Gabriel's City by Laylah Hunter

Author:Laylah Hunter [Hunter, Laylah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2014-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Despite the warmth and the relative comfort—still nothing like the goose-feather bed he had a lifetime ago in his parents’ house, but so much better than the mat of straw they have now—Drake doesn’t manage to sleep through the night. He wakes once to see Deirdre adding more wood to the fire, and again later to hear her humming a tune he thinks he might recognize as she sits by the fireside. She found them a blanket at some point while they slept; now Gabriel is solid and almost too heavy against Drake’s side and the blanket holds the warmth in with them both. He can remember tiny scraps of his dreams—books with engraved illustrations of dragons drinking in taverns, northlands barbarians on some sort of sacred quest in the Cypress Street graveyard.

When he wakes for the third or fourth time, the room’s gone from near-black to stormy-weather gray, and the fire has died down to a few red embers. Deirdre’s gone—possibly in the kitchen, from the sound—and Gabriel is still asleep, wedged between Drake and the back of the sofa. He sighs when Drake shifts to get up, but doesn’t wake. Drake eases his way off the sofa and tucks the blanket around Gabriel’s shoulders before he heads into the kitchen.

The fire in the kitchen stove is burning brightly, and the kettle’s on. Deirdre’s sitting in the chair nearest the stove, her hands held out to warm them.

“Good morning,” Drake says. “I’m surprised you’re up so early. Did you sleep at all?”

“A bit here and there.” It shows in her face, heavy shadows under her gray eyes. “It’s only once a year. How’s he doing this morning?”

Drake shakes his head. “Don’t know yet. He’s still sleeping.” He chews his lip. “Haven’t seen him get like that for a while.”

Deirdre raises an eyebrow. “You are good for him, then, if he’s holding it off more of the time.”

Drake knows that shouldn’t make him so pleased, but he can’t help the little burst of warmth at the thought. “You think so?”

“There’s another story behind almost any tale you hear,” Deirdre says as she rises to measure tea for the pot, “and the one he told last night is no exception.”

“And you know the story behind it?” He wants to hear it, possibly more than he can remember wanting to hear anything.

“I know parts, and I can guess others.” Deirdre takes the kettle off the stove and pours water over the tea leaves. “The part I know for sure starts about ten years ago, when a boy named Raife and his friends, as nasty a little pack of children as you’ll see, brought Gabriel to my door one winter morning—starving and feverish and weak as a runt kitten.”

Drake feels something tighten in his chest, and wishes he could deny it. The idea of Gabriel being so lost, so weak— “How old was he?”

Deirdre shakes her head. “Seven or eight, maybe. Perhaps a bit older and just underfed. Hard to know for sure.

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