Lottie's newfound fear about the Den and all these weeks of pent-up fury and frustration stirred up a storm that propelled her to her feet and stride right up to Cain.

"You left me." She jabbed his chest with an accusing finger. "You said you wouldn't leave me, then you"—jab—"left"—jab—"me," she ended with the sharpest jab yet.

"Lottie..." Cain's towering figure did not budge an inch from any of those jabs, yet his voice was strained and croaky, as if his throat had rusted from disuse.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, feeling assertive for the first time she could remember, and oh, how empowering it felt to finally speak her mind, to voice the unfairness levelled against her. "I don't know anyone. I don't know this place!"

Lottie waved her arms about to make her point, but Cain's gaze was pinned intently on hers, unmoving as he allowed her to release her torrent of bitter indignation.

"You brought me here while I was sick and left me. Just like that. Then you came back here all bloody, so bloody that I thought you were dead. And before you explained any of it, you left me again. And tonight... tonight..." Her voice cracked as she heard the wounded man's screams in her head and recalled the palpable fear that had consumed her. "I saw them drag a man... with his arm cut off, and there was blood again. So much blood..."

She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head as she attempted to dislodge the gruesome sight that had imprinted itself into her mind.

"Is that what you did, Cain?" Lottie removed her hands so she could look into his eyes and search them for honesty. "Is that why you were covered in blood?"

Cain remained still for a moment longer, his attention drawn to a droplet of water that fell from her wet hair, and followed its trail as it glided over the gentle curve of her breast, the ugly ribs visible beneath her skin, all the way down to her hips before he seemed to catch himself.

His eyes flicked back up to hers, and the fire in them made her cheeks burn, though she did not understand what it could mean. She should probably dress, but venting her distress was the priority, and he was interested in men, so it shouldn't matter, should it?

"I'm sorry, Lottie. I tried to listen. I really did," he said, earnestly and somewhat sheepishly. Then he went over to the wooden chest at the foot of the bed and fished out one of her linen dresses. "Here," he said, holding the dress out to her with his eyes averted.

Lottie didn't know what she'd expected from interrogating her husband while unclothed, but it certainly wasn't this: being asked to cover up because her body was too unsightly to behold. Head down in shame, she pulled the dress over her head, just in time to see the door swing open.

The newcomer sauntered into the room with a swagger, then paused, wrinkling her nose as if she sniffed the awkwardness in the air. "What's going on here?"

"I will... I will come back," Cain muttered before he sidestepped Dawn and made his escape from the room.

Dawn looked to the door, then Lottie, then back to the door, as if she couldn't quite decide whether to pursue Cain or suffocate in this room with Lottie. At last, she asked, eyeing the door again, "What was that?"

"He can't stand me," Lottie said sullenly.

"He what?"

Lottie shuffled over to the bed and sat down at its edge, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She did not know Dawn, not really. But in this moment, after weeks of being deprived of any real company, she couldn't help but let the dam burst.

"I know I'm ugly. I know he..." He likes men, she almost said, but she couldn't go around blurting out Cain's private secrets like that. "He doesn't feel the same way about me. I'm fine with it, I really am. But I just... I miss him. I miss when I got to see him every day."

For a while, Dawn did not respond, and Lottie wondered if she might have quietly slipped out of the room. But when she wiped away her tears and looked up, Dawn was still there, leaning against a wall with her arms folded. "I know what this is," she said.

"What what is?"

"Two idiots pining for each other," Dawn said with an exasperated roll of her eyes. "They say love is blind. I didn't know it could be this blind."

"Huh?"

"Listen, your man might look like a man most of the time, but we all know he's more of a wolf, right? Runs fast, eats a lot, loyal—to you, at least—but he also communicates about as well as a wolf does." Dawn tilted her head back to face the ceiling, then let out an "Ah-woooooo." She returned her cool gaze to Lottie. "That's it. That's the extent of his communication skills. So if you want anything from him, you need to be the one to tell him."

"What do you mean he's more wolf?" Why was everyone in the Den talking about some wolf? What did Cain have anything to do with wolves? A wolf had attacked her many years ago and left her with a scar. Were wolves the reason so many here were scarred too? She didn't know it was possible to have a wolf infestation, but what did she know?

"Well he—" Dawn stopped and narrowed her eyes at Lottie. "Wait, you don't know? You've been together, what, three years, and you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Forget I said anything."

"Please..."

"It's not my story to tell. All you need to know is that he needs a little push. Hit him over the head with bluntness. No subtle hints and all that because he won't get it. He has the brain capacity of a dog."

Lottie frowned. "I don't appreciate you saying that about Cain!"

"You don't have to appreciate it, but it's the truth."

No matter what Cain did or didn't do in more recent days, he had done his best to protect their home against hungry villagers; he'd hidden their horse and cart away in case they came, and they did; he'd even staked out a hut that gave them much-needed shelter on that horrible night.

He was, by far, the cleverest man she'd ever known.

"You take that back!" Lottie rose from the bed and stalked up to Dawn, like a little terrier yapping away at a lazy lion that could kill her in one chomp if it wanted to. "He is clever and kind and caring and handsome and... and..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed Dawn's brows lifting, her attention drawn to something over Lottie's shoulder.

But before Lottie could turn around to see what it was, Dawn pulled her in by the wrist, spun her around and slammed her into the wall. The air rushed out of her lungs from the sudden impact, and before her stood Cain, looking positively murderous with his nostrils flaring and his teeth bared in an animalistic snarl.

"Let her go," he said, his voice low and full of warning.

That was when Lottie finally realised that she was being held hostage by Dawn with a dagger to her throat. Again.

"Cain," Lottie whispered. She'd not seen him for almost a month, and already he looked so different to the kind and gentle husband she'd always known. His eyes, so angry and haunted, and beneath them, a dark shadow that spoke of deep exhaustion and restless nightmares.

Guilt washed over her. She'd lobbed accusations at him before she even noticed the changes in him. She'd thought only of her own fears and abandonment, without stopping to consider what he might also have suffered in their time apart. What if he was as much a victim of the circumstances as she was?

"See that anger and fear, girl?" Dawn whispered by her ear. "Look in his eyes, and ask yourself if he would care so much if he didn't feel the same way."

Mesmerised by the powerful emotions roiling in his eyes, Lottie did not notice when Dawn withdrew the blade and tucked it back into some obscure part of her leather armour.

At some stage, Dawn must have left the room—most likely after throwing some insult in Cain's face—because all of a sudden, it was just he and she again, and he was so close she had to crane her neck to continue holding his gaze.

"Did you mean what you said, Lottie?" Cain asked, his voice once again the warm, molten honey she'd come to associate with him. "Clever, kind, caring, and..."

Handsome. Oh, holy gods and goddesses, he had heard. Heat rushed into her cheeks, spreading all the way to the tips of her ears. Somehow, she found this even more humiliating than confronting him nude—this baring of her heart before a man who could not possibly return her affections.

But what Dawn had said... about the way he cared. Was it possible? "I-I-I-I-I—"

"You don't have to say—"

"I love you," she blurted. No subtlety. Not even a dog could misunderstand it.

Cain froze, even more of a statue than he was when he'd walked in on her washing herself.

"You..." There was a tremor in his voice. "You shouldn't."

None of the villagers' jests and mockery had ever cut as painfully as his outright rejection did in that moment, even if she'd already known that he did not feel the same way. Yet Dawn had so cruelly planted a seedling of hope that served only to exacerbate the heartache.

"Don't worry, I'm not expecting anything. I know that you don't like me, that you don't even like women, and that's fine. There is nothing wrong with that, and I won't tell a soul," Lottie rattled on, keen to ease his discomfort. "I just... I would like to know a bit more about this place and the people here, and why you disappeared for so long. I care about you, and mayhaps... mayhaps you left to spend time with your lover and you were afraid to tell me, but you can trust me, you know. I love you... enough that I just want to see you happy."

She'd tried not to be subtle. That wasn't subtle, was it? But Cain continued to stare at her, silent as his brows drew into a frown.

"What do you mean, I don't like women?" he finally asked.

"Well, you like men," Lottie said, as blunt as she could possibly be.

The frown continued to deepen. "Is that why you've avoided my touch?"

Lottie blinked in confusion, wondering if it was she who had the brain capacity of a dog. "I thought you were uncomfortable with being close to me, because... well, you like men."

Cain's mouth opened and closed, clearly struggling to find his words.

"Sorry, I'm not blaming you for anything," Lottie added, eager to assure him that she would support his choices. "I promise I understand—"

"No, I don't think you understand," he said, cupping her cheeks in his gentle hands. "I think I need to show you... just how much I do not like men."

In a single breath, he closed the distance between them.

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