FOUR #3
"You need to get closer to me," I told her, looking over to find her gaze on my face, then falling suddenly when our eyes met. "I get that it might not be ideal right now, but this is survival here. You aren't going to make it through the night unless you get closer to me. I give off more heat."
There was a long moment before she answered. "Okay."
But she didn't move.
It would be smarter for me to move to her anyway, blocking my heat into the small space she had wedged herself in.
"Can I move toward you?" I asked before doing so.
"It's a smaller space over here," she agreed, reminding me again that while she was new to having to actually survive, she wasn't ignorant. She'd seen her shows, whatever those were. They sounded a bit like plays, but I wasn't sure.
I scooted over toward her, stopping when my legs were just a few inches from hers.
It wasn't long before the air lost its chill in the small space, until her teeth stopped chattering.
"Better?" I asked, unable to take the silence. Why? I wasn't sure. My life had been about silence. There were weeks that went by that I had no cause to speak to anyone else. Maybe I couldn't stand it because it was an option now, it wasn't the only possible reality for me.
I'd talked more since Amy walked into the barn than I had likely talked in years.
Realizing that, I felt the roughness in my throat, something I had attributed to yelling at the sex fae earlier - which may have contributed - but it was likely simply from having a conversation, something my vocal cords were not used to anymore.
I remembered days with my tribe when we would sit around a fire, sharing stories, legends, dreams for our future. It would go on for hours, until we were all too tired to do anything other than curl up and sleep.
The memories had faded around the edges, softening the way dreams do upon waking.
But there were things I still remembered, hints of voices, the sound of laughter, the ribbing from a friend.
Precious things I had held onto over the years to remind myself of my lineage, to give myself a reason not to succumb, to give them what they wanted so badly of me, to let them break me, control the beast that lay within.
The beast wasn't theirs to have.
It was mine.
It was my tribe's.
It was not something vicious and ugly as they thought, but something wild and majestic, something to be respected, revered, not used for cheap war games, to tear other creatures apart for profit.
So I clung tight to what I had of my kind, the nights talking, the ceremonies when tribe boys or girls were entering adulthood, when they would Change for the first time, how the whole community would come together, create feasts, music, adorn their heads with crowns befitting their new roles in life.
Those were the things that had gotten me through.
And I never needed anything but silence to have them.
But there in that makeshift shelter with Amy, the silence was closing in, cutting off my air supply, making my skin feel itchy and uncomfortable, causing me to shift around in my spot just for some sort of relief from it.
"I'm afraid to sleep," Amy admitted, voice barely above a whisper, hard to hear over the scream of the wind on the other side of our little shelter.
"There's no reason to be afraid. Not now. Not with me here. I won't let anything get to you again."
"What if he gets to you first?"
"He won't." It was a promise I had no business making, but couldn't stop myself from doing so.
"You're sure?"
"Positive," I told her, voice confident enough that she believed me.
And slowly, little by little, her body lost some of its tension, her breathing got slower as she eased herself down on the ground.
And she fell into an exhausted sleep.
It was maybe an hour later when I felt her roll into me, her whole face and torso colliding with my legs, letting out a low sound of approval at - I imagined - my warmth.
I looked down, seeing her pale lashes fluttered closed on cheeks that were no longer alarmingly red, lips not pale nor blue, feeling a sense of satisfaction that I had done the most basic thing I could do for her.
Keep her alive.
Keep her safe.
She made another murmuring sound as her arm rose, flinging across my thighs to hold onto more of my heat.
And I felt it.
Something I had no business feeling.
Because she was young.
Because she entrusted me to take care of her.
Because men like me didn't get to feel things for women like her, women who attracted the gazes of princes.
But there was no denying the way desire uncurled in my stomach, spread through my system, until there was a whole new reason my body was radiating heat.
My hands curled into fists at my sides, my jaw setting to steel as I gritted my teeth and simply felt the desire, knowing there was nothing I could do to ease it.
Even as she snuggled closer, her hand just inches away from a part of me that was begging to be touched.
Eventually, it eased.
And I found some rest as well, warmed by her body against mine just as her body stole from me.
There was an odd crackling sensation across my chest as I drifted off, something warm and light, thawing. Something that I maybe started to interpret as contentedness until sleep claimed me, wiping all memories of it away.