Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

her lower lip was thick and purpled. She explored the bruise cautiously, pulling her tender lip out to see where her teeth had cut it.
    A glimpse of more bruising at the edge of her reflection made her loosen the lacing at the neck of her dress and push it down over her shoulder. Imprinted in her flesh were the marks of Drwyn’s teeth. The bruise filled the glass. Fresh tears filled her eyes.
    Macha preserve her.
    She dropped the glass, clawed the dress off and kicked out of her shoes. The stream was bitingly cold but she couldn’t wait to heat water. She had to be rid of him, rid of the juices clotting inside her.
    Squatting in the deepest part of the stream, she scrubbed herself as hard as her tender flesh would bear. She scrubbed at his sweat and the memory of his touch, scrubbed until her body shuddered with the cold and her feet and hands had no feeling. Then she fell to her knees in the stream and wept.

    When she walked back into the camp, people were stirring. Cook-fires had been lit and there were two guards outside the chief’s tent again, grey-faced and bleary. She did not go back there. Instead she returned to her parents’ tent to change the dress for one of her own. She couldn’t be rid of the one Ytha had given her soon enough.
    Her father was sitting on a stool at the entrance, mending a bridle. He was a lean, wiry man, tough as rawhide thongs, with salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a horsetail and long moustaches that drooped to either side of his thin lips.
    When her shadow fell over his work he stopped, but did not look up.
    ‘Father?’
    ‘Teia,’ he said. His tone was flat. Hitching around on the stool, he turned towards the light and continued working, his brown, callused hands deft with the stiff leather.
    She waited for something more from him, some acknowledgement that she was still his daughter, but nothing came. Clan law lay between them like a wall of ice, impossible to climb. From now until she wore a wedding tattoo, she did not exist.
    Drw had never been so formal. He’d waved the law away, clapped Teir on the shoulder and called for another flask of uisca for his old friend. But then Drw had offered for her in the old way, over a cup of water; he and Teir had clasped on a bargain well before it was emptied, all without the Speaker taking a hand. Nothing was the same any more.
    So this was how it would be. Sobs thickening in her chest like clouds that grew heavier and darker but never came to rain, she walked past her father into the tent. To her relief, it was empty. Stripped to her skin, she threw the hateful blue wool dress and crumpled shift into the shadows in the far corner, where she wouldn’t have to look at them. She was about to hurl the fancy looking-glass after them but hesitated, fingering the ornamented frame. Drwyn had given it to her, but it hadn’t truly been his to give. It had been Drw’s, and having something of his was . . . comforting. She tugged a clean shift and one of her own familiar dresses from her clothes chest, then hid the glass away at the bottom, under her winter stockings.
    She’d just pulled her dress over her head when she heard someone enter the tent behind her and turned to see her mother in the doorway.
    ‘Teia!’ Ana exclaimed, rosy face bursting into a smile. She held out her arms and, reluctantly, Teia went to her. When her face came into the light from the entrance, her mother’s delighted expression slumped like stale cooking-grease. ‘Macha’s ears, what’s happened to you, child?’
    ‘Didn’t the Speaker tell you where I was last night?’ Her voice sounded crushed flat, as if she had a great weight on her chest.
    ‘Of course, but—’
    ‘He hurt me, Mama.’ Gulping a breath, Teia tugged her unlaced dress down off her shoulder.
    Her mother squeaked, hands flying to her mouth, bright black eyes widening. ‘Oh, Teisha,’ she breathed. She hurried to the tent flap and snatched it aside. ‘Teir! Teir, come here!’
    Teia’s