Page 55 of Bratva Prince
“You need to slice down the middle. Start with the groin and work your way up. You’ll need to disembowel the boar, which means getting elbow’s deep in guts.”
I waited for her to scrunch up her nose or delegate the task to me, but she simply asked, “Then what?”
“Then you’ll skin it. After that, you can cut it up into smaller chunks.”
She nodded and headed back to the boar, eager to get it done.Eager to get her hands caked in blood and guts.
I wasn’t sure she’d be able to do it—to cut the boar. After the way she cried when it died, I didn’t think she could handle slicing into it, but she tore that thing to pieces like a ravenous animal, slicing through stomach and pulling its innards out. Not what you’d call a clean cut, it was sloppy, but she got the job done and that was what counted.
I must admit, I was impressed. She’d managed to carry out my instructions without running off and puking or complaining. Most women I knew—hell, I could probably sayeverywoman I knew—wouldn’t have done that. They would’ve squealed at the disgusting smell or guts, and ran off.
But not Willow.
She cut the boar into chunks and made round after round carrying it up to the cave.
Dumping the last few pieces onto the floor of the cave, she stared at me, her shoulders slumped and her chest heaving in heavy breaths. “You cook it,” she said, huffing. “I’m going to wash up.”
She disappeared, leaving me behind the remnants of our swine companion that nearly killed us two days earlier—but would be feeding us now.
After skinning it and cutting it into smaller chunks and slices, I stuck a piece at the end of my spear and heated it over the fire. The smell of cooked meat wafted through the air, making my mouth water. I was beyond tired of eating berries and beef jerky. And fish. God was I fucking tired of fish. I could go the rest of my life without another piece of seafood and be too happy about it.
It had been so long since we’d had a hot, fresh-cooked piece of meat that wasn’t fish, I was tempted to eat it before it was done. But I could hold out. I’d waited this long and I sure as hell wasn’t about to settle for eating it raw.
The sky grew dark again, and I was growing worried that Willow hadn’t returned yet. Didn’t she learn from the last time she was gone all day? This called for another punishment…
My lips curled at the thought. But that was short-lived because my worry was stronger than my lust.
Where the hell was she?
27
Willow
Disgusting.
That was the only word to describe cutting into that boar. Which was worse, the smell of raw meat or the sound it made as I tore into it with that stupid switchblade that was not nearly as sharp as I’d have preferred. Not that I was a knife expert, but I didn’t expect it to be so hard to cut through an animal.
However, it was surprisingly easier than I thought for me to get past the fact that it was a living being only a few days earlier. I thought it would’ve been harder to cut into it, but it wasn’t. Not after struggling for an hour to move it up the muddy hill.
I’d slid so many times, falling to the ground and busting my ass, that I was completely covered in mud. Everywhere. I looked like a golem walking through the trees. A brown, muddy golem.
When I reached the stream, I slid off my shorts and shirt, rinsing them in the running water. Taking slow steps into the water, I swiped it over my skin, shivering from the contact.
I never thought I’d miss burning in the sun as much as I had in that moment. But after a few minutes, I got acclimated to the temperature and it actually felt good.
A nice, naked swim in the stream on a rainy day. In some weird cosmic way, I felt connected to the Earth and mother nature. Alone, on an island, in a stream, wearing only what nature gifted me.
But honestly, Iwasconnected. I mean, there was no more literal way to say that Ivan and I were living off the land. We had no technology, and few man-made items. Mother nature had graced us with berries to eat and water to drink. She’d also shown her power through the rainstorm that swept away our previous shelter.
Mother nature was majestic, all right, with a bit of a bitch side, too. She’d sent that boar after us, but now we would have food. It was a weird balance of nature, one that I’d come to appreciate being stuck here.
My arms swished through the water, pulling myself from one side of the stream to the other. It was a small stream, one I could easily stand in and walk across, but it was deep enough to submerge my entire body if I laid back.
I let my head fall back, my hair flowing around me as my body floated. Though, it was only for a moment because the current through the small stream was enough to pull me slowly down the mountain. The last thing I needed after a long day of grueling work on that boar was to climb the mountain in the dark.
But floating for that moment was so freeing. It’s cheesy to say, but I’d felt totally at one with nature. I appreciated nature and, in turn, nature had appreciated me, allowing me to have this moment of peace and clarity.
After a while, I could smell meat cooking, and I swear I drooled in the water. I waded to the water’s edge with my arms, letting my body remain floating for as long as I could, and grabbed my clothes, walking back to the cave naked.
