colm waits until you’re sitting before he climbs on you. Eskan wants whatever the other two have, unless there’s something he hasn’t looked at yet. Then he wants that. You’ll need to watch the herbs.”

“They can have herbs.”

“They’ll eat the twine.”

He glances back at the bunch hanging off his sack.

I reach up and touch his jaw. “I’ll help you.”

He turns his face a little against my fingers before watching the path again.

For a while I just listen to him breathe, and to the herbs brushing the sack. His hand’s big enough to hold both my knees. Colm would fit on that forearm with room left over.

I keep my face where it is. “Did you ever want children?”

“I want them with you.”

I lift my face out of his collar. He didn’t even think about it.

He’s still walking, but he’s watching me and not the path.

“With me.”

“Yes.”

I can see it straight away, some little one of ours climbing all over him while he pretends to be asleep.

Shit. I want that, and I’m already grinning at him.

“I thought there wouldn’t be any.” He steps around a stone. “I’m the last of my people. I didn’t think about it after that.”

I stroke the fur along his jaw until he turns back to me.

“I want that too. Children with you.”

He stops on the path.

I pull his face down and kiss him. His hand tightens under my knees, and I don’t let him up until he has to breathe through his nose. I’m still sore from last night in places that have nothing to do with the fight, and I’d do all of it again right here on the path if either of us could bend.

“You still have to put me down when we stop.”

“I remember.” He kisses me once more, then carries me the rest of the way to a fallen trunk.

He sets me on my feet and keeps an arm behind me until I’m steady.

Any day now, legs. I prop the bow against the trunk while he gets the sack off, and we sit down together with his bad leg stuck out in front of us.

He rubs his thigh above the bandage.

I watch him do it. “I’m walking after this.”

“Yes.”

I hold his hand while he rests, loosely, because my palm’s still sore from the line. His claws hang out past my fingers. I can’t seem to stop touching him today. If it’s not his hand it’s his jaw or his chest.

Oh well.

Once he’s got his breath back, he pulls the sack between his feet and gets out the two wrapped fish. I take the big one and open it across my knees.