Page 95 of Tiger's Trek
He approached the knight and turned around. Just as the knight lifted his arms, Veru spoke.
“Wait a minute! Danik, how do you know you’re a virgin? You can’t remember what happened before you arrived in this place.”
“Well, you didn’t volunteer, so I assumed?—”
“You don’t get to assume anything. It’s none of your business”—Veru noticed the knight’s raised eyebrows and interested expression as he peeked over Danik’s shoulder—“or yours either,” she added angrily. “But, yes, I’m a virgin!”
“Good. Excellent,” the knight said. “Then this”—he held up his comb—“should work fine on both of you.”
“What will work?” Danik asked, glancing back.
“My comb. It’s how I keep my hair as nice as it is.”
“And how is your fancy-man hair supposed to help us?” Danik asked, tucking his own longish hair behind an ear, causing Veru to smirk.
“Just wait.” He turned back to Danik’s hair and began combing. Soon Danik’s blond hair began to grow. When it was at his waist, the knight lopped it off with a sword, dropping it on the ground. The sheep approached it, nibbled at it half-heartedly, and then soon it was gone.
“Umm, if I may, my dear?” He raised his hands, the one containing the comb, indicating he wanted to use it. Though she was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of him touching her, she shrugged and turned around. The knight loosened her braid and ran his fingers through her hair, stretching it out along her back so it fell in long waves, then he began to comb it, tugging gently through the knots until they untangled.
She bit her lip, then her thumbnail, wondering what was happening, and watched Danik’s expression change from one of irritated annoyance to one of awe.
“What?” she asked, demanding he explain what he was seeing. “What’s happening?”
“Your hair!” Danik exclaimed. “It’s growing. And quickly!”
“Of course it is,” the knight said. “My mistress gifted me the comb hoping it would aid me in cultivating the wool. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to work on the sheep.”
Within a few seconds, Veru’s hair was down to her knees, and the sheep were jostling one another, becoming extremely interested. Some were even drooling. They bumped against her knees and baaed with open mouths. Danik shoved several aside, but it was becoming more and more difficult to hold them back. One of them managed to get a mouthful and yanked hard. Veru screamed and fell and was trampled within the span of a few seconds.
Danik picked up animal after animal and tossed them aside, then grabbed Veru, and when he couldn’t free her from the biting, chewing beasts, he pulled out his trusty hunting knife. With a quick slice, the long length of hair fell to the ground, where the entire herd trampled one another to get at it.
“How fascinating,” Danik said. “It’s a very different reaction than they had to my hair.”
Veru snickered. “Maybe you aren’t a virgin.”
“If he wasn’t, they wouldn’t have eaten it,” the knight said.
“Maybe they just like your soap,” he said, his warm breath a whisper that kissed the bare skin where her shorn hair tickled the back of her neck.
“I used the same soap you did. They probably just didn’t like the taste of a hunter,” Veru replied, but her comment didn’t have the bite it usually had. In fact, she very much wanted a taste of the hunter who held her close in his arms. All she could think about in that moment was pressing her lips to the warm pulse beating in his neck and tracing a path from there to his jawline, feeling the scrape of his rough beard against her soft cheek until she made her way to his mouth.
Instead, she shivered, clinging to Danik, her arms wrapped around his neck. She could still feel the demanding mouths gnawing at the back of her neck—the hunger, the tugging, the ripping. She wanted to sink into him. To lose herself. But Danik set her down a distance away and lightly touched her trembling shoulders, swiping away the fat tears on her cheeks. Never had he seen the tsarevna look so vulnerable.
“Hold still,” he said. “Let me check the damage.”
He winced at the cut he’d made to her beautiful hair, but that wasn’t what pained him the most. Large chunks of hair had been pulled right out of her scalp, and there were multiple bite marks on her back and neck. When the knight approached, he glared at the man. “Can you get me hot water, a clean towel, and some salve?”
Nodding, the knight departed, and Danik smiled and spoke calmly to the trembling woman. “There now, little lapochka. Try to be calm. It’s not so bad. Perhaps you can tell me a story while I tend to your wounds, eh? Maybe something to help me remember from before?”
Soon he began humming quietly, and she felt the stinging sensation of a warm cloth pressed against her neck. “I-I don’t heal like before, when the tiger was with me.”
“You healed as a tiger?”
“Yes. You took care of me then as well.”
He listened as she told him of meeting him for the first time when she’d been caught in a trap, and by the time she finished her story about her saving him from the wolves, Danik was finished cleaning her wounds. Taking her still-trembling hands, he pressed a soft kiss on her palm and instructed, “I’d like you to rest away from the flock for a while.” Glancing around at the meadow and then staring up at the large trees, he said to the knight, “Bring your comb.”
Danik took Veru’s hand and guided her to the tree line. The flock followed them, hoping for another delicious serving of virgin hair. Once he found a tree he was satisfied with, Danik began to climb, then held out a hand for Veru. He settled her in the crook of a tree and then asked Polden to hand him the comb.
