FREYA
Eli stops running at the edge of a small clearing and the sudden lack of motion is so jarring my stomach lurches.
I know this place.
It's the clearing he used to bring me to in the first year of our marriage, on horseback, in summer, when I still believed the bond between us meant something more than duty.
He sets me down on the grass.
Not gently, but not roughly either, just — done with me. Like a wolf dropping something he didn't mean to be carrying so he can get back to the fight.
My boots hit the moonlit grass and my knees buckle from the impact and a pulse of warning shoots low through my belly. I bite the inside of my cheek hard, tasting blood, swallowing the cry that wants to come up
"Eli—"
I open my mouth to call him but two strides and he is back into the trees, the
