“So it is. Well, that’s trouble avoided,” he said, well pleased.
Then Tats spoke from behind him. “Where’s the boat?”
GREFT HAD TAKEN the boat, and all the gear both for hunting and fishing. No one was sure when he had left. Bellin remembered seeing him in the galley after most of the others had gone to sleep. It didn’t surprise Thymara. Greft’s changes had meant he was not sleeping well, and he’d told them it was hard for him to eat. A quick inventory revealed that a large portion of their small supply of ship’s bread was gone completely along with a small pot. This more than anything else convinced her that Greft had not gone out to fish or hunt. He’d left the barge to go his own way.
The reactions of the other keepers surprised Thymara. Some were angered to find the boat missing, and all expressed surprise. None seemed concerned for Greft’s well-being. Boxter and Kase were stubbornly silent, and Jerd was bitterest about his selfishness in taking the boat, gear, and ship’s bread “when he knows it is one of the few foods I can keep down.”
“As if everything must center on her,” Sylve, standing at Thymara’s elbow, whispered. Not quietly enough, for Jerd shot them both an evil glance and said tragically, “It is nothing to either of you that he has abandoned me while I carry his child.”
Thymara thought but did not say that perhaps it would have mattered more to Greft if he had been certain the child was his. She edged away from the keepers, to stand where she could eavesdrop as Leftrin discussed the matter with Hennesey. “If it was only the boat and the gear, I’d say it was a keeper matter. Even though losing that fishing and hunting gear is going to impact everyone; ever since Jess got himself dead, Carson’s had a hard time keeping meat on the table. Dragons are mainly feeding themselves now or things would be even worse. But he stole the ship’s bread. And that makes it a ship’s matter and for the captain to decide.
“That’s how I see it. So. Someone’s got to go after him and bring him back. It’s the last thing we need just now. But if we ignore it, it leaves the door wide open for the next keeper who decides to jump ship and take whatever with them.”
“Can’t let it go,” Hennesey agreed. “But who do you send?”
“Carson.” Leftrin was decided on that. “He’s mine. Not a keeper, even if that dragon has claimed him. I’m not going to send a regular crewman off on this. I want to move on today, not sit here and wait.”
“Carson, then. Alone?”
“I’ll let him choose if he wants a companion. This is such a damn nuisance.”
“WHY ME?” SEDRIC asked the question quietly.
Carson glanced back at him, a puzzled smile on his face. “I thought by now you’d realize that I like to spend time with you.”
Despite his worries, Sedric found himself answering Carson’s smile. That response seemed to be enough for the hunter. He faced front again and dug his paddle into the water. Sedric copied him and tried to keep pace with him. The physical strength he had developed since he’d begun keeping company with the hunter surprised him. As for Carson, he’d complimented Sedric more than once on the developing muscles in his arms and chest.
Sedric glanced back, a bit uneasily, to watch the barge shrinking behind them. The boat had become the one point of safety in his life. It ran counter to all his instincts to be moving away from it in this tiny vessel, even with Carson guiding their way. A flash of silver caught his eye. “Your dragon is following us, I think.”
Carson lifted his head for a moment. Then, without turning to look, he gave a tight nod. “That he is.”
“Why?”
“Who knows why a dragon does anything?” he muttered, but there was amusement in his voice. Spit was a difficult dragon, cantankerous and sometimes obtuse to the point of stupidity. Even knowing why the hunter had stepped forward to be Spit’s keeper, Sedric still wondered at it. He and Carson had not made any promises to each other. Carson hadn’t seemed to think they were necessary. Yet he held nothing back. He’d spoken only once of a concern that Sedric might “outgrow or outlive him.” Sedric had dismissed it as pillow talk. Yet when the opportunity arose for the hunter to follow Sedric into a transformation that no human could control, he hadn’t hesitated. He’d stepped forward to become Spit’s keeper, a spontaneous offer to change his entire life for the sake of being with Sedric. Never had he imagined that any man would make such a concession to him. It reminded him shamefully of how quickly he had discarded his old life and even shredded his family ties to be with Hest. He suspected that Carson was far more aware of what he had done than Sedric had been when he gave up his world to be with his lover. Yet Carson had not once mentioned it as a sacrifice. When the man gave, he gave with an open heart. He watched the man in front of him, saw the shifting of his muscles as he used the paddle, and wondered what he would look like a year or a decade from now.
