Chapter 11
Tiffany stared down in awe at the bolt of brilliant green fabric that Barbasa had pulled out of one of several trunks tucked at the back of the shed that she hadn’t even noticed during her numerous trips rummaging through the shed’s contents.
At her side a basket of new sewing supplies awaited her attention along with two more bolts of fabric—one a deep blue and the other yellow with a floral pattern printed across it.
She ran her fingers over the soft material in disbelief, a soft murmur of pleasure escaping her.
She glanced up at the satyr grinning down at her, still unable to believe that he gave her all of this.
The trunks had been filled with all kinds of goods, but she hadn’t expected that he would carefully select from them the nicest cloth to give.
She had never expected this ! While it wasn’t as glitzy as some of the synthetic fabrics made into stylish clothes that had been everywhere before the Ravening, the cloth itself was the nicest that she had ever seen since and clearly of good quality and durability unlike a lot of the fabric that people had been relying on before beginning to do their own rough homespuns.
There was nothing rough about this, however.
It seemed far too nice and with what he said before, it sparked hope within her.
It was a foolish hope when words had not been spoken yet of her leaving or staying.
Especially when some part of her still waited with dread, day to day expecting him to call an end to their unusual living situation.
Yet he had called her his favorite hunt and had frequently lingered around her with what appeared to be some depth of feeling shining in his eyes.
And now he gave her all of this to replace her clothes, surely it all meant something more than a casual cohabitation that came with his offered protection.
She smoothed her hands over the fabric and smiled thoughtfully down at it as she pushed away the what ifs rushing through her thoughts.
If the Ravening taught her anything, it was that all the planning in the world for one’s future and what one desired was never guaranteed.
It was best to just accept what Barbasa offered and not overthink it—at least for now.
It was a pity that her sewing skills were never all that great despite her mother and grandmother both attempting to teach her at different points of her life, but she wasn’t going to turn away the gift.
She would manage even if it was just something simple in design that she couldn’t mess up too badly.
“Where did you get this?”
she asked in awe, slightly worried that she might ruin an actual treasure.
Elvish made things were of such quality that she would curse herself a dozen times for even daring to touch it.
Unfortunately, that possibility didn’t seem to stop her fingers any from caressing the soft material.
She brushed her fingers again and again over the fabric, pleased that she had thought to thoroughly bathe herself every morning even if she cursed the icy water to hell and back the entire time.
The last thing she wanted to do was soil the fabric before she even had an opportunity to make something of it, much less wear it.
The satyr chuckled at her obvious delight and continued to unload several small packages from another trunk, setting them one by one beside her to join her other gifts.
Honey.
thick pillows, and a large, soft blanket were then added to the pile before he stood with a large leather sack and carried it over to the kitchen to set it on the counter.
He did not linger there, though, but returned quickly to her side to crouch down beside her once more.
“Do you like it?”
he asked, the twitch of his pointed ears betraying his hint of uncertainty.
“It’s gorgeous! I’m almost afraid to use it out of the worry of messing it up.”
She chuckled quietly to herself.
“I’m not the best at sewing, although several women in my family did their best to teach me.
When my mother and grandmother gave up, I had a few aunts who half-heartedly made an attempt for a time.
But I do think I can make a couple of simple, drapey dresses that I can belt up as I need to.”
She beamed over at him.
“Thank you! For all of it,”
she added gesturing to his other thoughtful gifts.
A ruddy hue rushed under his bronzed skin, and he grinned back at her, his yellow eyes taking on a burnished gold hue with his pleasure.
She wondered absently if they would turn a true gold if she kissed him, or what he may look like in throws of passion as he lay beneath her or mounted over her.
Would his eyes glow then as they did when he hunted her through the dark?
Admittedly it was something she had begun to contemplate a lot as of late.
Although he often cuddled with her during the night and extruded at random moments throughout the day as if it was perfectly natural, they didn’t trade kisses or touches.
She had never seen a hint of the real heights of passion that she was certain that he was capable of.
There was always something reserved within him as if he was intentionally always holding himself in check.
In fact, other than curling around her at night or the brush of his hand or hip against hers, he rarely touched her outside of holding her hand on occasion when they walked outside.
Oh, she was certain that he would touch her sexually since he flirted so heavily with her as if intentionally building up to that, but for the first time in her adult life since losing her virginity to Wes Graver in the back of his pickup, she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
For that matter, she wasn’t even certain if his species even had gestures of affection—like kissing, for instance.
Would he even welcome a kiss? He wasn’t human and she was coming to realize how little she knew of other races outside of humans.
It would be embarrassing as fuck if she flung her arms around him, and he interpreted it as an attack rather than initiating intimacy like she intended.
That was one aspect of being with a monster that she hadn’t considered.
She was tempted to try it anyway to express her thanks at the very least and went so far as carefully setting the material aside with the other gifts and lifting a hand with the idea of pulling him close.
It was his curious glance at her hand that had her courage fail her.
Instead, she plucked up one of the blankets he brought her and dragged it around her shoulders as if that was what she intended all along.
Snuggling into it, she gave him an embarrassed smile from behind the thick material.
He cocked his head, his expression becoming more curious as he watched her.
“This is a lovely blanket,”
she rushed to explain.
“So warm.
If you can get stuff like this, I don’t know why you don’t stay there among them.
We didn’t even have anything so nice in the town where I lived.”
His lips tipped in an answering smile but there seemed to be a new hesitancy to it.
“It is a nice settlement with an interesting mix of species.
That blanket there was made by a lupi family that rear sheep.”
He chuckled at that.
“Imagine wolven males and females, and large flocks of sheep that roam their mountains.
It sounds a little unusual, but they are among the best guards and caretakers of them, outside of satyrs.
And the weave of their cloth and blankets is truly the best to be found among the fae tribes.”
She blinked at the fabric.
It had been so soft that she hadn’t even guessed that it was made of wool.
What was more, it had an entirely different texture from the blanket around her.
“This is all from their sheep?”
He nodded, his smile widening at her surprise.
“They use different warps and weave styles to accomplish many different types of cloth.
There are also races who are adept carvers who make great things of wood, though the furnishings would take multiple males to cart this far into my woods,”
he added with a rumbling chuckle.
“Asterion, a minotaur who raises bees, comes through once a month with his supplies—I was lucky to catch him recently and stocked up on honey.”
His smile fell a little at those words but returned quickly, though when it did, it wasn’t quite as bright.
“There are nymphs who make ciders and ales.
Pies and preserves.
Oh, I believe I still have a jar of preserves that you must try!”
He started to stand but Tiffany grabbed his hand, wound her fingers with his and tugged him back down to her side.
She peered at him in confusion.
“Why don’t you live there then?”
His smile disappeared and he gave her an uncomfortable look.
“Satyrs don’t do well in settlements.
We are not comfortable having too many around us who are not flock.”
“Flock?”
Was this a sheep thing again?
His lips twitched faintly as if he had some idea of what direction my mind drifted off into.
“A flock is a family group of satyrs,”
he explained after several minutes of strained silence.
“At times a flock will adopt new members but generally most are blood related and descended from a single mated couple who split from their own familial herd with their own line.”
His eyes crinkled slightly.
“Of course, all satyrs only father males, who are in turn satyrs, so we tend to mate with females who join our numbers by choice.
Shepherdesses that we come across are usually the most convenient choice,”
he continued with a hint of his old mischievousness returning.
Of course it would be.
Tiffany snorted as she attempted to hold back her laughter.
She was not going to be distracted.
“Okay, so where is your flock?”
She was suddenly very confused.
Why was Barbasa all alone? It sounded like his kind were naturally very social, not unlike humans.
“Surely if you are that social to where you live in a large, extended family groups, no satyr would willingly live alone like this.
So why are you?”
Pain flashed through his eyes, dulling their yellow hue.
“I had a flock.
I took over as king with the passage of my grandsire and the responsibility for their care fell to me.
And I failed them.”
“What happened?”
she whispered, her voice dropping at the gravity of the situation.
There was pain there that he obviously didn’t want to look at—and she wouldn’t push him—but felt like this was something that happened to him that was important.
Something that she needed to know.
He cleared his throat and slanted an uncertain look at her.
“It’s not a pretty tale.
You may be happier not knowing.”
He shook his head as he appeared to struggle with his thoughts.
“I shouldn’t tell you.
It has nothing to do with present circumstances.”
Still holding his hand wound tightly with hers, she rubbed her thumb across his knuckles, dragging his attention back to their joined hands.
“I would like to know,”
she admitted.
“Things shape and change us and has a way of changing us even if we don’t see it for ourselves.
The Ravening changed all humans, even if many of us like to pretend that we are still living in the before time.
Whatever you experience is clearly something that you are still living with.”
He pinned her with a hard look.
“Be certain of this.
It will change how you see me—how you feel around me.”
That sounded ominous but she was there with him, living with him and enjoying his protection.
It didn’t seem right for her to just blithely continue on ignorantly when she could help him in some small well with a small part of the emotional burden he carried.
Whatever had happened to his flock, it had left deep scars within him.
“I’m certain,”
she murmured.
Holding her gaze with his pale eyes, his lips barely moved as he whispered, “I killed them.”
Tiffany stared at him in shock, for a moment certain that she misheard them.
Upon realization that she hadn’t, her first impulse was to recoil away from him and put distance between them, but she forced herself to remain still as she worked through it in her mind.
“Okay.”
The word left her in a drawn-out whisper as her stomach threatened to heave.
The male she had spent weeks with had killed not only one person but many from the sound of it.
He was a murderer.
“You killed your entire family.”
His lips twitched and lifted into a sad smile that was more of a grimace.
“You are afraid now.”
She shook her head but immediately followed it with an uncertain shrug.
“I don’t know.
I mean, yes...
maybe.
You just admitted to killing them.”
“It was the only way I could save them,”
he rasped.
“I was the strongest, the king of my flock and I think that is the only reason I escaped the taint...
in a matter of speaking,”
he added with a humorless laugh as his eyes continued to bore into her eerily.
“You don’t know what it is like to spend centuries captured in the belly of a labyrinth, kept alive and driven mad by its spirit until all you knew was the hunger that crawled through you insidiously.”
“A labyrinth,”
she repeated, his reaction to her use of the word suddenly becoming clearer.
He nodded grimly.
“A place inhabited by a spirit that had developed a lust for death and vengeance.
Something which those that lived within it, that survived within the bowels of its deep corridors, carried out for its satisfaction.”
A long, weary sigh escaped him and with it she imagined she heard centuries worth of struggle, pain, and sorrow.
He did not flinch away, however, as he spoke.
“I did terrible things.
I feasted on the pain and terror and enjoyed it.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“You see now the monster I truly am.
I wasn’t entirely truthful with you before.
A satyr enjoys the taste of fear and panic...
all in good fun.
It is part of our passion and lust for life.
And we are lusty,”
he added, a dry chuckle following on the heels of his observation.
“Really? I never would have noticed,”
she remarked, grasping desperately at humor to alleviate some of the tension tightening between them.
Barbasa laughed again, that time with a touch of genuine humor.
It was fleeting, however, and returned to regarding her silently.
“But in the heart of the labyrinth we outdid ourselves.
We didn’t just frighten them; we tortured them and tore them apart as their screams fell from their bloodied lips.
We became true monsters of the sort that even the gods banish to the prisons deep within the earth.”
Clearing her throat, she gestured for him to continue.
“So, what you are saying is that you were stuck in hell, and you all went insane...you a bit less, if I understood right.
What happened to change that?”
“Yes,”
he mumbled, his eyes drifting from her to the fireplace as a distant look came to them as if he were looking back and was no longer in the room with her.
“We were delivered a way to escape,”
he said slowly.
“My kin were wild with their hunger to the point of attacking each other no matter how I attempted to redirect them.”
Pain filled his eyes.
“Our mates had died within the early years of our captivity, my own Ariana within just months when a small number of centaurs viciously attacked us.”
Tiffany felt her heart break just a little then.
There was no room for jealousy.
By his own words, it had been centuries ago.
But her heart still bled for him for suffering the loss of one he clearly had dearly loved.
He released a quiet, frustrated growl.
“I blame that a little on the power of the taint within us as it fed on our grief.
The hunger there knew no end no matter how much you filled your belly, and it consumed them.
They attacked everything within reach, indiscriminately.
And as I watched them, I realized a terrible truth.”
“What was that?”
His gaze shifted back to her and hardened.
“I couldn’t let them leave the labyrinth.
There was only one way that I could free them that would be merciful to my flock and save them from committing any more horrors, as well as saving the world that they would have escaped into.
My flock was filled with cousins, brothers... sons,”
he added in a choked voice.
“I killed my own two sons while they were busy tearing apart one of the smaller males between them, his flesh filling their mouths.”
Bile rose thickly in her throat and Tiffany felt like she was going to be sick.
Understanding flickered in his eyes and he wearily dropped his head, his double pairs of horns suddenly seeming very much like the weight of a heavy crown.
His eyes pinching tightly closed against the chaos of his grief, he shuddered with unspent grief.
He was still being tortured by it.
Though he had clearly loved his flock, that love had forced him to destroy them.
They had become true monsters...
nightmares and horrors.
And he carried that with him still.
The guilt of a father and king who had stepped with them into the darkness and had been the sole survivor of it.
Scooting closer, she gave his hand a squeeze and leaned into his arm in a physical offering of comfort.
His eyes dropped down to her and some of the chilliness left them.
“Are you not afraid, little human?”
he rasped.
“I am not cured.
There is no real cure for the taint of the labyrinth.
I am still infected with it.
It waits and lurks within me like a spider on its web.”
“And it hasn’t hurt me yet,”
she countered.
If he was going to try to use that to scare her away, it wasn’t going to work.
She would have felt it within him—she was certain of it.
His lips slowly curled in response.
“It is more likely to try to devour any threat that comes to you.
I fear it has burrowed so deep into my instincts that it has struck a claim upon you.”
A shiver ran through her as she experienced the sort of awe that she imagined came with knowing that someone had access to that sort of power.
Whatever lived within Barbasa would destroy everything to keep her safe and she couldn’t deny that there wasn’t an appeal to all of that.
“And what of you?”
she whispered.
Leaning forward, he bent his forehead down to hers to press their brows gently together as he threaded his free hand through her hair.
“I had my claim on you from the first,”
he rasped.
“Never have I felt such a powerful pull since Ariana.
I would gladly let the taint consume me and bring down the world should anything happen to you.”
Tiffany dropped her head to his shoulder and soaked in the feeling of his solid presence beside her.
“I would gladly help you tear it all apart if it came right down to it.”
She swallowed.
“And I think I would like to claim you in turn.”
His hand tightened on hers and he pressed his lips to her head, the bit of beard on his chin surprisingly soft as it brushed the bridge of her nose.
“There’s no rush, Tiffany.
When you are ready, you will know.
In the meantime, I am here, however you want me,”
he murmured.
Her head still laying against his arm, she nodded before pushing herself up.
He was on his feet immediately, his hands outstretched in an offer to help her stand which she gladly accepted.
Together, they picked up the gifts he’d given her that had remained strewn across the floor during their conversation and stacked them neatly in one corner.
She looked at the untidy heap and acknowledged that she would have to make another basket for that and perhaps even see about constructing some crude shelves with Barbasa’s help.
Making a mental note to discuss it with him further, she hurried after him to help him put away what remained in the bag.
There was the pressed oil to fuel the lanterns and cook with that he explained was harvested from olive groves and had come up from along southern routes, as well as the honey, various powders and spices for cooking, and lard, among many other food staples that she had stared at it all in wonder.
There was so much there it fed that small spark of hope that he wanted to keep her there forever.
Although he had refrained of speaking of a true commitment, she understood the depth of his emotions and was touched.
So what if he was a bit damaged by everything that happened to him.
Everyone in the world was.
And if he could not promise her his undying love yet, she sensed it lurking beneath the surface.
It was enough.
A smile pulled at her lips as she looked around their well-stocked kitchen.
In a small way he demonstrated that everything there was now hers as well.
That was definitely on the right track and one step closer to their happily ever after.