but the room is so quiet

Finley Grebe

How blatant the threat in Renard’s reminder. How careless Finley’s own actions, aware just enough to acknowledge he could take hold of her whenever he damn well pleased, yet unwilling to face the fangs that gleamed in her trail. He might as well watch her throw her head away; down the hill it rolled.

Would Renard “surprise” her? Her ignorance laid bait on a trapless platter. Finley hadn’t the slightest clue, even unpossessed, that Renard entertained her as a solution to the Saints’ ails—but given this, well, all the more reason to leave her traitorous skull for the vultures. They could pick and tear and devour and it would have been right. Nature promised nothing to the weak.

She did not look back. Would the hunger in Renard’s stare have scared her? He was not a child, and he had no throne; his authority here was primal. Finley welcomed it. Let order reign.

But instead, Renard spoke. Of course Donovan hadn’t noticed; the brindled man-pup would rather frolic in distant caves than watch his border, lure in more and more recruits with promises of an oasis, trot and hum and piss around as if fate would drop willing warriors on his oh-so-deserving doorstep.

Renard’s with the Saints could make Finley believe in miracles. “Unfortunately for you, I pay attention.” She wanted to laugh.

The opening question had been pointless.

“Then you’ll know that I’m not dying”—literal and figurative, that; the closest she could muster to metaphor—“to protect an idiot.” Dry as sun-baked sand. Doublespeak was carrion at this point; rationalization gnawed at the bones.

Donovan made toys of them all, wound tight in a desert without reason in sight. To hell with the right places and times. Was Renard having fun yet?