Page 47 of Kill the Beast
Alderic didn’t deserve her ire, no matter how much his words had hurt her. He was the one who had kept his head when things went sideways.Shehad acted without thinking, and had come dangerously close to dying on the altar of her own anger.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes on the blood-crusted fawn of Brandy’s coat. “For saving him. I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.”
“You’re welcome, Carnifex,” he said lightly, as if he hadn’t somehow managed to crack her open and expose the fetid parts of her to the harsh light of the fire.
She forced herself to look at him, her ears burning. “You dove in after him without a second thought. Why?”
“He clearly means a lot to you,” he said, his voice almost gentler than she could bear.
“He’s all I have left,” she said without thinking, then cursedherself for it. It was the liquor and pain, the fading vestiges of adrenaline, combining in her blood to make her say things she never would have, otherwise. But maybe she owed him some piece of herself, in exchange for what he had done. What he had risked for her. “My mother got him for me when I was a kid. He’s all I have left of her. Of that life,” she said, unable to suppress a shiver that had nothing to do with the frigid night or the cold lake water drying on her skin. She felt vulnerable—naked—saying that out loud.
“You don’t have to do that,” Alderic said softly. “If you don’t want to tell me—”
“I do,” she said, surprised to find that it was true. “Want to, I mean.” What was it he had asked her in the Morningstar?What kind of name is Brandy, for a dog?“His name was supposed to be Bluto, but every time my father shouted for his after-dinner brandy, the dog would show up. He won’t answer to anything else.” Alderic chuckled, and Lyssa eyed him sidelong. “I still can’t believe you dove into a lake full of mermaids to save him for me.”
He shrugged, looking away. “This isn’t the first time I’ve tried sacrificing myself for the greater good. The ‘sacrifice’ part never seems to take, though.”
She looked again at the scar on his throat, wondering how he had gotten it. Wondered, too, how she could have misjudged him so thoroughly. She had thought him weak, and he had flipped her on her ass. Had thought him just another selfish, airheaded rich man, but he had risked his own life to save her dog’s. Had risked it again, to save hers.
No one had ever tried to save her before, except for Eddie.
He was a confusing, complicated man, and Lyssa was startled—and somewhat annoyed—to discover that she liked him a great deal.
“Is the bite on my neck deep?” she asked, and he moved closer to get a better look.
“No, but your back definitely requires stitches.”
“How are you with a needle and thread?”
“Exceptional,” he said, and she could hear the half smile in his voice.
“The star of the sewing circle, I’m sure,” she said as he fetched the other camp stool and sat down behind her.
“You have no idea.” He dabbed the wound with alcohol, then took the needle from her, brushed her hair out of the way, and began stitching her up without warning—like he knew she would have been insulted if he had given her one.
“Enlighten me, then.” Her voice was soft, almost lost in the pop and crack of the fire. For some reason, saying those words spiked her adrenaline more than being swarmed by mermaids had.
Alderic’s hand slowed for a fraction of a second, as though she had surprised him, but he recovered so quickly she might have imagined it. “After my older brother was born, my mother was desperate for a daughter. She was incredibly disappointed when she pushed me out instead. I spent the first six years of my life in dresses, being taught embroidery, before my father came home from the battlefield and tried to undo what she had done.”
Well, that explained a lot.
“The battlefield,” Lyssa said. “You weren’t born in Ibyrnika, then?” Their island hadn’t seen war in centuries.
His hand slipped, and she sucked in a breath at the needle’s sudden jab. “Sorry,” he said. “All this blood is making things difficult. To answer your question: I was born and raised here. My father fought for another king, though.”
“He was a mercenary?”
“He was an opportunist. And, as you can see, he didn’t quite beat my soft upbringing out of me. I landed somewhere in the middle—a tourney knight but not a military commander, a courtier but not a politician, favored by the queen’s ladies but not by the king. I fell just short of every hope he had for me. And thus, I managed to disappointbothparents.” He made a little sound like a laugh, and she could feel his breath on her bare skin.
Lyssa tried to turn, but his hand on her shoulder was firm, preventing her. “You were a knight?”
“I was.”
“I didn’t know those still existed,” she said. She’d loved the stories her mother had told her about knights and dragons when she was a child. “Did you ever fight any monsters?”
“A tourney knight, I said.” He sounded amused. “You know, jousting?”
“Jousting?” She smirked. “Rich people and their ridiculous hobbies.”
