Zero Affection Behind His Vows Chapter 05

Zero Affection Behind His Vows Chapter 05 The Snake Comes Calling

The sprites were screaming.

“No, no, no!”

“Somebody help her!”

“Where’s the innkeeper? How is nobody hearing this?”

“Callum Roarke, you son of a bitch!”

My mind started to come apart. Somewhere in the haze, I felt myself lift free.

I could see myself curled up in the blood, white to the lips.

Then I heard the sprites again.

“Callum’s back in the territory.”

“Clara just threw herself at him, crying.”

“He’s holding her, telling her it’s all right now.”

“She kissed him.”

“They’re actually kissing… While the human lies here bleeding out.”

They went quiet for a few seconds.

“That just made me sick.”

“What did she even do wrong? She loved the wrong person.”

“Six years, and every bit of it was real on her side.”

“What gives him the right to treat her like this?”

“I want to watch him regret it.”

“I want to see him sobbing, begging her to forgive him.”

“Except she might not last that long.”

“Where’s that silverfox who runs the place?”

The countdown still glowed, blinking faintly at 8 days, 9 hours, 1 minute.

The game still wasn’t over, but the player looked ready to walk off the board early.

When I woke again, I was lying on a strange straw pallet, with a low felt roof over me.

Clean hide had been wrapped fresh around my neck, and the cool of the salve worked its way down into the

wound.

eyelids were too heavy to lift and there was nothing left in my body.

The sprites’ voices came in beside my ear.

“She’s awake!”

“Three days. I really thought she was gone.”

“Does the lion know?”

“No. Word is Clara’s still in shock and he hasn’t left her side.”

I turned my eyes toward the sound and found Verna Grey, the silverfox who ran the place, crouched in the corner grinding medicine.

Her plump paws worked the mortar while she muttered to herself. “Awake, awake. Tough as old rope, this one. Three holes in her neck from a lion’s claws and still breathing.”

She spooned warm water out of a bowl and held it to my mouth, and the sip I took went down my throat like a blade.

“Name’s Verna. Out here scraping a living, everybody takes a set of claws sooner or later. Do it long enough and you pick up a few home remedies. You’re a hard one to kill.”

“Oh, and the snake king’s here.” Verna dropped her voice and laid her ears back. “Viperkin never come around for anything good.”

Both sprites went on alert.

“What does Silas want?”

“That’s the fox stopping by the henhouse.”

“He’s not here to finish her off, is he?”

Verna caught the one blink I could manage. “I’ll let him in. A few minutes, that’s all. You’re nowhere near

mended.”

A moment later, Silas pushed the felt curtain aside and came in.

He had taken his human shape, and his eyes caught what little light there was and threw it back cold.

He set a small packet down by my head with concern arranged carefully across his face. “Wren, I heard you were hurt. I brought some of our own wound medicine.”

I said nothing and watched him.

“I know there’s been a misunderstanding between you and Callum.” He crouched down, easy about it, his tail sweeping through the straw. “But this business with Clara. That really had nothing to do with you?”

The sprites blew up.

“Called it. He’s here about Clara!”

e’s fishing!”

“Wren, don’t bite!”

I kept quiet.

Silas leaned in and lowered his voice. “After you left Goldmane territory that night, where did you go? Who did you see? I know you want to hurt Callum, but Clara had no part in this. Tell me what you know and I can help you.”

He kept those bright, hard eyes on me, weighing every word.

I opened my mouth. My throat felt packed with bone chips, and the words came up out of the wound in pieces.

“When Clara was taken… I was at the lodge… drinking broth.” I stopped and pulled in a breath while the wound in my neck jumped. “Your pride had all four corners covered… Verna can vouch for it… I never left.

I stopped again, and Silas held my eyes without moving.

I swallowed, winced at it, and pushed the rest out one word at a time. “Go ask her… why she ran home on her own… and how the ones who took her… let her work her way out of the ropes.”

Silas went still for a second.

The sprites boiled over.

“Holy crap, she hit back!”

“Is she saying Clara staged the whole thing?”

“Look at his face!”

Silas stopped smiling. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

His voice dropped cold and his eyes thinned to a line.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” I said. “It just seems to me that if she really had been taken, they’d have kept her a lot farther from the pride. Maybe she was scared of pushing the act too far.”

I lifted my eyes to his and got the corner of my mouth to move. “Push it far enough and you really do die.”