19. Annette

“Are you staying in tonight?” I ask in surprise. Though Rukh and I spend most of our time together, he’s been roaming the region a lot at night lately trying to find the true Mellara killer and clear my name.

His face contorts, not exactly angry but clearly bothered. “I’ve been looking,” he snaps. “I said I would help and I’m doing my best.”

“I know you are,” I say softly, wondering why he’s so on edge. “You just usually leave by now. Not that I’m complaining. We could have a relaxing night together, I wouldn’t mind,” I offer lightly, trying to break the tension.

These days, I don’t usually go with Rukh when he goes searching for souls. Though I no longer condemn him the way I once did, it’s not exactly something I need to witness every night.

He sighs, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “I’m sorry. I just thought I’d have something more to go on by now. I don’t know how to explain it to a human, but I have a sense for these things. Someone who has killed as many people as this murderer should stink like a taura manure pile. I should be able to smell them from a mile away. So why can’t I?”

“Oh, who knows?” I shrug. “I think you’re making yourself crazy about this, to be honest. We’ll find them sooner or later. Why don’t we just enjoy a night in tonight?”

He’s gazing off into space as though he didn’t hear a word I just said. I can tell his brain is working in overdrive, but I finally snap my fingers to grab his attention.

“Are you that eager to send me back to Mellara?” I tease.

“No, of course not.” He shakes his head. “You can stay here as long as you need.”

“As long as I need? The other day you wanted to pick out curtains.”

He frowns, not understanding my joke. “Curtains?”

“They’re something made of cloth. A decoration, I guess, but they also help keep the chill out. They hang over windows and… You know what, never mind.” I never realized how hard it was to describe curtains before.

“Do you miss things like that from your home? Your curtains and… what did you call it, a stove?”

I nod. “It was definitely more comfortable than camping out every night. It’s nice to be able to buy food and store it in a cabinet rather than having to hunt every time you’re hungry and hoping you can find food quickly enough. If you’re really lucky, you might even have an ice chest to keep food for a long time.”

Rukh still looks lost in thought, but at least he’s looking at me now.

“I take it you’ve never lived in a house like that?” I venture.

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not that I wouldn’t be willing. But I’ve been comfortable here in the woods, too. Everything I need is right here, and I suppose you could say I feel like I’m living in the ecosystem I belong to.”

Sometimes I think I never want to leave Rukh, and other times, I wonder if we could ever have enough in common for this to end any other way. It’s one thing to be here now because I have to be, but would I really want to do this for the rest of my life? Would he really want to live in a cabin with me?

“Let’s cuddle up in bed and play a game.”

He raises an eyebrow lasciviously, and I laugh. “Not that kind of game.”

His shoulders slump with a dramatic look of disappointment, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. For such a stoic demon, he has a flair for theatrics when he wants to.

“No, come on,” I say, standing up and getting into position on our sleeping mat. After a moment, he takes off his shirt and slides into the bed behind me, and I cover us both up.

“So,” I begin, snuggling up against his warm body. “I’m going to tell a story. But when I pause, you fill in the blank with the first thing you think of. It doesn’t matter what it is, you just say what comes to mind. Ready?”

“Ready,” he replies warily, obviously not quite sure how this game is going to turn out.

Before long, we’re both cracking up as we take turns switching roles between being the storyteller and the story finisher. The one thing I can’t help but notice, however, is that we almost never think of the same word. His brain works entirely opposite of mine, and I don’t know why I find that a little… disappointing, I guess.

The next thing I know, I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling cold. It takes me a moment, in my sleepy state, to realize what’s different. I don’t feel Rukh’s arm around me in the comforting embrace we’ve taken to spending the night in.

Groggily, I look around, seeing that he’s gone. He must have decided to go out in the middle of the night after all.

I trust him implicitly, and I don’t exactly fear for his safety considering he’s more terrifying than anything he’ll ever face out there, so I relax back into the mat we sleep on and pull the blanket tighter. Still, I wish Rukh was here with me, and it takes me a while to get comfortable enough to fall asleep again. I’m not worried, just a bit lonely.

I think I’m not quite fully asleep when I hear a shuffling noise that drags me back to awareness. I sit up again, rubbing my eyes as Rukh makes his way through the mouth of the cave.

“Any luck?” I ask with a yawn as he strips off his leather armor. The look on his face makes me instantly regret even asking.

“No.” He scowls in frustration, and my heart aches for him. For a moment, I contemplate telling him not to worry about it. At this point, does it even matter? I don’t know if I want to go back to Mellara, anyway.

At the same time, I doubt he’d give up even if I told him that. And I do think that whoever is behind this needs to be caught. If nothing else, I think of my old neighbor, who did not deserve to die, and I want the killer found. I want my name cleared, not just for me but also for the justice it would bring to the dead.

“You’ll find them sooner or later,” I reassure him instead as he settles into bed beside me. We lay together, my back to his chest, and I feel myself relax. Almost immediately, I’m drifting back off to sleep, barely awake when Rukh speaks next.

“I promise I’m doing the best that I can. I know you must think that I’m not even looking. That I’d pretend to go search with no intention of clearing your name, just to leave you no other option but to stay here with me. I know how suspicious it must be that I suddenly can’t find a single killer when I could find them so easily before. But I swear to you, it’s not intentional.”

Even though he can’t see me, as my face is turned away from him, my eyes suddenly blink wide open.

Perhaps it’s a sign of my own naivety, but that thought had never occurred to me.

But Rukh wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t lie to me like that. He wouldn’t trick me for his own selfish reasons.

Would he?