What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(78)

“Oh! You must be starved. Sit, sit,” Skye said, fussing as she grabbed two bowls off the counter and ladled soup into each one. Setting them in front of us, she pointed Jensen toward the metal spoons off to the side and he grabbed one for each of us as Caelum and I pulled out the chairs and lowered into them slowly. Skye cut a wedge of bread off the loaf, dropping it onto the table in front of us as the aroma of freshly-baked dough made my stomach growl.

I lifted the bread to my nose, inhaling the scent for a moment as I tried to pretend to just enjoy the smell, but also tried to detect any of the poisonous plants I was familiar with. If a Lord could slowly poison his own wife, I would put nothing past a community of people I didn’t know.

“You really think I’d be ballsy enough to poison that oaf of a man next to you?” Skye asked, drawing my attention up to her. Her hand dropped to her hip, head cocking to the side as she raised her eyebrows at me in challenge. “I’d need to feed him the whole loaf, you hear me? Eat.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled sheepishly, taking the first bite of the bread as Caelum chuckled at my side and lifted the hot stew to his mouth.

“I feel like I should take offense to being called an oaf. I am not stupid or clumsy,” he said, earning a smile from the woman as she laughed under her breath.

“Apologies then. You’re too pretty to be smart. I shouldn’t have assumed,” she said, turning back to the pot of stew as her cheeks turned pink. I swallowed, the loaf of bread feeling like a heavy weight in my stomach.

Had she been flirting with Caelum? More importantly, had he been flirting back?

Maybe being on our own was preferable to having others like us around. It would have been difficult for him to stray if there weren’t other women around, but now that there were…I sighed.

Caelum dropped a hand to my thigh, his fingertips digging into the fabric covering my skin as if he could sense the squirming, throbbing jealousy that threatened to make me sink into my bedroll and never reemerge.

I hadn’t wanted this. I hadn’t wanted to want him. I definitely hadn’t wanted to get so attached that the thought of him touching another woman made depression swirl in my gut and threaten to overwhelm me. The bastard had worked his way beneath my skin with what were probably false promises, and there would be nothing left of me when he tossed me aside.

“Eat, my star,” he said, leaning into my side. His mouth hovered just above my ear, his words sinking inside me along with the proximity I’d come to crave.

“That has got to be the sweetest nickname I think I’ve ever heard,” Skye said, turning back and staring at us. “You don’t look like siblings. How do you two know each other?”

Jensen’s eyes felt heavy on the side of my face as I lifted my spoon to my mouth and ate a bite, using it as an excuse to give Caelum the opportunity to define us. As much as I wanted to stake my claim, it seemed far smarter to let him put a label to what was happening between us.

“We aren’t siblings. Estrella and I are together,” he answered, the words soothing the part of me that I hadn’t wanted to be frayed in the first place.

“Oh!” she said, glancing out the side of her eye to where Jensen stared at me. “We tend to be more…open in our relationships. You should probably be ready to bathe him in piss if you want the other girls to know they aren’t able to take him for a ride,” she said, a teasing lilt coming into her voice.

I didn’t have any desire to mark my territory. Okay, I did, but I didn’t want to have to. Any man who couldn’t be trusted to label himself as off-limits wasn’t worth my energy.

Caelum could have just about anyone he wanted. I’d never be able to stop him from wandering unless it was what he wanted. Understanding that brought me a certain measure of peace, knowing it would probably be inevitable for us to end, giving me a twisted satisfaction.

He was jealous enough that I could just imagine his rage over seeing me with someone else if that ever happened. I’d enjoy every minute of tormenting him, in that case.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said instead of voicing my bitter thoughts.

“It won’t be an issue,” Caelum said, reassuring both of us as he dug back into his stew. I dunked my bread into the broth, lifting it my lips and taking a bite. The flavors and herbs of the two combined to create a symphony in my mouth.

I was certain the foods Lord Byron had fed me in the privacy of his library at night had been more decadent, but there was nothing like the first bite of actual flavor after weeks of near-starvation and bland, roasted meat. “This is really good,” I said, swallowing the bite in my mouth.

Skye turned a bright smile my way. “She has manners. Imagine that.” The sly look she leveled at Jensen erased any of my worry that she might have thought me rude in the moments leading up to the compliment.

“It isn’t his fault. Men have no need of manners,” I said, shifting in my seat to look at Caelum from the corner of my eye.

He set his spoon into his bowl loudly as he finished shoveling the stew into his mouth. “What are you trying to say?”

“That you’re more beast than man half the time, clearly. Don’t be daft. You just told Skye you had a brain; now isn’t the time to prove yourself wrong,” I argued, smirking at the mock-incredulous expression he wore on his features.

“That’s rich coming from you,” he said. “I seem to recall you putting a knife to my throat when we first met. I hardly think that’s a polite way to greet a newcomer.”