Wilder let go of her with a short nod. “I’ll handle everything.” Of course he would. Bloodhounds always did.
She tried to help him, but even staying busy couldn’t disguise her misery. Finally, after watching her struggle for far too long, Wilder sat her down on a fallen log by the fire he’d built. “Wait here. I’ve got something for you.”
Her brash façade faltered under a wince as she drew up her knees. “I’ll be stronger tomorrow.”
“Hush.” A quick dig through one of his packs yielded the paper-wrapped bundle he sought. “I’ll get some water in the kettle and make you some of this tea. It’ll help.”
“Thank you.” She rested her chin on her arms and watched him, that wild curiosity filling her eyes again. “You’re not much like Levi at all.”
And she hadn’t expected that. Wilder held his tongue as he set up the spider and filled the kettle with water from his pack. “You mean because I’m not a hundred years old and mean as a rattlesnake?” The corner of her mouth kicked up. “He’d call what you’re doing right now babying me. Wouldn’t think much of it, either.”
“There’s a difference between babying someone and having a little compassion,” he argued. “Besides, if you get stove up, we won’t be able to ride on tomorrow morning.”
“You could send me back home. That’s what Levi would do.”
“Thought we’d established I’m not Levi.”
She tilted her head, sending loose strands of blonde hair tumbling over her sunburned cheek. “Why did you let me come with you?”
She was still looking at him like she half-expected him to abandon her on the trail. “Because Nate’s a hell of a lot more important to you than he is to me,” he answered honestly. “If I ever turn up missing, that’s who I want looking for me. Someone who gives a damn.”
“I see. And I do. Give a damn, I mean.” Her eyes drifted shut. “I don’t have many people left, just Nathaniel and Ophelia. Now that Levi is gone, the house and all of his things will belong to whichever hound replaces him. It might not be one who wants his weapons tended by a girl.” He couldn’t argue with that, though he wanted to. “Where will you go?” She didn’t answer. Not directly. “I’m bringing Nathaniel home. Wherever he goes, he’ll take me with him.”
If Nathaniel came home. “Fair enough.”
Silence lasted all of twenty seconds before she came up with a new question. “I assumed, but I didn’t ask. Are we going to the Deadlands? I have no idea how far it is on horseback. Nathaniel always took the train as far as he could, even though it took us out of the way.”
“We’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon.”
“You have contacts there?”
Every good hound did. “I know people.”
She nodded to her bags. “I brought a few trinkets for trade. I knew I’d have to buy information somehow.”
Trinkets wouldn’t buy much of anything in the Deadlands. “You would have ended up having to offer your neck to a vampire. You’re damn lucky I came along.”
“Maybe.” Her green eyes turned hard. Old. “I’d have done it, if I had to. I still will. I don’t have much to lose.”
It chilled him. “Well, curb your reckless fucking behavior, because I like life and I want to keep living it.”
She held his gaze for one second before dropping hers to the ground. “I wasn’t being reckless because I wanted to, or because I didn’t know any better. I’m not a foolish girl. I’m a desperate one. Levi died from some horrible full-moon complication that no one will explain to me, and Nathaniel could be suffering or dying, and if it were me, he’d know how to save me. He’d find a way.” So no one had yet told her the truth. “You want to know what happened to Levi?” Her head snapped up. “Of course I do.”
Wilder poured hot water from the kettle into a tin cup and dropped in the tea. “When did your mother die?”
“A little over four years ago.” She hesitated. “Levi was…kinder before that. Or at least more patient with me. I think it hurt him to look at me.”
“Maybe.” He handed her the cup. “It’s important you understand something. If your mother died four years ago, so did Levi, after a fashion.”
She curled her fingers around the battered tin and took one careful sip. Her nose wrinkled at the taste, but she closed her eyes tight and drank again. “Levi was fond of her,” she said after a moment. “It was never more. Losing her hurt him, but it couldn’t have killed him.”
“She was his mate, Satira, and he didn’t let her go, even when she died. That’s what killed him.” Confusion furrowed her brow and brought her eyebrows together. “I don’t understand. My mother came to the house as his housekeeper because it was against the rules…for…” Comprehension. “Oh. That’s why it’s against the rules?” A tentative question, hesitant and uncertain.
She was so brazen in some ways, and so innocent in others. “Most hounds won’t walk away, even after a mate dies. The loss can kill them quick or drive them crazy, but it gets the job done. They join their woman soon enough.”
“I see. But how does—” Her cheeks were pink from the sun’s glare, but her sudden blush lit up her whole face. “These are personal questions. I shouldn’t be asking them.”
“Suit yourself. I’d tell you whatever you wanted to know, though.” Better for her eyes to be uncomfortably open.
Her lips pursed as she tilted her head. “It’s not just sex.” She sounded confident about that. “But saying it’s about love seems rather…well, far-fetched, to be honest. Sex, at least, might have a biological explanation.”
“It’s about…” Wilder searched for the right word. “Need, I think.” She worried her lower lip and stared down into her mug. “I see. Thank you for explaining.” Her expression was one of loss—and loneliness. “Nate never told you?”
“That would have required talking about sex.” She finished the rest of her tea in one gulp. “We pretended I didn’t know why he had to sneak out some nights to visit the nice widow on the other side of town.”
“And what of your own visitors?”
She shivered, and it was hard to tell if it was a response to the cool night wind or to his question.
“They were never my visitors. Bloodhounds came to visit Levi and Nathaniel often enough. Some were amiable. Levi pretended not to notice, and Nathaniel never spoke of it.” A dangerous thing to think, that she might have enjoyed her romps. That it might have led her to ask him if they’d be together during the new moon. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“The hounds. Did you seek them out, or were they convenient?”
“Both.” She peered up at him, her eyes wary. “Does it trouble you? Would you prefer me wide-eyed and liable to swoon at the sight of a naked man?”
The very thought made him laugh. “No. It arouses some women, that’s all. I wondered.”
“Why does it—” Her mouth snapped shut, but she trembled as though only a great effort kept the words from tumbling out. A few seconds later, the dam burst. “Is it so different, then? I mean, do human men…do things differently?”
“Sometimes.” Wilder shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell her everything his lovers had told him, because then she’d want to know where he’d heard it.
“Interesting.” Her gaze lingered on his face for a heartbeat before drifting down his body, a speculative curiosity filling her eyes. “I think I should turn in.” Tread lightly, boy. “It’s the tea. It makes you sleepy.” Amusement sparked in her eyes as she pushed slowly to her feet. “Rest easy, hound. I have no intention of climbing into your bedroll like a lost puppy.”