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“No one needs to know about this. It’s about my Wellsie.” The irony of that phrasing seemed lost upon him.
The time for his strength and ego had passed, however, and these pathetic tears proved what he was at his core.
It was a universal truth among males that anytime you saw a guy get it in the nuts, you experienced a shot of phantom pain in your own croquet set.
There’s a couple ways of ending up there, but mostly it’s because you won’t let go or because someone won’t let go of you.”
In his long life, he had seen suffering in all its forms. Disease. Dismemberment. Disenchantment on epic scales. Staring at his outstretched hand, he realized he had become detached from it all. Hardened by overexposure and personal experience. Separated from any compassion.
He’d been so arrogant. It had never dawned on him this wasn’t going to work. When he’d been approached, he’d been flippant, confident, and ready for the aftermath—which had been all about freedom for himself. A struggle had never occurred to him. The concept of failure had not been anywhere near his radar screen.
You are alive. She is not. And your hanging on to the past is putting you both in an In Between.”
And then he clasped the front of his muscle shirt—right over his heart. “I can’t just stop… because her body did.”
“This is not her. Your anger is not her. Your dreams, your fucking pain… none of it is her. She is gone.”
But that was the beauty of inner thoughts. No one had to know your weaknesses. And once you’d finished dwelling on them, you could toss them into the mental trash bin they belonged in.
I couldn’t fathom any course of events that would hurt more.” He cursed. “I should have known that fate is sadistic as well as endlessly inventive.
“End of the day, the quick and the dead are the same. Everyone’s just looking for home.
Not that he knew any of this, of course. Then again, one didn’t expect chum to be aware it was attracting sharks.
She was not fooled. He had grown e’er weaker over the last few months, his body wasting away, until it was clear that only his will for vengeance animated him.
And I’m going to hold you to this.” “You shall not have to. My vow is my vow.”
A fighter’s sense of smell and hearing, his instinct honed by training and practice, his knowledge of his enemy and himself, these did not come with a monthly bill, the need for recharging, or the threat of being laid aside and lost or stolen.
And he’d assumed it would always be that fun. Except there had been shadows all along, hadn’t there.
“Obligation shouldn’t take you that far down into your personal hell.” “That is for me to choose, not you.”
As he cursed, she lifted her chin once more, unwilling to back down. After a long while, he shook his head. “You are so… odd.” “I shall take that as a compliment.”
But the unborn? It was coming into the world in such sadness to begin with, but at least it could make of its destiny what it could.”
“If I can live through the events,” she said, “I can get through the memories.”
“You know what they say about suicides, don’t you. No Fade for them.” “It’s not suicide if you shoot me first. Self-defense.” “And you’re willing to test that out?” “If you are.”
Indeed, whilst he lay in his suffering, he realized he should have known better. He had grown to be at ease around that male, in the same way one who handled tigers might become lax: He’d taken for granted certain patterns of behavior, finding in them a misguided safety and predictability. In reality, the danger had not dissipated, but grown.
The unfairness was legion:
You never realized how thick your fog was until it lifted.
Lifting her chin, she met icy, diamond eyes. “Verily, you will have to kill me and drag my body out of here if you wish me to leave.”
As she came forward into the room, her smile was a wellspring of peace and femininity in the midst of the vile trappings of war and death, and if he hadn’t been lying down, he’d have sunk to his knees in awe.
Their forms and figures were distorted, bent, twisted out of shape because of the uneven reflecting surface, but the image was accurate in more ways than one: Their destinies had been such as to make them both grotesque.
She frowned. “I care not what you look like. You breathe and your heart beats—that is all that matters to me.” “You have very low standards for males.” “I have no standard for males. For you, however, if there is health and safety, I am at peace.”
He liked her, though. And it was easier, in a strange way, that she was so different. Less of a chance of ever replacing his beloved in his heart with this female:
except before she made any kind of move, she gave her inner core a chance to panic. The last thing she wanted was to become overwrought and undone in the midst of this. Nothing bubbled up from the depths. For once, the present was so alive and captivating that the past was not even an echo or a shadow—she was, in this moment, wiped clean. And very clear about what she wanted.
And because he knew that all of his burdens would be waiting for him when this halcyon sunrise faded, he drew himself even more into the experience, deliberately clothing himself in all the sensations.
He’d had well over a year of mourning and grief, and there were decades and centuries of it in front of him. For the next ten minutes, fifteen minutes, hour—however long this lasted—he needed to stay only in the here-and-now.
She knew earth. She knew the Sanctuary. But this… was heaven.
“Fine. Whatever—but don’t stand in my sun. I need it more than I need you.”
sky, at the storm, at the violent, churning heavens above. Having once been damned by circumstance, he couldn’t believe he would even consider being damned by consent.
Bloodthirsty? Yes, indeed—his earlier self would have never thought in such ways. But his newer self had gotten used to taking what he wanted, the cloak of civility having grown threadbare after years without his tending its delicate fibers.
Maybe she was… looking for something, anything, that was a change from this fog of sadness she was living in.
So much possibility back then. And given where they were now, it seemed kind of fitting that all of summer’s warmth was gone, that vital blooming period missed altogether: Now the leaves were on the ground, the branches were bare once again, and everything was about hunkering down.
“I am surrounded by males who live by those rules. Why should it be any different for you because you are female? I’m rather proud of you, actually. Better to be the aggressor than the aggressed upon—I should much rather have you of that mind than any other.”
“What the fuck is it going to cost you to hang here with me. Shut up and eat your half of the popcorn, asshole.”
“I realize that it is grisly, but war is a grisly business that you should merely be the beneficiary of, not a participant in.
“Mayhap I shall simply go through and double-check?” “That’s really not—” “Please, sire. Do not send me home to face your king and your Brothers without my knowing you are safe.”
she was never coming back here to claim any of this. It had all been hers and she had worn it, and used it, and needed every bit of it—but it wasn’t her. Say it—say that she’s dead. I can’t. You’re the problem. Nothing he had done in his mourning process had brought her back. Not the agony of reminiscing, not the mindless drinking, not the worthless weak tears or the resistance to another female… not the avoidance of this place, or the hours sitting alone with an empty hole in his chest. She was gone. And that meant that all of this was just stuff in an empty house.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, feeling like he wanted to return the favor. “You won’t. I know you are still in love with your mate, and I do not blame you. What you had with her is a once-in-a-lifetime love.” “What about you?” “I have no need or desire to take her place. And I accept you just as you are, in any fashion you choose to come to me. Or not, if that is the way it must be.”
“That isn’t fair to you.” “Yes, it is. I am happy to simply have time with you. That is enough—and more than I could ever have expected out of my fate. These past few months have been a complicated joy that I wouldn’t have traded anything for. If it must end, then at least I’ve had what I did. And if it goes further then I am luckier than I deserve. And… if it puts you in some small way at peace then I have served my only purpose.”
To realize that there were as yet others to lose was not reassuring in the slightest. If anything, it made the churning, ambient anxiety in his gut swirl faster.
Being female was not a disability in any sense of the word. But he had treated it as such, hadn’t he. He had decided that because she was not male, in spite of all her qualifications and skills, she couldn’t go out into conflict.
“Autumn is my favorite season of the year,” he said after a time. “It’s not that I’m chicking out or anything… but I like the leaves when they turn red and orange. They’re beautiful in the moonlight, but more to the point, it’s an impossible transformation. The green of spring and summer is just a shadow of the trees’ true identity, and all that color as the nights grow cold is a miracle every stinking time it happens. It’s like they’re making up for the loss of the warmth with all their fire.
To be named was to be claimed, and it made her feel… reborn.
