Page 39 of Tusk Love

“Suit yourself.” He brushed past her on his way to the desk, where he carefully placed the brown bag. This was not her parents’ rage. She hadn’t known that it was possible for someone to move quietly while being angry, for someone to be mad at another person while still caring about whether they’d eaten.

Oskar noticed the letter and picked it up. Guinevere was seized by the urge to snatch it from him and rip it into a million pieces, but she made herself stay where she was, watching him read it from out of the corner of her eye, her pulse hammering a mile a minute. His sharp oakmoss features remained completely impassive; there wasn’t even the slightest furrowing of his brow. There was no clue at all as to what he was thinking.

Not that sheneededany clues. It was fairly obvious that he was disgusted with her. Who wouldn’t be? He got to the end and lowered the parchment slightly, frowning—not at what she’d written, Guinevere realized, but at the damp spots that her tears had left.

Then he looked at her and she waited for him to send her away. To banish her from his life for good.

Oskar chucked the letter into the fire.

Guinevere’s mouth dropped open as the flames surged to consume their newest bit of kindling. “What—”

“I already know about your magic.” They were the last words she had ever expected to hear. “I saw you, that night. I heard the commotion from my campsite, and I went to investigate, and I got there as the bandits were dragging you out of the wagon. You handled them before I could intervene.” His gaze turned contemplative. “I’d never seen anything like it before. The wildfire spirit—Teinidh, was it?—flowing out of you. Turning all those evil men to ash in a blink. Terrible and beautiful, all at once.”

“You…you knew.” Gracious, what was wrong with her? He’d already said that. But her brain couldn’t come to terms with it. She had to repeat it, in her own voice, with the movements of her own lips and tongue, before she could accept a reality so different from what she had convinced herself would transpire. No shock, no horror, no revulsion. Just Oskar, calm and steady in the twilight. “You knew all this time. And you never—never said anything—”

He shrugged. “I assumed that, if someone as talkative as you wanted to discuss it, you would have. I had no right to pry.”

“I’m notthattalkative.”

“Beg to differ.”

“You knew,” she said again. She still couldn’t believe it. How she’d braced for the worst, how it hadn’t come to pass. How the scars of her childhood seemed to…notfade,exactly, but soften, their ugliness melting into the background of her being, remaining a part of her but no longer the long shadow over her life. “And you helped me and accompanied me on my travels anyway. It doesn’t bother you atall? I ended those men’s lives, Oskar. Just like—like that—” She made an abrupt motion with one quivering hand. “Nobody should be able to do that. Or, at the very least, they should be able to control it. But I can’t, and you’re not afraid of me in the slightest?”

He arched a brow. “Do youwantme to be afraid of you?”

“No.” Her bottom lip wobbled. “I want you to—to l-like me.”

In an instant he was closing the distance between them andwrapping her up in his strong arms. She made a strangled noise as she hid her face in his shirtfront, allowing herself to tremble, trusting him to hold her together.

“I like you just fine, Gwen.” Oskar sounded vaguely amused, but his hand on the back of her head was comforting. “How could I not? One of the things I remember most about that night is that you could have run after you set the fire. Saving yourself could have been your priority. But no—you freed the oxen first. You made sure they could get away. How can I be afraid of someone with a heart that good?” His tone hardened ever so slightly with his next words. “I forbid you to feel any guilt over killing those bandits. They would have hurt you. You did what you had to do to survive. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m starting to understand that some things aren’t,” Guinevere mumbled. And this, too, felt like defiance. “But there is always this voice in the back of my head. It drowns out even Teinidh. It belongs to Mother and Father. And it blames me for—for most of what goes wrong, because—”

Because you are a monster.

Because those curtains were genuine Marquesian lace and youburnedthem! What did I ever do to deserve such a child?

Because your freakish nature will be the downfall of this family.

Because it would have been better if she had died!

“Because,” said Oskar in the here and now, “you have bad parents.”

Guinevere stiffened. She would have struggled free of him, but he held her fast. The simple statement, so bluntly given, sank in. Once she got over her initial burst of indignation, it was almost a relief that someone in this world mirrored her darker thoughts and had no compunctions saying them out loud.

Yet it was also that same relief—the flicker of disloyalty inherent to it—that caused an unexpected flare of temper.

“So what if they’re bad parents? They’re all I have.” Guinevere managed to push Oskar away just then, or maybe it was surprise that caused him to release her. “What good does your judgment do when, of the two of us, I shall be the one left with it? Because you”—will head for Boroftkrah after dropping me off at Nicodranas, and we willnever see each other again—“are too busy trysting to consider my feelings!”

Oskar blinked. “Trysting?”

“With your women in red dresses!” Guinevere yelled. “Right after you lock me away like a nuisance pet!”

“Let me get this straight.” A vein twitched at Oskar’s temple. “You tried to sneak out of here and travel to the Menagerie Coast on your own, knowing full well that a bunch of mercenaries hired by a mysterious evil presence are after you and the trunk—all because you’re in a jealous snit?”

“Did you not read a word of my letter?” she railed. “Jealousy isnotthe reason.” In the back of her mind, Teinidh let out such a derisive snort that Guinevere’s face flamed. “Or at least it’s not the only reason—”

“I think it’s a bigger reason than you’ll ever admit,” Oskar growled. He stepped closer and slipped the straps of the rucksack off her shoulders. “What am I supposed to do with you? Someone who just hares off without even trying to work things out—”

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