Chapter XII
She spots Jimmy hobbling out of the next shack over, visible under its dim porch light, a red toolbox clutched in his hand. Upon seeing her, he offers a smile and a little wave. “Mornin’!”
She nods to him. “Good morning, Jimmy.”
He watches her for a moment, then starts to walk over. Inside, Sable feels a small amount of displeasure; she has nothing against the man, but she’s never been much for conversation with strangers. Not that she’d say that out loud and be rude to someone trying to keep Mariam safe.
“You look like somethin’ mighty hard is troublin’ ya, kiddo.”
Sable hedges. “Something like that.”
Jimmy nods to the door behind her. “I reckon it’s something to do with you dear lady friend there.”
“It might. Why do you care, Jimmy?”
He gives his typical enigmatic smile. “Maybe I like seeing young folks work through their problems. Before they get to lookin’ like me, a great dried-up French fry.
” He laughs, and despite herself, Sable does too, a little lighter than his.
Truthfully, Sable isn’t quite sure what a French fry is, but it sounds funny enough.
“I think I’m a wee bit older than you, old man.”
“Maybe so, but it don’t make my words any different.” He stares at her hard, like he’s figuring her out. Sable can’t help but to shift under the weight of that piercing brown gaze. “You’ve lived through a lot, haven’t you, kid?”
“You have no idea, Jimmy.”
“Suppose you’re right. I don’t. But I do know if you got troubles and they mess with everythin’ else you got goin’ on, it might be wise to let ‘em out, y’know? Festerin’ wounds don’t get better without ant-ee-septic.”
Sable frowns. “What’re you getting at?”
“Tell your lady friend what’s botherin’ ya. Let her in. She might just be what you need to cure those aches and pains.” Jimmy smiles again and tips his paperboy hat. “I gots to get back to my repairs, Ms. Sable. But it’s been a joy talkin’ to ya.”
“Same to you, Jimmy. Same to you.” She watches him go, then heads back inside, undresses, and climbs back into bed with Mariam, her thoughts at war in her mind.
* * *
Mariam wakes to a sunbeam dancing over her face.
She stretches, yawns, then notices she lacks Sable’s warmth behind her.
She looks around, finding Sable sitting naked halfway down the bed, facing away, still within arm’s reach.
She sits up and brushes her hand down Sable’s back, tracing one of her scars.
One of the newer ones, one that was still a bleeding wound the night Mariam found her.
Sable shivers, then looks over her shoulder at her. “We should talk.”
Mariam’s heart stutters in her chest as her nerves start. Sable’s tone is so serious. Every time anyone has said those words to her, it’s always ended badly. Is this where she says she wants them to separate? That this was all a mistake? Mariam steels herself and nods. “What’s going on?”
“There’s so much you don’t know about me.” Sable lets out a held breath, and her body shakes. “I don’t want you to be with me and not know who I am. It’s not right. It’s not fair to you.”
“Oh.” That was not what Mariam expected. She lets the tension fall from her shoulders and caresses the back of Sable’s arm. “If you want to talk about it, Sable, I’m happy to listen. But don’t feel forced to.”
Sable offers a weak smile. “Thank you, sweet.” She sighs, running a hand through her hair.
“It started about a hundred years ago. My clan was living in a part of the savanna near roads that Fae took between the Spring and Summer Courts. One day, one of the Princes of Summer was travelling through our territory… with his guards.”
Sable’s tone makes Mariam’s stomach drop. Something bad is coming, she can already feel it. “What happened, Sable?”
“None of us were given mercy. Not even the children… I watched them kill my niece and nephew. The women, they… raped before they killed. We fought, of course, but we were outnumbered… In the end, those who survived scattered. For days I thought I was the last of us. But my father, my brother, and several others survived as well, and eventually we found each other again.”
Mariam feels sick to her stomach. Her mind buzzes with horror and with the most morbid questions. What kind of monsters rape and murder women? What if they did it to the children? What if… “Did they… to you?”
Sable lets out a mirthless bark of a laugh.
“They tried. I’ve always been unnaturally strong for a Faeral.
I killed at least three of them and wanted to keep going, but as our numbers were thinning, more and more of them closed in on me…
Eventually, I ran for my life.” She closes her eyes and swallows audibly.
“I remember stumbling over the mangled body of my brother’s wife… We lost almost all of our family.”
Mariam wraps a hand around her arm, rubbing soothing circles into Sable’s skin.
Her heart aches for the woman, for someone she has come to care so much about.
She tries to fathom losing so many people in such a horrific way.
Her mind jumps back to the mental image of Caedren decapitating Will, his head rolling to the floor by her feet…
She imagines if it was her mother, her sister, Leandra, all at once…
Imagines hearing their screams while she runs. “I’m so, so sorry, Sable.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is thick, and she clears her throat twice before she can speak again.
“As you can imagine, my father did not take it well. As the clan leader, he was supposed to protect us. And… he had failed. Horribly. He was never the same. After that day, he began to see everyone outside of our clan as a danger to be destroyed. We began to hunt Fae, burning their villages and killing them as they fled. It wasn’t just my father who changed.
All the hunters took pleasure in the killing. He made monsters of us.”
“Does that include you?” Mariam asks quietly.
Part of her could understand if Sable became a killer after all that.
She feels a bit of it herself now, the desire for revenge on anyone even close to responsible for what happened to Sable’s clan.
And yet she does not know how to reconcile the image of a monster murdering innocents with the sweet woman she’s come to know. Does not know if she can reconcile it.
“It includes me well enough. I always refused the actual killing. My father said I had no stomach for it, mocked me for it, but he didn’t force me.
He did, however, force me to flush out those that hid so that others could kill them, and that I did, for many years.
” Sable turns to look at her full in the face, shame lining her every facial feature, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.
“I’m ashamed of who I became, Mariam. I am so ashamed that I didn’t spit in his face.
But I was afraid of being exiled. Of being… alone.”
Mariam processes this. She reaches for any sense of anger towards Sable, any feeling of disgust, but only finds grief.
“I’m so sorry, Sable. I hate that you had to do that.
That your own father made you feel you had to just to keep what family you had left.
” Mariam has never been fully alone in the world, can’t even really imagine it.
And The Champion said Sable is still young in the Fae world.
Young and alone in a world that hates her kind…
She’s not sure she would have chosen any differently in the same situation, and she’s deeply grateful she’s never had to.
Mariam squeezes Sable’s hand. One other thought nags at her.
“But eventually, you were exiled anyway, right? That’s how you wound up here. How did that happen?”
Sable sniffles. “He had finally had enough of my squeamishness. We were raiding a village and… I found a child. Sobbing by her bed. A little water Fae. I was going to pretend I missed her and hope she wasn’t found.
But my father caught me as I was leaving.
He ordered me to kill her. I wouldn’t do it.
So then he killed her and beat my head into the floor, then carried me back and tied me down for my… punishment.”
Mariam blinks, her mind slowly turning, then realizing… “Your father did this to you?!”
“Yes. As the clan leader, it is his role to exact punishments.” Sable grimaces.
“I might have been forgiven if I’d stayed quiet, but I was tired of lying…
I told the clan why I was being punished.
Those who weren’t involved in the hunting didn’t know we had become as bad as the Summer Court.
I humiliated him, made him look like a mad hypocrite.
That’s when it turned from a beating into exile. ”
Mariam wraps her arms around Sable, hugging her tightly to herself.
Sable slowly reciprocates, clutching her just as tightly.
Mariam pulls her head back just enough to kiss away some of the still-falling tears rolling down Sable’s face.
“Sable, I’m so sorry. No one should have to go through what you have.
But I can’t believe you went through hell at your own father’s hands and you’re still so gentle and… warm. You’re so warm, Sable.”
Sable brushes her fingers through Mariam’s hair, locking eyes with her. Her next words make Mariam’s throat tighten. “Only for you, Mariam. Only ever for you.”
“What’re you saying, Sable?” Mariam asks softly. Her heart is beginning to pound. Mariam hopes she means what it sounds like. She longs to belong to Sable… and for Sable to belong to her.
“You know what I’m saying, sweet.” Sable kisses her. “I want you. I want you to be mine. No one else’s. I want you, mind, body, and soul. I want to see you every morning when I wake, and every night when I fall asleep.”
Mariam smiles, a smile that wavers from the many emotions racking her body. She feels pinprick tears threaten to form at the corners of her eyes. “That’s exactly what I want too, Sable. I want you. All of you. No matter what. You are worth everything to me.”
~§~
Sable buries her face into Mariam’s hair, breathing in her scent deeply.
Her heart soars at her human’s words. You are worth everything to me.
So is Mariam to her. Even before she found out they were mates, she wanted her bad.
And now… she has her. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, Mariam, sweet. My love.”
“I… love you, Sable. I know we’re still getting to know each other, but I do. My feelings for you are so strong so early…” Mariam laughs softly, blushing. “I don’t know. I’ve just never had someone look at me how you do. To touch me and tend to me how you do.”
Sable crushes her lips to Mariam’s, breathing her in. It lasts a long moment before she pulls back to speak. “I love you too, Mariam. More than you will ever know. You make my heart sing for the first time in all my years of living. Nothing can replace you. No one can.”
She feels it, the mating bond. She’s sure Mariam must feel it too by now, in some way. But humans aren’t meant to have mates like Fae do, and Sable has no idea how Mariam will take the knowledge when Sable gets around to explaining it. The thought unsettles her.
So she forces it out of her mind. That conversation can wait one more day. For now, Sable wants to enjoy the warmth Mariam offers. She grins and lays Mariam back down and curls her body around her. They can lie like this. Just for a while longer.