The girl whistled through her teeth. “You heal quickly, don’t you?” She clasped her hands behind her back and circled him, clucking under her breath. “Do you always walk around stark naked? I liked you better as a wolf.”
“Then get out of my way, and you won’t see me again.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Well, at least you can speak.”
Morgan bared his teeth. Too late, his mind wailed. Too late. “Who are you?”
“I’m Caitlin—Caitlin Hughes. Do you have a name?”
“Morgan. Holt.”
“Well, Holt, do you know where you are?”
“The old man told me.”
“That old man is Harry, who agreed to take you in, and don’t you say anything bad about him, or you’ll answer to the rest of us.” She glared at him. “I doubt that it occurred to him that you would just up and leave without a word, after we saved your life.”
The hairs rose on the back of Morgan’s neck. “I did not ask you to help me.”
“You came to us, didn’t you?” She gestured about her eloquently. “We haven’t much to spare, nothing at all for outsiders, but we accepted you. Who else would have done that? You owe us more than running away like a whipped cur.”
Obligation. Morgan stared across the grounds and at the freedom beyond, so rapidly slipping from his grasp. “You think… there is a reason that I came,” he said, pitching his voice in mockery.
“I know there is.”
“There is no reason for anything that happens.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” She shook her head. “Whatever you are, wherever you came from, I think there is some honor in you, or you would already be gone. That’s why you are going to help us.”
He met her gaze, and she took one step back. “You play a dangerous game.”
“You don’t frighten me. I’ve seen too much.”
She was a little afraid, but she hid it well. He felt the first stirrings of grudging respect, as he had felt fear of bonds that had nothing to do with prison walls.
“I have nothing to give you,” he said harshly.
“But you do. You have something very valuable. We make our living by showing people things they’ve never seen before. And you are something very few people have seen.”
“You want me to… go on display?” The idea was so absurd that it erased both doubt and fear. He turned to go.
Her hand caught at him. His first impulse was to remove it by the swiftest means possible, regardless of the damage to her. He held himself rigid instead, and growled.
“I can’t let you go. Not until you promise to meet the people who helped you.”
Morgan recognized the trap, and that he must pay a price to escape it. He gave the girl a terse nod. The language of her body told him that she had not been sure he would agree and knew full well that she could not stop him. She ducked into the tent and reemerged with his blanket.
“Put this on,” she said, “and come with me.”
He took the blanket and draped it over his shoulders. Caitlin marched across the camp toward the nearest tent. People called out greetings in the twilight, voices warm with friendship. Morgan hunched into his blanket and deafened himself to Caitlin’s cheery responses. They were not his friends, and neither was she.
They reached a tent as shabby and patched as the others, and Caitlin lifted the flap. “Go on inside,” she said.
He hesitated. Three distinct and familiar human scents permeated the air. This was yet another trap, another way to hold him.
“Don’t worry,” Caitlin said. “You could break Ulysses in two if you wanted, and Florizel is harmless. As for Tamar—” She shrugged.
Morgan tried to lay back ears that remained stubbornly fixed in place and entered the tent.
Two men sat at a pair of folding chairs on either side of a small table, intent on a game of cards. One of them was of average size, but his skin was pale as the moon, and his hair the same ghostly hue.