The Condemned (24 page)

    
Absolutely.

    
Curled against him, his arms encircling her, she had never felt so safe and loved in all her life.

It was almost upsetting that she was going to have to destroy all of this, that she couldn’t keep any of it, but she eased her conscience by telling herself that she had given him what he wanted and he could be happy now.

    
After a few minutes
,
his breathing steadied and his body relaxed, he was asleep.

    
Leci’s mind worked fervently, she fought the desire to close her eyes and give in to her fatigue while she tried to
piece together the thoughts that were slowly beginning to form in her head.

    
When she could fight it no longer and was happy that she was asserting some semblance of control over her life, she contentedly gave herself to the pleasant, satisfied weariness that crept over her, slumber beckoning her into the warm, seductive cocoon of its embrace.

Chapter 20

When she opened her eyes
,
the cabin was bright with sunlight, she could hear birds chirping noisily outside and she could smell something wonderful.

    
Amato was gone and she was alone on the couch, still covered by the blanket. She lifted it slightly and peeked underneath.

    
Yep, still naked.

     What had she been expecting? Elves to have dressed her during the night?

    
Leci tried to sit up and found that her body was stiff and unresponsive, she ached all over. Her shoulder stung painfully and she twisted her head to take a look at the bite there, winced at the sight but also felt herself smiling at the memory.

The skin around the wounds left by Amato’s teeth was red and puffy but it had begun to scab over and she didn’t think it was infected.

    
She tried to swallow and found that difficult, her neck was sore and as she looked further down her body she could see finger shaped bruises covering her breasts. She squeezed her legs together lightly, testing, trying to get a measure of the damage down there. The aching around the tops of her thighs
reminded her of the time in the alleyway before Xavian had died...

     She pushed aside those thoughts before they had a chance to properly materialise, had no intention of allowing them to taint last night, it had been a completely different situation and there were no comparisons to be made, better to stop that train before it had even left the station.

    
She felt as though she’d been beaten and left for dead.

    
Grinned to herself, couldn’t ever remember a beating that had been so damned fun.

    
Tugging the blanket around her to form a makeshift dress, Alecia sat up and looked around the room, trying to find her clothes.

    
‘Good morning
,
Sunshine.’

    
Leci turned her head too fast and hissed in air through her teeth at the sharp pain as she twisted to look over her shoulder. Raising a hand to her neck she gave Bitsy a weak smile.

     
‘Morning. Something smells good.’

    
Bitsy was looking at her strangely, when Leci stood she saw the other woman’s gaze flicker briefly to her neck, knew she must be seeing the bruises
and the bite mark
there but Morgan said nothing, gave her a small, knowing smile and turned back to what she had been doing.

     
‘Well, the boys went out hunting so I figured I’d get
some food on for when they got back and you woke up.’ She glanced up again at Leci. ‘Sleep well?’ She asked, one eyebrow slightly raised.

    
Leci threw a quick grin in response and went back to searching for her clothes, found her shirt hung over the back of the sagging armchair and her pants on the floor beside the door to the dead man’s bedroom. Recovering the items quickly she let the blanket drop, stood in a patch of sunlight and looked down at herself before dressing.

    
From her neck down to her thighs her skin was a random tapestry of black and blue bruising, in several places there remained the red, crescent shaped indents left by
Amato’s
teeth. It was hardly surprising it hurt so much to move
, she was kind of a wreck
.

    
Leci heard a small, shocked gasp and looked up to see Bitsy staring at her. She flushed and dressed herself as quickly as her aching limbs would allow.

     
‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’

     
‘Uh huh?’ Bitsy didn’t sound as though she believed her.

    
Leci shrugged, trying not to flinch as the movement jolted her injured shoulder.

     
‘Trust me, I’ve been in worse conditions. Besides,
I
don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun.’ She grinned and winked, Bitsy relaxed, clearly disturbed by what she had seen but reassured by both Leci’s outward demeanour and whatever
she could read from her; Alecia wasn’t lying, she didn’t regret a thing and knew her mood would convey that to the empath.

     
‘You know, my first thought was that someone came in durin’ the night and beat the shit outta you.’ Bitsy confessed with a laugh. ‘Then I remembered all the noise that’d kept me awake and I put two an’ two together.’

     
‘Oops...’ Maybe they
had
been a bit loud, but surely after so long apart from her husband, Morgan would understand that. ‘Sorry about that, didn’t mean to wake you.’

     
‘Oh, we weren’t asleep.’ It was Bitsy’s turn to tip a knowing wink. ‘We’re just better at keeping it quiet than you two.’

    
Leci laughed and wandered over to where Bits
y
was preparing food. It struck her as strange to be talking openly like this to another woman but not strange in a bad way, it was nice, it was conspiratory and somehow seemed almost mandatory as though it acted as a seal for the cementing of their friendship. Sharing seemed healthy and having some form of companionship other than what Amato could give her also felt like a good thing. She’d never put much effort into forming relationships, the life she had lived as a child and later a teenager had almost enforced reclusiveness and now that she was being given the opportunity to experience a whole new side to things she was happy to embrace it, to allow
herself to blossom and grow.

     
‘So, what’re we eating?’

    
She looked down at food spread across the table; there wasn’t much but it looked good all the same, a few pieces of fruit, some bread and the smell that Leci found so appealing looked to be another tin of the dog
meat that they had all enjoyed and that Bitsy had cleverly heated up on the stove.

     
‘We should be able to do better after today.’ Bits commented. ‘I reckon there’s probably plenty living in the woods we can hunt, have some real fresh meat, God, I can’t remember the last time I ate something fresh. I’m almost drooling just thinking about it.’

     
‘Gross, I’m not eating anything if you’ve slobbered all over it.’

     
‘Pft, fine, starve then, see if I care.’

     
‘Nobody’s gonna be starving! Not when you have two manly hunks providing for you!’

    
The girls turned towards the doorway as their banter was interrupted. Beriael stood there proudly holding up a dead rabbit in each hand, a huge grin spread over his face.

     
‘Awesome!’ Morgan clapped her approval and he looked ecstatic, like a child who’s parent had just told them they’d done ever such a good job
,
or a puppy who was being rewarded for not peeing on the carpet. It was sweet and Leci couldn’t help smiling at the two of them.

    
Beriael moved into the cabin from the doorway and placed the rabbits down on the table. Bitsy wrinkled her nose and moved them away from the food she’d set out.

     
‘Shouldn’t you take them somewhere to do something with ‘em?’ She asked him.

     
‘Do what with ‘em?’ Amato asked as he sauntered in, the rifle slung casually over his shoulder. He shot Leci a quick grin and then looked at the dead rabbits.

     
‘Uh, I dunno, skin them and take out the bones and icky shit so we can eat ‘em?’

     
‘Woman’s work.’ Beriael replied and he and Amato shared a laugh whilst Leci and Morgan exchanged unimpressed glances.

    
It really wasn’t the expectation of them doing that job that was so annoying, they’d both prepared meat before, it was more the assumption that it was their place to do so due to their gender.

     
‘Seriously?’

     
‘Yep. We caught it, we did our job.’

     
‘Aahh.. Big strong man find animal, hit animal,
kill animal
. Little woman clean and cook animal.’ Bitsy nodded, a slow smile beginning at the corners of her mouth. ‘I get it, we’re playing like that are we? Good to know.’ She nodded again and turned away from her husband, busying herself with the food, Leci watched with interest as Beriael suddenly looked rather worried...

     
‘Wait... Bits, what’d you mean by that?’

     
‘Oh nothing Love, just that I’m glad to know where I stand.’ She looked over her shoulder at him, mischief in her eyes. ‘Oh, by the way honey, remember that little ‘job’ I did for you last night..?’

    
Leci was distracted from the teasing and games when Amato moved up behind her, taking hold of her waist and spinning her around to face him, he lifted her chin and she stood on tiptoes to meet his lips as he lowered his face to hers. She felt a fleeting moment of regret for what she was planning to do but pushed it aside. She didn’t need to be thinking about that now.

    
Not yet.

    
No point dwelling on something that would only spoil the moment.

     
‘Miss me?’ He asked, and she couldn’t help smiling
, c
ouldn’t help admitting to herself that she had missed him.

    
For a second she thought about sharing her plans with him bu
t the moment passed quickly. T
he reaction she’d gotten from his last night
,
when she had suggested that the three of them might be able to live a free and uncomplicated life without her
,
was enough to tell her that she should keep this to herself.

    
If he didn’t want her to leave she woul
dn’t be able to.

     I
f he tried to stop her
,
she would be powerless to resist
and despite the fact that in her heart she knew that what she was doing was better for all of them, she also knew that
she would
very easily allow herself to be dissuaded from going through with it.

    
The plan now was to get through the rest of today without raising suspicions, an adept little liar when she needed to be, Amato and Beriael would pose no problems; she could fool them with no trouble whatsoever, of that she was certain. Bitsy was a potential worry but even if she did pick up on anything, Leci was sure it would only be a sense of anxiousness and she hoped she could believe her friend, trust her, when she’d promised she would not trespass on anyone’s thoughts unnecessarily.

Chapter 21

After Leci had skinned, cleaned and deboned the rabbits she went on a small exploration of the area around the cabin. The woodland was pretty, when you forgot that there was a creepy dead guy rotting out there somewhere
,
it was really a nice place. The cabin itself was set in the centre of a small clearing
,
which allowed enough light to break through overhead not to leave the place in complete darkness. The foliage surrounding was pretty dense, it looked like it would easy to get lost in
,
but she wasn’t too worried about that, you always ended up stumbling onto someone or something if you walked long and far enough.