EIGHT #2
"Would you give up on Amy?" he shot back, having a point.
"I know it looks different from the outside.
Amy is small, soft, sheltered. You feel like she needs you.
And Smoky couldn't seem more different if she tried.
She's strong, hardened, has been through everything.
But she needs me too. Whether she'd admit that or not.
She needs connections, even if she is too stubborn to forge them. She needs to have a place to go."
"Your family," I guessed.
"That, yes. But also just me. When life gets too hard, too ugly, she likes to come to me. For a little comfort of sorts, some warmth. I figure if she gets used to it enough, she won't fight it so hard. She'll settle into it."
"And you're willing to wait for that? For years? Decades?"
To that, he sucked in a deep breath, holding it, exhaling on what was eerily similar to a sigh.
"It's not like my life is on standstill waiting for her," he told me, shrugging.
"I have a family, brothers and sisters, dozens of nieces and nephews.
I have a community. I have bonds and work and interests.
Life goes on even when she takes off in the morning hours right before sun-up, thinking she is sneaking out on me, that I wasn't awake, aware she was going to leave me, not to be seen or heard from for half a year. I don't pine. But I wait."
"Why her?" I asked. "You could have your pick, I'd think." He was charming, good-looking, funny, attentive. All things women in his own tribe would fall over themselves to get to claim as their own.
He shook his head as he watched Smoky throw her head back, letting out a rich, throaty laugh at something Amy said.
"See that?" he asked, smiling a little. "If you'd known what she's been through, you would understand how beautiful that is.
That she is still even capable of that. That while she has let life give her a shell, walls, shields, she has them to protect what is inside.
Because it's all soft in there, man. Gooey, even.
She hasn't let things harden her, just used them to build a protective barrier so nothing can get inside and cause any more damage.
I've known a lot of women," he went on. "Believe me, I've had my choice many times over.
Or so I thought. I could have chosen one of them, settled down, started my own family.
It would have been easy. But I don't want easy.
I want her. Hard and complicated and bitter, clawed and barbed.
I want the woman who was raised by the woods to realize she can find home in me.
That's what I want. And, I think, that is worth waiting for.
Just like you," he told me, giving me a smirk, "will wait for your sunflower until she realizes your ass has been pining for her all those lonely days in chains. "
"I never..." I started.
"Oh, please," he cut me off, chuckling. "Like it needed to be said.
I have eyes, Draca. I see the way you look at her.
And not just because she saved you. That's not gratitude you are feeling, no matter how much you are trying to convince yourself of that.
That is want, plain and simple. And look how the stars have aligned to give you what you have been longing for.
You got a lifetime to prove to her that she wants you too. "
With that, he charged up, throwing his arms around both women's shoulders.
If I hadn't been watching so closely, I would have missed it. The way Smoky's body melted into his for a moment before she stiffened and yanked away.
Amy's head swiveled, giving me an uneven smile, her eyes uncertain, but amused.
Sal wasn't wrong.
I wanted her.
I'd wanted her in a forbidden way, from a distance, when I was a slave and she the daughter of my master.
It was something I had always convinced myself had been purely biological.
There weren't many women around, and even fewer ones who were beautiful. Inside and out.
I was a man.
I had needs.
Even if they were long denied.
Of course I had thought about her when she had come back one day a full grown woman, stunning in the way that would steal your breath.
It was a natural, knee-jerk response.
And of course I had a soft spot for her, this girl who had always tried to champion for me.
Gratitude, that was what Sal had called it, what I myself had called it for so long, something that only intensified when she helped me out of my chains.
But it was more than that.
If I was being honest with myself.
More.
Much more.
But I had needed to bury that. Because I had to leave her, I had to let her live the life she wanted while I went on and lived the one I had been denied for so long.
There was no chance of having her in my world, of having her around for more than the journey it took to get her where she wanted to be, where she was safe.
But everything had changed.
Sal was right.
I would have years, decades, longer if she decided she was happy with my kind.
The opportunity was there for me.
Whether she would want it too was anybody's guess.
But it was an option where it had never been one before.
I could wait.
For her to adjust.
For her to reconcile her feelings on this new world, with new connections.
To maybe see me as an option.
I was willing to see.
To wait.
"Oh, fuck this shit," Smoky growled, looking up at the sky, the fat white tufts of snow falling down around her hard and heavy. "How is it not spring yet? This winter has lasted my lifetime, I swear."
"We'll have fire to keep warm if we can find a cave or something to get out of the snow in," Sal reminded her, rubbing his hands together for emphasis, the air around them smoking at the warmth. "You know the area better than anyone else. We near anything?"
"The closest cave is at least an hour trek. We'll be soaked through by then. I think she's struggling already," she added, jerking her chin toward where Amy was huddled under a pine tree, one of her blankets wrapped around her shivering body.
Winter was hard enough in The Green. I imagined it was made harder still when your body wasn't given a chance to adjust to it, to go from the most brutal part of summer in the human realm, to the hardest part of winter in this one. Her body wasn't able to keep up with the changes.
"Is there anything enclosed?"
Smoky took a breath, looking up at the sky again, thinking. "There's a shack. I can't guarantee it will be empty. Anyone who comes by it when they need it, take it over."
"Is it far?"
"Maybe five minutes off-course."
"Worth a shot," Sal decided, looking at Amy with a worried crease to his brow.
"Maybe you can convince her to share your body warmth on the way," he suggested before falling into step with Smoky, veering off from my ancestral land to seek the shelter we badly needed if this snow was going to keep falling as it currently was.
I moved over to Amy, throwing an arm around her, not giving her any choice, just dragging her against my body, pulling her with me.
"We are looking for shelter. If we find it, Sal can start a fire for us.
We can warm you up," I told her, hoping I could make good on that.
My finger had brushed her neck when I rearranged her blanket around her.
There was no warmth in her flesh; she was cold as death.
I didn't think she would make it all the way to a cave.
It was a few short minutes later when I saw the shack Smoky had mentioned.
And it was a shack, maybe being only half the size of Amy's home in the city had been, made of strong, time-tested tree limbs stacked horizontally, held together with years' worth of thick sap, sealing all the gaps, keeping the wind out of the small structure.
There was a tiny chimney out the side, no smoke coming out of it, giving me hope that the space was empty.
"We're good," Smoky declared, popping out of the building. "There's even some dry wood inside. Come on. She looks like she is at death's door," she added bluntly, opening the door to let Sal in so he could build the fire.
"I'm fine," Amy insisted, going for stubbornly strong, but her teeth were chattering too hard to pull it off.
"Of course," I agreed, needing to half-carry her into the small space, catching a quick view of the dried leaves on the floor, the odd design on the wall that looked like it may have been drawn in blood, before Smoky closed and bolted the door, shrouding us in darkness while Sal scooped the dried leaves and wood into the small fireplace.
"Bring her over here," Sal demanded as the fire crackled to life, smoking a bit wildly for a moment as I cut to the chase, scooping up Amy, and bringing her across the short room, dropping down as close to the fire as was safe, opening my jacket, pulling her onto my lap, and closing the lapels as far around her as possible.
The shivers that racked her were - in turns - scary, but reassuring as her skin lost its touch of death, slowly became warm again.
"Better?" I asked when her body relaxed into mine.
"Mmhmm."
It shouldn't have, but the sound of that sparked desire through my system.
I couldn't help it, though. The sound was soft and sweet and satisfied.
I had to take a few deep breaths to calm the building need even as she snuggled her butt further into me, half-turning so her head could snuggle into my neck.
My arms went around her, not even caring if it was possessive in a way I hadn't earned the right to do.
"Stop being stubborn," Sal's voice chastised, drawing my attention over my shoulder to find Sal had arranged the remaining blankets on the floor in a makeshift bed across from Amy and me, a few feet down the wall.
Across from him, just a few feet to my side, Smoky was leaning with her back against the closed door.
"I am making sure we're safe." Even she knew her words were bullshit, there wasn't much emphasis behind them.
"The door is barred."
"Someone could..." Smoky started, only to be cut off by Sal's slightly amused voice.