Chapter 56: This Ride Came With Heated Seats

A new shelf opened beneath the words Bonded Merchant. Daily stock would improve to decent clothes, full bags of food, and eventually furniture and travel gear. More useful shelves would open as she completed tasks at this bonded tier. Mission rewards and unsold fees stayed the same. Keeping each leftover unit still cost four Favor; returning it still cost one normal coin.

Today’s four small pouches contained jelly beans. Selling three would pay twelve normal coins. Five fresh Favor would unlock a thermal shirt priced at fourteen normal coins. Clothes on the new shelf, Sprout added, would not cost more simply because they were finally worth wearing.

Dove stared at the bright little sweets. "You had sugar this whole time, and you gave me buttons?"

"Your merchant tier has improved through a voluntary bond."

"You could have led with that before I spent weeks smelling like a wet sock."

Thorne laughed when she explained the unfairness, and the five Favor plus one mate bonus brought her to one thousand fifty-three. She had not sold a single pouch yet. She was still considering the crime of eating the display when he picked up a bent metal buckle from his pack.

The broken tongue moved beneath his thumb without a tool. Both of them stared as the cold metal slowly bent into place.

Thorne put the buckle on the table and stared at his hand as though it had started working for somebody else. Dove leaned beside him, close enough to see the repaired tongue. There were no tool marks, and the metal had not become hot.

"Do it again," she said. "Something small, preferably not the door currently keeping us alive."

He pressed a bent scrap from his repair kit between two fingers. It straightened slowly, then stopped halfway when his hand began to shake. Thorne let it fall and sat down before she had to suggest that collapsing was a poor way to celebrate a new skill.

She gave him bread and canned meat. After he ate and rested, the shaking eased. He could bend the scrap a little farther, though moving it from across the table did nothing except make both of them stare at a very ordinary piece of metal.

"Touch works better," he said. "Food helps the tiredness."

"Excellent. A power with a lunch break. Finally, something sensible around here."

They did not know whether bonding had caused it. Men at the Warren had started gaining abilities without her involvement, and she refused to claim credit for his fingers because she had kissed him. Sprout was much less restrained about the possibilities, which was why she closed its advice window.

Before leaving, Thorne spread his map on the bench. The mall stood two miles south of the Warren. A service road curved east around the buried highway and reached an old roadside rest center six miles beyond the mall. Supply crews used it as a shelter. Terminal lay much farther north along another route, beyond the damaged bridge.

Dove traced the turns with her finger. "Six miles, then a warm room. Please tell me the room comes with food and nobody asking to inspect my underwear."

He marked the rest center with a circle. They would ask about road conditions there and decide what came next. He showed her the marked turn before folding the map, so she could recognize it herself. She liked having a next step instead of an entire future balanced on the word probably.

They packed their own things and checked the room for anything left behind. Thorne undressed beside his pack, shifted into his black panther form, and lowered himself for her. Dove climbed on behind his shoulders, wrapped warmly, and found the right grip in his fur without pretending she disliked the arrangement.

"My very handsome public transport," she murmured.

His purr began beneath her legs. He picked up the bag by its handle, so she took the pleased noise as his entire reply and kissed the back of his ear before they went out.

Two beasts waited near the side loading door. One was a large red wolf in a sled harness; the other was a broad-antlered stag pulling a second narrow sled. Their packs were lashed beneath canvas, and both stopped so abruptly at the sight of her that the stag’s harness rings knocked together.

"That’s a woman," the wolf said.

The stag stared. "Out here?"

Dove looked between them. "Please tell me neither of you is about to ask if I’m lost. I’m sitting on a very large man who knows where he’s going."

Neither laughed at first. The wolf backed his sled out of the wind to clear the entrance, and the stag turned his whole body to look up the empty road. He asked where her escort was, then saw Thorne’s ears flatten and corrected himself to ask whether more protection was coming.

Thorne set his bag down. "She’s with me. Ask her the rest."

They asked all at once. Was she hurt, was anyone following, did she have warm clothes, had a gate fallen somewhere? Dove answered the useful questions first. Yes, she was warm enough on Thorne. No, she did not want to be taken back to the Warren. Yes, she understood a storm was coming.

The wolf swore when she explained Garran’s order. He did not ask what she had done to deserve it. His disbelief was so immediate that she had to look away for a moment, annoyed with herself for finding a stranger’s common sense moving.

They were couriers returning toward the rest center after a southern delivery. Their sleds had made yesterday’s tracks through the mall. The wolf offered to travel with them and broke open a side pouch with his teeth, pushing dried apricots toward her as an openly declared courtship gift.

"She’s bonded," the stag pointed out, though he was already offering a small sealed jar of honey.

"One was never enough to keep a woman safe," the wolf answered. "Even before the freeze. What happens when he hunts?"

"Leave it," the stag said more quietly. "Maybe her other mates died."

Dove opened her mouth, then shut it. Explaining her entire romantic history beside a frozen loading dock sounded like an unpaid shift she could refuse. Thorne glanced back at her and waited; he did not borrow their guess to speak for her.

"They can also have a conversation without choosing any," Dove said. "I accept snacks, not applications. Everyone comfortable with that extremely generous arrangement?"

The wolf leaned closer with his apricots. Thorne showed enough teeth to stop him, and Dove rubbed the fur between her mate’s ears. "He can give me snacks from over there, honey. Nobody needs to lose a hand before breakfast." The couriers promptly discovered the advantages of standing farther away.

She showed them the jelly beans from her separate sales bundle. The wolf bought two pouches and the stag one, trading a marked road copy and dried soup between them. Their ordinary meals were packed on the sleds; these were treats, and they looked delighted to find any.

Sprout paid twelve normal coins, bringing her to twenty. She bought the unlocked thermal shirt for fourteen during a sheltered stop, leaving six. Four Favor bought the final pouch for herself, reducing that purse to one thousand forty-nine.

She ate one jelly bean and shut her eyes. The wolf asked whether something was wrong.

"No. I’ve simply remembered why civilization was worth the trouble."

Thorne glanced back, pleased enough that she saved him a red one for later. Then they moved out together, both couriers in beast form hauling their sleds, Thorne carrying her between them as the wind thickened.

Near the rest center, a bell sounded twice. Men appeared above the fenced entrance, and one leaned so far forward at the sight of Dove that another grabbed his coat.

"Open the gate," he shouted. "There’s a female outside, and the storm’s right behind her!"