Page 13 of Tears of the Wolf
“I’m sorry.” Cenric cleared his throat, sounding awkward.
Brynn heaved deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. How could she have tears left after all these months?
She didn’t hear Cenric move, but she sensed the shape of hiskarise from the trunk. She didn’t look up. If he wanted to throw her onto her back and lift her skirts, she didn’t care anymore.
Instead of toward her, he moved away. A screeching sound came from the door.
Brynn looked up, blinking away tears to see Cenric had dragged the trunk to block the door, one end against the wall. Fear spiked through her. Just why would he be barricading them in here?
Cenric must have seen her face. He shook his head, even as he sat back down on the trunk, across the room. “I won’t hurt you.”
Brynn swallowed, a little ashamed at the wash of relief she felt at that. She had told him she was ready to do her duty.
Cenric propped his sword against the trunk and settled down on top of it, his outer coat draped over him like a blanket. “Try to rest.” He patted the trunk near his feet and his dog came leaping from across the room.
Snapper settled down on the trunk, draped over Cenric’s legs as if they had done this a hundred times before.
Brynn frowned, confusion filtering through her drunken mind. If she didn’t know better, she would think he was guarding the door. Was he really so suspicious of Aelgar? “What are you doing?” she whispered.
Cenric shook his head again, looking to the fire. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Just…try to rest for now.”
Brynn wasn’t sure what to make of this. Was he trying to respect her, or did he not want to touch her?
She settled down on the bed, watching Cenric from the corner of her eye. She waited a long time after that, but he never moved from his place in front of the door.
This might not be the perfect wedding night she had once fantasized about as a girl, but at least she wasn’t spending this one by herself.
Cenric
Having the goddess of foretelling as his patron was much like having a Valdari mercenary as a cousin—less useful than most people assumed. Just as the Valdari still raided Cenric’s lands when the mood struck them, so Morgi seemed to only offer her guidance when the mood struck her.
Morgi was not a gentle goddess. She was not the motherly Eponine or the seductive Frenella. If anything, Morgi was a capricious younger sister, but she was protective in her own way.
Cenric had no dreams, only nightmares. As a child, they had frightened him. He had feared sleep, hated it. Some nights passed in peaceful oblivion, but Cenric had dreaded the nights he had visions all the same.
As he had grown older and his life had become more dangerous, Cenric had come to value his gift.
Though most of his nightmares were esoteric reflections of his own fear, dread, jealousy, and flaws, some of them weremore. Foretellings were as different from simple nightmares as fire was from smoke.
Nightmares cleared away upon waking, fleeting and ephemeral. Foretellings burned themselves into his awareness, distinct and branded on his mind even in waking.
None of them were pleasant, but every foretelling was a warning. A possible future. Morgi only showed him danger, calamity, and misfortune, but it was always when it already lurked, and he could avoid it.
But either there was no calamity ahead or Morgi wasn’t in the mood to warn him. Cenric woke quietly in the early dawn hours, stiff from a night on the hard chest, but with no foretellings. He’d had a nightmare of some kind, though its memory was already fading. Yet he had not seen any warnings from his goddess.
The first thing he realized was that Snapper was gone. Cenric glanced around the room, looking for his dog.
Brynn lay asleep on the bed, curled on her side. From her pinched expression, Cenric wondered if she suffered nightmares, too. At her back, was Cenric’s traitor dog.
While Cenric had slept on the hard trunk with the wall against his back, Snapper had helped himself to the empty space on the bed.
Snapper lay at Brynn’s back, his limbs curled under him with his chin draped over her shoulder. The dog’s eyes were open, watching Cenric. The dog had absolutely no shame.
“Snapper,” Cenric hissed. “Get down.”
Snapper grunted in response and shifted.Pup.
Cenric got the image of a puppy curled against Brynn.
