Rooster warning

POV: Malia

The rain didn’t fall here so much as it bled out of the sky, turning the dirt between the cabins into black slick.

I sat on the edge of the cot in the small, damp lean-to behind the main house, running my thumb over the frayed hem of the wool blanket around my shoulders. It was heavy. It smelled of woodsmoke, wet leather, and the dark, bitter pine scent that belonged entirely to Jarrah.

He had draped it over me himself two hours ago, right after he put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me out of the main hall. He hadn't said a word to the six men sitting around the fire. He hadn't needed to. He had simply cut his eyes toward them, bare steel in his gaze, and they had lowered their heads, shrinking back into the shadows like beaten dogs.

He’s protecting me, I had thought then. My chest had thrummed with a pathetic, warm flutter, a tiny seed of hope I had no business keeping alive in a place like this. He wouldn't let them touch me. He cares.

"You're doing it again."

The voice came from the dark corner near the stack of rusted oil drums.

I jumped, my heart vaulting into my throat as a match struck the dark, flaring orange for a fleeting second before catching the tip of a rolled tobacco leaf. In the brief flash of light, Reuben’s face looked like it had been carved out of dry hickory with a dull knife. They called him Rooster because of the jagged, angry red scar that stretched from the corner of his jaw clear down into his collarbone, pulling his lip into a permanent, mocking sneer.

He blew a thin stream of gray smoke toward the rafters. "You've got that look on your face, girl. The one where you mistake a wolf’s leash for a velvet ribbon."

I pulled the blanket tighter around my front, hardening my expression. "I don't know what you're talking about, Reuben."

"Don't lie to me," he rasped, stepping out from the shadows. His boots creaked on the damp floorboards, slow and deliberate. "You sit there wrapping yourself in his wool, smelling him like he’s some kind of savior. I saw you in the hall. I saw the way you looked at him when he put his hand on you."

"He stopped them," I said defensively, my voice tightening. "Brock was stepping up to me. He was going to"

"Brock was testing him!" Reuben snapped, leaning forward. The smell of cheap grain alcohol and sour tobacco hit me like a physical slap. "Brock didn't give a damn about you, Malia. Brock wanted to see if Jarrah was getting soft. And Jarrah pulled you out of that room not because he gives a single damn about your skin, but because you are his property, and Brock made the mistake of reaching for something that wears Jarrah's mark."

"It's not like that," I whispered, though my own voice sounded thin, even to my own ears.

Reuben let out a harsh, rasping laugh that ended in a wet cough. He spat on the floor between his boots and shook his head, staring at me with a look that felt less like anger and more like pity. And that scared me far more than his temper ever could.

"You poor, foolish little bird," Reuben muttered softly. He pulled up an overturned wooden crate and sat down opposite me, resting his calloused forearms on his knees. "Let me tell you something about Jarrah. Something you better carve into the inside of your skull if you want to keep breathing through the winter."

I kept my mouth shut, but my pulse was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

"Ten years ago," Reuben began, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly hum that seemed to vibrate through the damp floorboards, "we took a supply convoy up on the ridge. There was a hound with them, a big, red-coated hunting dog belonging to the merchant leading the line. Beautiful beast. Fierce, loyal, wouldn't let a soul near that wagon."

Reuben paused, taking a long drag from his cigarette until the tip glowed bright red in the gloom.

"Jarrah shot the merchant," Reuben continued smoothly. "He shot the drivers. But he didn't shoot the dog. He brought it back here. Fed it roasted meat off his own plate. Slept with it at the foot of his bed. The men thought he’d softened up. We thought the boss had found himself a pet."

I swallowed hard, my knuckles turning white where I gripped the wool blanket. "And?"

"And three months later, the ridge pack tried to raid our eastern boundary," Reuben said, his eyes narrowing into two dark slits. "They caught us unprepared. Jarrah didn't hesitate. He took that dog out to the perimeter fence. He didn't use a rifle. He tied that hound to the iron gate, slit its stomach open, and left it there bleeding and screaming in the dark."

A sudden, icy drop of sweat ran down the center of my back. "Why?" I breathed.

"Because the smell of raw blood and the noise that animal made brought every starving wolf for five miles straight into a killing bottleneck," Reuben said, leaning in so close I could see the pale red veins in his eyes. "He used the thing he’d fed from his own hand as live bait. He sat up in the watchtower with a lever-action rifle and picked off twelve men while they were distracted by the dying screams of the beast he’d spent three months pampering."

Reuben reached out, his thick, rough fingers catching the edge of the blanket Jarrah had given me. He pulled it back just enough to expose my throat.

"Jarrah doesn't love things, Malia," Reuben whispered, his tone dropping so low it was almost lost to the sound of the rain beating on the tin roof above us. "He guards things. He fattened that hound up so it would last longer on the fence. He wraps you in his coat and keeps the other men off you because you are a tool he hasn't figured out how to burn yet. The moment you mistake his protection for affection, you stop watching his hands. And the moment you stop watching his hands, he’ll cut your throat to catch a bigger fish."

My breath hitched in my chest. The warmth of the wool blanket suddenly felt like liquid lead, heavy and suffocating against my skin. I wanted to tell Reuben he was wrong. I wanted to throw his words back in his face and remember the way Jarrah’s thumb had brushed against my cheek when he brought me inside, the subtle, fleeting gentleness that had felt so real.

Was it real? Or was I just so desperate for a savior that I mistook the butcher’s apron for a cloak?

"He... he saved my life at the river," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

"He saved his leverage," Reuben corrected coldly. He stood up, dropping his finished cigarette onto the floor and crushing it beneath his heel. "Don't get comfortable, girl. Don't look at him with those big, soft eyes. Because if you give him an inch of your heart, he will use it to string you up when the time comes."

Reuben turned to walk toward the narrow door of the lean-to, his dark silhouette blocking the dim grey light coming from the yard.

He reached for the iron latch, but before his fingers could touch the cold metal, the door didn't just open; it was kicked off its frame.

The heavy wooden slab slammed inward with a deafening crash, splintering against the stone wall. The cold wind and driving rain burst into the room, instantly extinguishing the small oil lamp on the side table, plunging us into near-total darkness.

Reuben stumbled back, his hand flying toward the revolver at his hip, but a dark, massive shape crossed the threshold before he could draw.

A heavy boot slammed into Reuben’s chest, sending the older man flying backward across the room. He hit the stack of rusted oil drums with a metallic screech, collapsing into a heap on the floorboards, groaning as he clutched his ribs.

I scrambled backward on the cot, my back slamming hard against the cold wall.

Standing in the doorway, framed by the pale, flashing lightning of the storm behind him, was Jarrah.

He was drenched. Water dripped from the brim of his leather hat, running down the harsh angles of his jaw. In his right hand, held loosely by the barrel, was a heavy iron crowbar. But it wasn't the weapon that made my blood turn to ice.

It was his face.

His eyes were completely devoid of warmth, fixed entirely on me in the shadows. He didn't look at Reuben groaning on the floor. He didn't look at the shattered door frame. He took two slow, heavy steps into the room, his muddy boots leaving dark streaks across the floor.

"Out, Reuben," Jarrah said. His voice wasn't loud, but it possessed a terrifying, flat calm that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

Reuben didn't argue. He dragged himself up from the floor, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the boards, and practically scrambled out the ruined door, disappearing into the storm without looking back.

The wind howled outside, driving cold rain through the open doorway, spraying across my boots.

Jarrah stood over me, his shadow stretching long and terrifying across the cot. He reached out with his free hand, his wet leather glove catching the hem of the wool blanket he had given me hours before. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled it entirely off my shoulders, dragging it away until I was left shivering in the damp chill of the room.

"You were talking about me," Jarrah whispered, leaning down until his face was inches from mine, his dark eyes reflecting the faint, sinister glow of the storm outside. "Tell me, Malia... which part of his warning did you believe?”