Ire Taverness's Arc

Chapter 11 of 19

Ire woke to Kael's arm heavy across her ribs. His chest was warm against her back. His breath moved her hair. Rain had stopped in the night. Morning light came through the canvas in a pale square. His hand was flat on her belly, fingers spread, as if he had fallen asleep with it there on purpose. She did not move. She listened to him breathe and counted. Her tail curled once around his calf. His lynx ear twitched against her hair. He was awake. "How long have you been up," she said. "A while." "Your hand." "I know where it is." She smiled into the blanket. He pulled her closer. His nose pressed into the back of her neck. They lay like that until the light in the canvas turned yellow. "Kael." "Mm." "I don't want to leave this tent." "You don't have to today." "We have one day left." "One day." He kissed the spot behind her ear. "Then we go back." She rolled to face him. His orange eyes were soft. She put her hand on his jaw. "I want to come back here," she said. "With the baby. When it's old enough." "Then no one takes it." "Takes what." "The tent. This clearing." He sat up. The blanket fell to his waist. "I built it for you. I'm not letting a scavenger or a road man walk in and claim it while we're gone." He pulled on his pants and went outside. She watched him through the flap. He worked all morning. He drove stakes in a wide ring around the clearing and tied dark cord between them at knee height. He hung small strips of oiled cloth from the cord. He set thin wires across the paths in, low, where a boot would catch. He buried something under the front stakes she did not ask about. Traps, she guessed. His kind. She brought him water at midday. He was on one knee by the north stake, hands black with dirt. "Will it hold," she said. "For anyone who isn't me." He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. "I'll come out once a month and reset it. This place stays ours." "Ours." "Yours and mine. And the child's, when there is one." She crouched beside him and put her forehead against his temple. He held still for it. By dusk the ring was done. He walked her the full circle and showed her every wire, every stake, every buried line. She memorized the safe path in. He made her walk it twice. That night she slept with her hand on her stomach and his hand over hers. In the morning they packed. He killed the fire, checked the wards a last time, and led her out on the safe path. One more job, she thought. Then home. Then this again. She did not look back at the tent. She trusted it to hold.