The man looked first at her and then higher, up the trail, to the wolves. Both had muzzles smeared with viscera, as if they’d been eating. With the loaded crossbow, he rose to stand beside her. She was tall, big-boned, and confident in her strength even in the face of snarling death. He was a little shorter, with a build meant to be stocky but made lean by privation.
I recognized them. His youthful, smiling face adorned the portrait in my locket: Daniel Hassi Barahal, the man who considered himself my father. I had never seen any likeness of Tara Bell, but despite the dark red hair and blue eyes, she looked so like me that I knew she had to be my mother.
“If it’s necessary to hold a last rear guard to get the boat out, you and the others must leave me.” She spoke as a shopping woman with many more errands ahead might remark that the family could afford fish for supper but not beef.
“I think it unlikely we shall do so.” I admired the warmth of his laugh. He had deep lines at his eyes, the mark of a man who would rather joke than scowl. “Who will mend our clothes if we don’t have you to do it for us?”
She actually rolled her eyes, and her lips twitched even as her gaze tracked the wolves. “You must be tired, for that’s not your cleverest jest. As if you cared one jot about your clothes, except that they not fall off and expose your shapely arse.”
“So you did notice! I thought you were asleep.” He added, with a laugh more reckless than amused, “You’ll not shake me loose. If you’re pregnant, we will face it together.”
When she caught his gaze, my child’s heart wept. Was that love in her expression? Loyalty? Exasperation? I knew so little about my mother, but right then I knew she trusted him.
“If we escape, I will return to my regiment. I honor my obligations. My oath belongs to my commander. I cannot abandon my comrades. You know you are not the only one I love.”
“I do not ask you to abandon anyone, Tara, nor to choose me above any other. I only ask you to remember the oath I make to you now.”
He stole a kiss, pressed lightly at the corner of her mouth. Briefly she caught him with an answering kiss, then she pushed him away, and he stepped back with a smile.
Her gaze tracked the wolves. “They will never stop hunting me.”
His smiling expression vanished. “My oath is this. If we get out of this, if you need me, then you need only get word to me. I will come for you, and for the child if there is one. No matter who or what hunts you.”