Page 101 of Carnal: The Beast Who Loved Me

Free swallowed. “Someone put this in the side compartment of one of the builder’s bikes today, when he was in Farsuitwail meeting with Red.”

“What is it?” came a deep, raspy and demanding growl from behind her.

Rosie couldn’t believe the sweet, funny, tipsy Carnal she had helped inside a few minutes before was the same person who sounded so awake and angry. It was difficult to understand what he’d said, like his vocal cords had thickened. But apparently instantaneous sobriety was a side effect of seeing his family in crisis.

When no one answered immediately, he stepped around Rosie and looked in the box. It contained a blood-soaked rag. He picked it up, held it to his nose, sniffed, and dropped it like it was on fire before snatching up the note that lay on the table.

Rosie stood statue still and watched helplessly as a range of emotions played over Carnal’s face. He looked from Free to Serene, then at Charming before he crumpled the note in his fist, dropped it on the table, and turned away without a word. Rosie followed as he walked toward the front door.

“Carnal, stop! Where are you going? What’s happened?” He kept walking without acknowledging her. “You’re just going to leave? Stop and talk to me!”

He didn’t. He never broke stride. He left the front door standing open, got on his motorcycle, and rode away into the darkness.

Rosie stood motionless for a minute or two, staring out at the night, hoping he’d change his mind and come back. At some point, when she decided that was wishful thinking, she closed the door and turned back toward the kitchen.

“Will somebody tell me what’s wrong?” she asked, standing at the threshold, half afraid to step over.

“Someone sent us proof that Crave is alive,” Free said.

Rosie jerked her attention from Free to Serene when she heard Serene begin quietly weeping again. She looked at the rag in the box. “How do you know?”

“We know what our son smells like.”

“Oh,” she said. “What was on the note?”

Charming looked at her. “It says that if we ever think of attacking the Rautt, he’ll be nailed to their gates so that he’ll be the first casualty. He’s their insurance policy.”

The horror of that image made Rosie feel like she had to sit down. She remembered hearing that a person would be better off dead than captured by Rautt and she knew that’s what Crave’s mother had to be thinking at that moment. Rosie knew that Serene was imagining what he’d been forced to endure for the past year since he’d been taken and was trying not to think the worst.

It took a few minutes for Rosie’s brain to begin sorting through the information, but when the synapses resumed firing, she said, “Someone in Farsuitwail is delivering messages from the Rautt?”

All Free could do was nod.

“We’ve got to find out who,” Rosie said, “then we’ve got to rescue Crave.”

“Rescue,” Free said drily. “Don’t you imagine that if there was a way to do that, we would have set it in motion long before your arrival here?”

Rosie’s mouth set into a firm line of resolution. “There’s always a way, Free.Myfather taught me that. We just haven’t thought of it yet. But when we find out who planted this message, we can start piecing together clues as to how to get him back.”

“How do you think we’re going to find out who planted the message?”

“If you have to line up every single human in Farsuitwail and have them make a statement to Carnal, one at a time, then so be it. You ask every person questions until you find out who’s in contact with Rautt and helping them with something so heinous. Are you in contact with Rautt? Did you plant a message intended for Exiled? Do you know someone who is in contact with Rautt? Do you have any information about a message being secretly delivered? Do you have any information about anyone hiding to avoid being questioned?

“It just has to be done in an organized way so that everybody over the age of seven gives a statement.”

Free turned to Charming. “You need to go tell Dandelion that her Promise is alive.”

Charming nodded, got up, and left the table without a word or a glance toward Rosie.

When he was gone, Free said to Rosie, “I know you want to be helpful. You have been helpful with other matters and I’ll take your suggestions into consideration. Right now I need to console my mate.”

Rosie could see that Free was barely holding it together. His hand had been shaking when he’d raised it to gesture. She nodded to no one in particular and quietly withdrew, wishing she could do something more for the people who had taken her in and treated her like family. But most of all, she’d been crushed by the look of utter devastation on Carnal’s face. She knew she’d never forget it as long as she lived. Crave’s capture had broken Carnal’s heart and she could do nothing to change that.

She climbed the stairs, closed the door to the room that had been Carnal’s, and stopped, hearing thunder in the distance. She hoped Carnal wouldn’t be caught in a storm on his bike. She supposed that worrying about him meant she cared about him. She also supposed that, if she was going to give him a chance with her, she needed to make it clear that running off into the night was unacceptable, no matter how provocative the reason.

After changing into a floor length linen shift, loomed by the Exiled at the Weavers’ Barn, she lay down on top of her covers using her multicolored shawl like a lightweight winter throw. The house was quiet and, she thought, filled with a sadness that was palpable. She didn’t turn the bedside lamp off. The dim light was a small comfort.

A flash of lightning drew her attention toward the window. She started counting. One. Two. Three. Before she got to four there was a deafening crack of thunder. Sheets of rain began pelting the window and, once again, she hoped Carnal was safe and dry somewhere. So long as it was not in the arms of another woman. Even if that was his choice, she wouldn’t interfere with his path by hunting him down.

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