Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 4 (Cont.)

NOTE 29TH FEB 2020: 2 years ago Shadow Weaver was removed from Wattpad due to publishing restrictions. I am now able to repost the whole book for a short time. I will post 2 new chapters a week. In the published version there were some alterations -- spelling and grammar was changed the US market, and some of the chapters were divided up differently. In the published version this scene is part of Chapter 4. I will be publishing new chapters on Tuesdays and Fridays. 

Beast-face blocks his companion with his long bow, forbidding him from approaching me further. "I said, what do you want?"

"I want to travel with you." At the sound of my voice, the wolf dog starts barking again. I glance towards the skin tent, sides packed down with snow, Kel inside.

"She's alone," the man with the fishnet head says, pushing away his companion's bow, sucking through his teeth. I avoid his disgusting mouth, study his arm instead, noting that his injury doesn't appear debilitating, nor would it stop him from effortlessly pinning me down.

"Come closer," Beast-face orders. I edge towards the firelight, which dazzles after so much darkness. There is a tiny flexion of movement above his eyes where his eyebrows should be. He has recognized me. Rather he has recognized the bruising he left down the side of my cheek and temple. "Forget you ever had a brother," he warns.

Fishnet-head straightens, lust suddenly vanishing, replaced with suspicion. "How did you follow us?"

"Your minds were clear enough."

"She's a shadow weaver!" He reaches inside his shirt, pulls out a multi-faceted glass medallion and holds it up like it's a protection amulet. If I wasn't so exhausted and scared, I might have laughed at his stupidity.

"Enough, Brin," says Beast-face. He looks at me now with a strange mixture of intent and regret, as though I've pushed him down a path he can't back out of, and won't, even though he wants to.

I swallow the lump in my throat, doubting my plan. "You could get a good price for me," I say quietly.

"And why would you want us to sell you?"

"You killed my father. I won't survive out here by myself."

The moment he jabbed his knife into Pa flutters to the surface of his mind. There's something odd about the memory. It holds a precision and clarity that suggests he knows exactly where he struck Pa. As though he only meant to injure him.

"We left your mother alive," he says.

"My mother is weak. I will not stay out here and starve to death with her."

"And why would you starve? You shot my wolf dog well enough." No emotion shows on his savage face or in his body, but the slight rise of his voice belies his affection for the creature. His anger.

"I'm injured," I say.

He comes closer, sinewy muscles in his shoulders and forearms bulging as his body flexes. I recoil, almost tripping on a broken tree branch.

"Don't, Tug!" says the companion he called Brin. "Don't touch her."

"You touched the boy," he counters.

"The boy is too young to weave the shadows. But she—she is almost fully grown."

"And worth a fortune," Tug says.

The anxiety in Brin's voice makes my skin prickle, but hope also leaps inside me. His fear of my kind will stop him from trying to gratify any physical desires he has with me. Thank the Gods!

"She will have cursed us long before we reach the Hybourg," Brin says.

The man named Tug does not share his companion's concerns. He moves so close that I almost retch at the stench of him. I'm not particularly small for my sixteen years, as far as I know, but I'm like a child beside him.

"Prove it. Prove you have the sight."

"The dog is called Trix. You told my brother the worst was over and you would not hurt him." I hold his stare, despite the heat rising to my cheeks and the desperate need to look away. It is not his brute force that makes this man dangerous, it is his intelligence and the keen control he has over his own mind.

"And have you entered my mind?" he asks.

I shake my head. He lunges forward so that my heart skips a beat. I cry out in pain as he grabs the top of my wounded arm and drags me to the fire.

"Show me this injury."

I fumble to take off my pack, arm flaring in agony. A movement by the tent catches my attention. Kel appears in the doorway flap.

"Mirra!" he shouts.

I gasp. There's something wrong with his eyes! White, shiny pus seals them shut. "It's all right, Kel," I hiss. "I'm all right. Stay where you are!"

When I turn back, Beast-face is staring at me with an intensity that makes my flesh crawl. I remove my outer parka as quickly as I can, clenching my teeth against the pain. Unless he sees my useless arm, he will not risk taking me with them. The parka with the fur turned inwards is a tight fit and I have not removed it since the winter hibernation—it has not been warm enough. I can smell the snow den trapped in the deer fur, the perfumed oil we cover ourselves with to protect and insulate our skin, the sweat of the last eight days.

Tug inspects my wound through my ripped inner parka and undershirt. I tremble from the cold and from his touch, fighting the urge to throw up the white roots I have just eaten.

"You haven't cleaned it," he says.

I scowl. "I was in a hurry."

Something sparks in his memories, so fast I can make nothing of it but a blur.

"We'll take her," he says.

"No, we shouldn't. Let's tie her to a tree and leave her to the forest."

Tug ignores his companion, pulling me towards him so that his nose is almost pressed to mine, his breath warm on my lips. "You should know two things," he says. "You shot my dog." He pauses, so that if I hadn't understood his affection for the creature, now there is no mistaking it. "And I have no mercy for anyone who makes me regret a decision. Try anything and your brother will be the one who pays."

I nod. He thrusts my two parkas into my stomach. I stifle a small cry, cling to the warmth of my fur, unable to tear my eyes from him.

"Clean the wound before you sleep. I wouldn't want to go to all this trouble just to have you die on me."