Hunting must have been a welcome relief from the story told on the walls of that chamber. Ryall appeared first, a pole over his arm with a pair of rabbits hanging by their ears from each end. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he called to me gleefully while still a good way off. ‘He can hit a rabbit on the run. No one’s even tried that before.’ Tamlyn came behind with the bow, the hint of a smile curling the edges of his perfect lips. Why couldn’t I be standing in Haywode, watching my love come in from the woods after the hunt? Even in the middle of this latest despair, I sensed the happiness of such a scene and the warmth it would flush across my skin. The moment was broken as Nerigold stirred on the litter at my feet. She looked first for the noise that had woken her, then almost as quickly searched for Lucien. ‘Oh,’ she gasped, flinching from the body of the fawn. She must have thought the hunters had already dumped it at my feet as a kind of trophy. Ryall bounded across the campsite, unhooking the rabbits from the pole as he came.
