Damien’s gaze travelled across my form and he spoke, “You are not just thin. You are malnourished. It will make your bones weak and your skin fragile. If this continued your hair would fall out and so would your teeth,” he stated bluntly.
I rolled to my side and faced him, “None of that is happening now and I’m not malnourished!” I stated with finality. “She fed me three times a day.”
“Rupe,” Bane said, “she fed you rupe three times a day. It fills your stomach and you will not feel any hunger, but you cannot absorb nutrient from it. Our cousins used it to feed early human… women. They died looking as you do now.”
“Our family does not eat it,” Kein said tracing the line of my hip. “We have never eaten it. The Child Keepers said we could not have it and it is never brought to us. That is why you have never seen it.”
“It was food,” I insisted. “I was just very busy-”
“You – did – not – absorb – any – of – it,” Damien said very slowly.
The argument continued until I asked to use thecquered pot and Damien ushered me to the bathroom. While Damien stood and watched me relieve myself, I used the argument I should not have.
“I’m strong. You should have seen what I did all day. It was really hard work and I’m…” the words died in my throat as the dark look took over Damien’s features.
He had wanted that informationst night and I had denied him.
“Fine,” he said in a low growl, “you are well. We will not treat you as if you are sick. Now tell me what she did to you. There are no secrets in this family.”
Kein sauntered in behind Damien and turned the water on to fill the tub. He looked quite satisfied. I had walked right into their trap. Either I talked or they would punish me, either way was fine with them.
The men came in and stood casually around as Damien cleaned me. I told them the entire story, which was actually quite short. It infuriated them. Christof took over my bath and Damien stepped out to pummel the wall several times.
“Damien, please,” I pleaded looking at his bleeding knuckles, “you know why she did it. I look like a runaway, don’t I? No one will question what happened to me.”
“Who would have questioned that?” Damien bellowed hitting the wall again. “No one would have even noticed. There was no purpose-”
Christof cut him off and the family turned to look at him. “I would have noticed. This ve supposedly ran from thepound during an attack by the women. None of the other Warriors know that Nu-reeh took her. None of them know we cared for her. There are Warriors who would have questioned whether such a healthy ve had really travelled and lived for many moons in the mountains.”
It made sense to me now, how Nu-reeh had swooped in and grabbed me without anyone noticing. She had hidden my kidnap in a nned female raid. In the confusion, no one must have noticed my disappearance.
The men knew none of what I was thinking. They were still looking angrily at Christof.
“That’s just you,” Bane spit out sounding as angry as Damien.
“No, Brothers, not just me. There are others who like to question,” Christof stated with authority.Belonging ? N?velDram/a.Org.
He started naming off men who would have noticed. They would have been curious how I did so well. Their families would have gotten curious, the questions would have spread over thepound. Even families without a curious Brother might have started to pay attention.
“If they noticed their Brothers would notice,” Kein said quietly. “It would be discussed and they would wish to see the ve.”
“Remember the ve who nearly killed her Masters?” Christof said. “Do you recall how they made a spectacle of her fighting men in the arena before they took her back to the vers?”
Evan cussed and sat at the edge of the stone pit I was in. Christof was right. If I looked healthy they’d want to know how I did so well. Right now I appeared to have survived only barely. That would be eptable to the other men; it would make sense.
“It will be attributed to luck and fortune that she lived so long,” Christof said soothingly. “This was necessary.”
I smiled at my friend. His eptance of this seemed to be calming the rest of them.
“I still don’t like it,” Damien growled sitting at the edge of the bath and watching us.
Christof agreed with him and I crawled out to sit on Damien’sp and hold him close.
“Nobody has ever taken care of me the way you all do,” I told him stroking his face.
Damien rxed and smiled slightly. He liked that, I could tell. It made him calm a tiny bit more.
“We still need to feed you,” he said drying me with a towel.
Being treated like some sort of invalid had been irritating. I stopped Damien and reiterated the idea that I was well. They just had to stop or it would make me insane.
“On Earth,” I insisted, “humans would actually go ces where they weren’t fed well and they were forced to work hard to lose weight. I’m sure if it continued I’d get injured, but right now I’m fine.”
Damien did not like to repeat himself. His face became slightly irritated as he spoke.
“I said we believe you are well. We will watch you, though, Sister. If you start to be ill, we will do something about it.”
Smiling up at him, I ced a kiss on his chin. I’d never doubted they would care for me for a moment.
I had a snack before we headed back to thepound, dried and preserved worms. When I was pregnant and bonded the vor had been wonderful. Now without my men’s opinions influencing me, I choked them down as quickly as possible, much to everyone’s amusement.
“Please,” I begged earnestly, “I won’t refuse them, but please find something else for me to eat. If I have to eat worms all the time… They are just so nasty,” I finished pleadingly.
“We could help you,” Kein said with a teasing glint in his eye.
I threw my hands up and begged. Thest time we’d done that, it was just awful.
“Oh, no, I said I wouldn’t refuse them. It was only a question if there was something else I could eat.”
“We will find something you like,” Christof promised with a grin.