My Panther Mate & Our Little Cub novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Broth

Corina cooks real food and Tuck speaks to her; that night he coughs like a seal.

Darek left at first light the next morning without a word, and I let him go.

I had a cub to feed and twenty-nine days to prove I could.

Tuck followed me around the den, half a step behind, ready to flinch.

I put him on a stool by the table and looked him over properly this time.

Nursing doesn't leave you.

I checked his eyes, his gums and the color of his nail beds.

I pressed on his belly, and he held still.

"Does this hurt?" I asked.

"Everything hurts a little," Tuck said, the way you'd say the sky is up.

I swallowed that.

"Then we start with food that doesn't hurt."

The pantry was nearly empty.

There was grain, salt, a few dried berries, a string of onions gone soft and a dried haunch of something gamey wrapped in cloth.

I took the haunch down, pounded it with a stone, and dropped it into water with an onion and every herb on the hanging bundle that smelled safe.

At the camp where I used to cook summers, we fed forty kids from a single stockpot.

You make broth first.

Broth is warm, easy to hold down and good for a stomach that has forgotten how to ask.

While it simmered I scrubbed the table, opened both shutters and found the loose stones in the hearth, which I wedged tight.

Tuck sat on his stool and watched me, chewing his thumb.

"Why are you doing all that?" he said finally.

"Because it's our home and it's filthy."

"Ila doesn't clean."

"Ila's been very tired," I said carefully.

He thought about that.

"Are you tired?"

"Terribly," I said. "But I'd rather be tired and have a clean floor."

His mouth twitched.

It was the smallest thing, the beginning of a smile, and I felt it land in my chest like a warm stone.

When the broth was ready I ladled a bowl, cooled it with a spoon and blew on it before I handed it over.

He took one sip.

Then his whole face changed, and he put the bowl down.

"Is it bad?" I said.

"It's hot," he whispered. "In a good way."

I laughed, a real helpless laugh, and he stared at me.

I realized that I hadn't heard anyone laugh in this den.

He finished the bowl, and then another one, slower.

By midday I had him on the rug by the hearth in a blanket, drowsy and round-eyed.

He fell asleep with his hand holding the edge of my tunic.

I sat there afraid to move.

That was how Darek found us when he came in at dusk.

He had a brace of hares over his shoulder and snow in his hair.

He stopped in the doorway, took in the swept floor, the lit fire and his son asleep with his fist in my sleeve.

His face went blank.

"You cleaned," he said.

"I did."

"And you made something."

"It's called dinner. There's enough for you."

He set the hares on the table and didn't move for a moment.

"Ila never cooked," he said.

"I've picked up a few things."

Whatever he'd planned to say, he swallowed it.

I skinned a hare under his watchful eye, because my hands remembered a thousand camp suppers.

He stood close enough that I felt his heat at my elbow.

"You've got a knife like a butcher," he said.

"A nurse," I said before I thought, and then, "I mean, my aunt was a nurse. She taught me."

He looked at me for a very long moment.

"You lie badly," he said.

"You're a delight at dinner parties."

That got me something.

It wasn't a smile, but one corner of his mouth went in.

"It's burning," he said, nodding at the pot.

I spun, and he was right, and I snatched it off the hook while he turned to hide his face.

We ate at the table with Tuck wedged between us, awake again and eating the soft meat with both hands.

Darek ate quickly and without looking up.

But I noticed that he watched his son's bowl more than his own.

When Tuck yawned and leaned sideways onto my arm, Darek's whole body went still.

"He doesn't do that," he said, very low.

"What?"

"Lean on anyone."

I put my arm around the small warm back and said nothing.

That night I made Tuck a bed of folded furs beside the hearth.

I lay down on the pallet near him, and for the first time since I opened my eyes in this body, I slept.

I woke to a sound like a seal barking.

I was on my feet before I knew it.

Tuck was sitting up in the dark with his hands at his throat, and every breath came in with a high wet whoop.

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