“Why are you here?” Jafir demanded.
“Pretty thing. What’s your name, girl?” he said, ignoring Jafir. His cold blue eyes slowly rolled over me, and I felt like prey in the sights of a hungry animal. He stepped closer, studying me, then smiled.
“She’s a straggler from the tribe we raided,” Jafir told him. “They are moving on.”
“I don’t remember seeing her among them.”
“That’s because your sights were set on another.”
I couldn’t breathe. A wild beat pounded in my head.
“Moving on, but not before you have some fun?” He looked back at me. “Come here,” he said, waving me forward with his hand. “I won’t bite.”
Jafir stepped in front of me. “What do you want, Steffan?”
“Just what you’ve been enjoying. We are kin. We share.” He moved to step around Jafir, and Jafir lunged at him. They both stumbled back and slammed up against the far wall. Dust rained down around them. Though Jafir was taller, Steffan was stout, built more like a bull, and there was weight behind his fist. He punched Jafir in the gut, then again in the jaw. Jafir staggered back but in the next breath swung, his fist cracking against Steffan’s chin. He lunged again, knocking Steffan to the floor this time, and in an instant, his knife was at Steffan’s throat.
“Go ahead, brother,” Jafir yelled between heaving breaths. “Move! I’d love to slice this across your thick neck!” He pressed the blade closer.
Steffan glared at me, then back at his brother. “You are greedy, Jafir. Keep her to yours
elf, then,” he sneered. “Her kind are dull and stupid anyway.”
Jafir’s chest heaved with anger, his fist still tight on the knife, and I thought he might plunge it deep into his brother’s throat, but he finally stood and ordered Steffan to get up. Steffan did as he was told, indignantly wiping the dust off his clothes as if he had been clean before the fight.
“Go,” Jafir ordered. “And never come back here. Do you understand?”
Steffan smirked and left. Jafir stood in the doorway watching him go.
That was it? Leave?
My hands shook uncontrollably, and I pressed them to my sides, trying to make the trembling stop. I hadn’t said a word through it all—my throat had frozen in fear. A shaky whisper finally spilled out. “Jafir.” Terror pounded in my head. “How did he find us?”
Jafir’s eyes were wild, and his lip was bleeding, dripping and staining his chest. “I don’t know. He must have followed me. I was always careful, but today—”
“What are we going to do?” I sobbed. “He’ll come back! I know he will!”
Jafir grabbed my hands, trying to stop the shaking. “Yes, he will come back, which means you never can, Morrighan. Ever. We’ll find another place for us—”
“But the tribe! They’re not far! He’ll find them! How could you let him follow you, Jafir? You promised! You—” I whirled, wiping my brow with the heel of my hand, trying to think, panic rising in me.
Jafir grabbed my shoulders. “He won’t find the tribe. You said yourself the vale is well hidden. I’ve never found it. Steffan is lazy. He won’t even try.”
“But what if he tells others?”
“Tells them what? That he found a girl from a tribe we had already raided? A tribe that had already abandoned their camp and were moving on? You have no worth to them.”
Jafir insisted on riding me back to the ridge that led to my tribe, just in case his brother had lingered, but Steffan was gone. The meadow and canyon seemed as it always had, quiet and free of threat. My heart began to beat its normal rhythm again. Jafir said he would meet me at a crevasse in the ridge in three days—time for Steffan to cool his heels and believe the raided tribe was long gone and out of reach. He clutched my hand as I slid from his horse, looking at me as if it might be the last time he saw me, a crease between his brows.
“Three days,” he said again.
I nodded, worry twisting in my throat, and I finally pulled my hand from his.
Chapter Sixteen
Jafir
My face stung with the wind. I rode as fast as I could, snatching up my snares as I went. They were all empty, but it didn’t seem to matter. I could only think about Steffan and the way he had smiled at me last night. I understood now. Somehow he had spotted us, seen me riding with Morrighan. Or maybe when we were wading in the pond?