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Spoils of War Pythia Chapter Four |
It was the scent that woke him; the thick enticing scent of rabbit stew, simmered with fresh herbs. His stomach rumbled and he heard Hercules laugh, a soft familiar chuckle that held reassurance as well as amusement. Iolaus opened his eyes to find his partner sitting cross legged beside him, a shallow bowl resting in his lap. "Thought that might bring you round," the man said warmly, dipping a crudely carved spoon into the bowl and eating its contents with relish. "Feel up to some of this?"
Iolaus thought about it, measuring the messages his body was giving him, from the dull throb of pain centered in his thigh to the stabbing fire that burned in his shoulder. He felt light headed, and about as strong as a piece of wet parchment, but there was no nausea - and his stomach rumbled a second time, giving the both of them cause to smile. "I guess that’s a yes," he decided, trying to ease himself upwards and immediately abandoning the idea. Hercules grinned.
"Here," he offered. He put the bowl to one side and reached in the other direction; the next thing his partner knew, he was propped up at a comfortable angle, leaning back into a supportive bank of feathers that had been swept up by the son of Zeus’s strong right arm. "Better?"
"Much," Iolaus decided, taking a cautious look around. They appeared to be alone in the grotto, there being no sign of Celæno - in either form.
"I sent her for some more wood," Hercules said, retrieving the bowl and offering up some of its contents. His patient sighed, but submitted to being spoon fed; he was hungry and he doubted that he had the strength to protest even if he wanted to.
"Do you trust her?" he asked, in between mouthfuls. Muscular shoulder shrugged.
"I was going to ask you that question. You’ve known her a little longer than I have."
"I don’t know," Iolaus considered wearily. "You saw her, Herc. What she is - what she can be. She attacks me, brings me here - takes care of me ... I just wish I knew what she wanted."
Hercules smiled, dipping the spoon back into the stew and helping himself to a mouthful. "I thought that was pretty obvious, myself," he observed, his eyes alight with laughter. His partner stared at him, trying to unravel the joke.
He’d woken in the darkness, with a soft arm encircling his back, and a warm body pressed close against him; her head had been resting on his undamaged shoulder and her other hand ...
"Oh, gods," he realised, sinking back into the warmth of his support and shaking - although whether it was with shock or hysterics it was hard to tell. "You mean - ? Yeah, you do mean ... Ohhh boy." He tried to swallow a snort of laughter - then gave up the effort and lapsed into giggles as he reviewed recent events with a more enlightened eye. He suspected he should be indignant. He thought he ought to be outraged. But all he could do was giggle, a reaction encouraged by the grin that sat on his companion’s face. "You are not helping here," he accused, wrestling for breath and equilibrium.
"Sorry," Hercules apologised, not sorry at all. "But even monsters get lonely, I guess. And desperate," he added, with a decided smirk.
Iolaus grabbed a handful of feathers and threw them at him, the only possible weapon he had to hand. The son of Zeus simply moved the bowl out of the way as they fluttered down around him. "Not that desperate," the hunter retorted. "She had a choice of two, remember."
"Yeah - but you’re lighter. And she probably thought you’d put up less of a fight ..." Hercules trailed off as he considered the thought and Iolaus shivered at the expression that chased across his face.
"That’s not funny," he realised, his good hand sliding to rest over the bandages that wrapped his shoulder. "Herc - "
"Don’t think about it, Iolaus," Hercules warned, reaching to wrap his friend’s arm with a comforting hand. "If that was all Celæno wanted then I would be here to kill her - and probably weeping over your corpse. If she’d left one," he added with a small wince. "This isn’t an issue of appetite. And I don’t think she brought you here just to ravish you. Monster or not, there’s more to her than meets the eye."
Iolaus frowned, thinking about the Harpy and how she had treated him. If he’d been less badly hurt by her abduction, would she have tried to seduce him instead of caring for him? And would he have surrendered to the idea, unaware of her true nature - only to discover it afterwards? "She - she said something ... something about her soul. And she didn’t want me to see her true face -"
"Who would?" Celæno’s voice asked from the archway. She stalked in on all fours, her wings trailing behind her and her claws clattering on the stone. She moved to crouch at the foot of her bundled nest, and Iolaus found himself looking into haunted eyes. "My sisters, perhaps. Once they had taken all they wanted. They would delight in showing themselves to a prize - and share his heart between them, once they had finished playing with him.
"They have nothing left but hate and appetite. But I am Celæno. And I remember the promise - and what it gives me." She sighed, shifting from monster to woman in the space of a heartbeat. "I would have brought you here, offered up myself - and then sent you away, never knowing what I was, or that I had used you. But I was too eager in my need and struck too quick, too savagely. I damaged my prize and I have paid for it. Judge me as you will. I am a monster, and - truth to tell - I would have killed your friend if by doing so I could have kept you ignorant of my nature." She glanced over at Hercules and she sighed a second time. "Sometimes I act before I think. It is part of what I am."
"Which is?" he queried warily.
"A monstrous thing." Her voice held regret; the words carried pain. "This shape is just a cloak I am permitted to wear, here in my own place, away from mortal eyes."
"Uh - " Iolaus’s reaction was wary. "I probably don’t need to point this out but - I’m mortal. And I’m looking at you." She didn’t look like a monster right then. She didn’t look exactly human either, with her pale skin and dark eyes.
"I know." Her lips curved in a sad smile. "But I was not always a monster. Once I was human - until I and my sisters made a vain boast and were caught in a web of our own weaving. There were three of us," she explained, moving to sit at his other side so that she could share her tale with both of them. "Aello, Ocypete and myself. We were trained as priestesses of Aphrodite, and for a while we served her well enough. We were beautiful, and men desired us. But vanity was our downfall; we thought none were good enough to win our regard. We spurned princes, and set Kings to quarrelling over our favours."
She lifted her head as she spoke, looking at neither of them but focusing on some distant spot as she recalled the events she described. "We inspired a war," she said. "A terrible, bloody war. Men were slaughtered like animals and we stood on the battlefield and we laughed, revelling in the glory of it all, urging men to their deaths - and all for our sake. We were young - and foolish. We grew drunk on death." Her voice took on a grim note as she continued. "Aello painted our faces and bodies with the blood of the slain. Ocypete mixed it with wine and we drank deep. And then - then we walked through the aftermath and killed any and every wounded man that we found.
"Let them fight until only one is left standing, we cried. We will bed only the victor - and no other. We will live like this forever!"
Iolaus stared at her, trying to reconcile the bloodthirsty tale with the sad and soft voice that told it. He’d seen that kind of battle lust, although never to that extreme. Xena had been taken by it, driven by her hate and need for revenge - but unlike her nemesis, Callisto, she had learnt to overcome its temptations and see it for what it truly was. A madness. A terrible, destructive madness.
"We were heard. By the gods. By Ares who ruled the conflict - and by Aphrodite, whom we had sworn to serve. They judged us. Condemned us. And made of us what I now am. Creatures of the battlefield. Those whose life is the death of others, who exalt in combat and the spilling of blood. The god of War’s carrion crows." She focused her eyes, staring at them both challengingly, her eyes flashing. "I am Celæno. The Harpy. Once I hovered over the smoke of each and every war that I could find. I feasted on the hearts of dying men and I loved it. The fear and the pain and the hot sweet scent of blood ..."
The hunter edged back into the yielding surface that supported him, unnerved by the sound of relish that underlay her words. He was unarmed, weak and injured, barely able to lift his head, let alone defend himself - and if she decided that now was a good time to return to her old ways then, however fast his partner might react, it would be bye-bye Iolaus for certain.
"One day," she went on, her voice dropping back to that soft sad note, "I watched a particularly bloody battle play out beneath me. I screamed my joy at its violence, urging both sides to greater hate - and when it was over I went down to seek my feast, to satiate my appetites.
"And the first dying warrior I found was little more than a frightened child. He’d been run through, but he faced me with defiance, daring me to do my worst. He was just a boy. I looked into his face. His eyes were filled with pain and accusation; he stared at me with hate - and it was as if I was looking into the eyes of my own baby brother, the innocent child who had once loved and adored me when I was young. I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t even face him. I took to the air and came here, to my mountain, away from war, away from battle, away from death.
"The battle you fought yesterday drew me. Brought back the memories. Brought back the joy. It’s what I am. I loved it. Watching the fight. Watching you ..." She paused to curl a small smile onto her features, a smile of rueful self comprehension, one written with quiet irony. "I am what I am. I cannot deny my nature. But I can choose to use it with discretion."
"That’s very true," Hercules agreed quietly. She laughed.
"It was a hard lesson to learn. And harder still to leave that life behind. We were given - a promise. That we had the right to claim three things from any battle that we witnessed. The flesh of the dead, the hearts of the dying - and one among the victorious to be our prize."
"Your what?" Iolaus’s reaction was suspicious. She laughed a second time.
"Our prize. Our reward." Her voice took on a note of bitterness. "My temptation." Her eyes flashed as she looked towards him and he felt a second shiver of uncertain fear. He didn’t like the way this was leading ...
"I knew - the moment I changed - that I was a monster. It was a punishment the gods sent, not a reward. But there was always the promise, drawing me to each new battle, filling me with that evil fire. I can choose - and for the man I choose, I can be human again. I can feel those other emotions, the one I defied that day on the field.
"To the victor the spoils of war. And what better spoils than the yielding body of a priestess trained in the arts of love?"
There was no way to answer that. Iolaus stared at her, trying to comprehend exactly what that must have meant, over long years and many battles. Battles mostly won - he suspected - by brutal warlords and conflict hardened veterans. He’d been a soldier, and seen things he’d not have believed of men he’d thought honorable before witnessing the way that battle took them. "Sheesh," he breathed, glancing at his partner as he did so. "When your sister throws a curse, Herc, she throws a curse. Remind me not to upset her next time I see her ..."
"I will," Hercules answered. He looked equally shaken. "Though - uh - I suspect that that promise business was probably Ares’s idea. It sounds like the sort of sick thing he’d come up with."
"My sisters," Celæno observed bitterly, "have learnt to hate that old part of themselves - and what it makes them do. They fight over their prizes - and eat them afterwards. I," she sighed, "I fell in love. Once. I chose a warrior who saw in me the gift of the gods, and loved me with a fierce tenderness that I have never forgotten. I followed him through a dozen battles - until he fell at the hands of a traitorous soldier who betrayed his own general and stabbed him in the back.
"Him I did eat. Afterwards. Harpies don’t weep," she explained defensively at the look this statement earned her. "And I wanted to. I wanted to so very much ..."
The trouble with awkward silences, Hercules thought, is that anything that gets said to fill them always sounds pretty lame.
But what could you say to follow that?
Iolaus was looking very pale - and not just because he was weak from pain and loss of blood, although that probably had a lot to do with it. It was clear that her story had shaken him to the core; he was staring at the Harpy, his expression dazed and his eyes very wide.
How would I react? the son of Zeus wondered, studying the man as well as the woman, concerned for his friend’s well-being. She more or less said that she brought him here expecting him to rape her ...
Or had she?
It was hard to disentangle the emotions that were woven around Celæno’s tale. There was horror - for what she was, what she had admitted to - and anger at the curse and the cruelty of the gods that had wrought it. But there was sorrow, too, for the woman she might have been - and pity for the woman she was, trying to live despite her nature, denying her instincts and yearning, so desperately, for something more.
The heat of battle was a long way from the cool interior of the grotto; she’d come here to help still some of that heat within her - and the two of them had rekindled its fires, facing down Doryagus and his raiders while she watched from above. He, of course, had fought with his usual strength and understated efficiency; it was no wonder that Iolaus had been the one to dazzle her, making up for his lack of reach and weight with his mastery of speed and style. But she had been so eager that she had miscalculated her swoop, and hurt him - and that had led to this - this anxious silence in which she now sat, waiting to be judged.
He knew he couldn’t condemn her - she might be a monster, but then so was Echidna, and she’d turned out okay. She was clearly willing to abandon her old bloodthirsty life and try and live without it - a decision Xena had made and done pretty well at ever since, despite a few setbacks. But, he realised, it wasn’t his place to make a decision on Celæno's accountability. That was down to the man she’d forcefully abducted and had practically killed doing it. She was, he suspected, expecting him to reject her with revulsion.
But then, she didn’t know Iolaus very well ...
Hercules had always been proud to call the man his friend, despite the odd stumble in his judgment and the occasional misunderstanding that had led to troubled complications for the two of them. He was a carefree spirit, intent on living for the moment and living every moment to the full - and he possessed a heart that was brave, passionate, and both innocent and wise all at once. The son of Zeus loved him like a brother - more than a brother in fact, since he held a far deeper place in Hercules’ heart than any of his true siblings, including Iphicles.
And what the man did next only served to make him prouder still.
Iolaus let out a soft sigh, glanced briefly in his partner’s direction - and then broke into one of those dazzling grins which were perfectly capable of melting all but the blackest of hearts given half a chance. "Hey," he said warmly, "you know what I think? I think you’re being too hard on yourself. But - uh - if you really want to get into the whole relationship thing? You’re gonna have to work on your pick-up technique ..."
Hercules winced inwardly, fighting down a grin and trying to suppress his groan of reaction. That one was bad. But it was pitched right where the situation needed it, cutting cleanly through the awkward silence and leaving a slightly stunned one in its place. Celæno blinked in astonishment, clearly not believing her ears.
"You gonna hog all the rabbit?" the hunter went on to ask as if they’d just been discussing the weather, turning towards his partner with a deliberately pathetic look and a plaintive hey, I’m sick here note in his voice.
"No," Hercules responded, letting the grin surface a little. "But I am going to attend to the fire. Here - " He held out the bowl to Celæno, trying not to smirk at the way Iolaus let his eyes follow it with helpless longing. "You feed him. I have work to do. Ham," he accused half under his breath as he clambered to his feet, and it earned him a wondrous look of wounded innocence from those sky blue eyes - which didn’t fool him for a moment.
"You shouldn’t fall for it, you know."
She frowned. "Fall for what?" she asked, pausing in the archway to watch strong arms break up the branches she had brought and stack the resultant fire wood into a neat pile in the outer cavern. The man grinned.
"The wounded warrior routine."
She climbed down the ledges to join him, her face creasing in puzzlement. "But he is wounded," she protested and his face fell for a moment.
"Yes. I know."
"I hurt him," she went on, studying his sculptured features and the emotions that they betrayed.
"I know that, too. Just - just don’t hurt him again, okay?"
There was no hate in his eyes. Only wary sympathy - and a genuine concern for his friend, written deep.
He came to avenge his death. Risked his life to discharge that duty.
What must it be like? To share such a friendship ...
She’d never had a friend. Not since her brother was lost to her, so long ago. Her life was a solitary one; the few people she met tended to attack her rather than talk to her.
"I won’t," she promised, moving past him to drop the empty bowl into the pool so that it could be cleaned. "He’s asleep," she offered after a moment, staring down at her reflection as it reformed in the dying ripples.
"That’s good," he acknowledged softly. "A few days' quiet rest - good food - all this fresh air ... He’ll be right as rain in no time."
She nodded, still looking at her image in the water. The face that looked back at her was pale, with wide dark eyes and stark red lips. "Tell me about him," she asked, surprised at her own boldness. You never asked their names, never took more than they offered, never dared to want more ...
"About Iolaus?" The warrior sounded amused. "He’s - well - he’s Iolaus. You saw him fight - that’s how he is. Spirited. Brave. Loyal ..." He paused to consider his words, moving to stand beside her as he did so. His reflection joined her own, a strong face, creased in thought. "You know," he breathed softly, "people hold me up to be a hero. The strongest man in Greece. The Son of Zeus. All that stuff. But I was born this way. A child of the gods, blessed with a divine strength ..." He turned to look at her and smiled, somewhat self-effacingly. "Like you," he said, "I am what I am. I cannot deny my nature. But Iolaus ...?" He shook his head and bent to retrieve the bowl, scouring it clean with a handful of sand. "If there’s a true hero in Greece, then he’s it. He’s been my partner for a long time - and we get into trouble more times that I like to think about. He’s fought bandits, warlords - monsters," he hesitated over the word, glancing in her direction, "even the gods themselves. And he does it with a smile on his lips and courage in his heart - and a sheer recklessness that sometimes takes my breath away."
She smiled, recalling the battle and the way the two of them had fought together, two halves of one whole. "You are the strength - and he is the fire," she murmured, and he looked up at her with an odd look, as if he’d never considered it that way before.
"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah, you could say that. Celæno," he said, rising to his feet and taking her hands, so that she couldn’t turn away. "Iolaus has a generous heart - and a weakness for beautiful women. We have a - a friend, who once used that fact to betray him. She used him - and she hurt him very badly doing it. In the end she - like you, I guess - realised that her chosen life was wrong; she changed her ways and changed her heart with it. But it was hard for him to forgive her."
"But he did forgive her," she breathed, trying to understand what he was telling her. What was he suggesting? Was there still hope, left fluttering at the bottom of the box ..?
"Yes," he smiled, a small, sad smile that held all kinds of memories. "He forgave her. And me." The smile became a wry one. "He always forgives me ... Look - I guess I’m just trying to say that - that there are more ways to hurt a man than - than with tooth and claw."
"Not for me," she sighed, pulling back one hand to let it curl into a scaled talon - and then back again into a delicate hand. "I know what I am. Now he does too. There can be nothing between us now ..."
The man laughed softly, turning his head to glance towards the inner archway as he did so. "I wouldn’t be so sure of that," he said, his fingers closing gently on the hand that he still held. "You can still choose to be his friend. And friends - trust each other."
Trust.
She’d asked him to trust her.
Had she understood what that would mean ...?
She stood for a long moment, looking into those ocean blue eyes, seeing her own reflection there. "Are you my friend, Hercules?" she asked, encompassing his name with a shiver of inner excitement. Names were dangerous. Names made them real.
"I’d like to be," he answered, his smile a gentle one. "Just in case we meet on a battlefield one day. I’d rather you were on my side," he added, and she laughed, suddenly understanding that he meant the words as a jest.
"I would defend you like a fury," she declared. "Unless - " It was her eyes that now turned towards the inner arch and he chuckled, shaking his head in mock despair.
"Yeah," he acknowledged. "Well ..." He laughed a second time, letting go of her hand and returning to the pile of wood. "If you were defending him - then you would be defending me ..."
"So what did you do with Doryagus?" Iolaus asked the question casually, watching as his friend stretched himself out on a pile of feathers and made himself comfortable. Night had returned to the mountain, and the only light came from the flicker of the fire at the far end of the cave, its edges carefully contained within a ring of stones to stop sparks from reaching the dry contents of the nest. Hercules squirmed down into the soft darkness, the dancing light painting shadows across his face and chest.
"Oh - laid him out. Told the villagers to tie him up and keep him that way until I got back," he said, then frowned. "I really shouldn’t leave him there for long …" He lifted himself back up onto one elbow and considered his company warily. "Do you think - "
"No, I don’t," Iolaus interrupted dryly. "Herc - the way I feel right now I wouldn’t make it halfway down the mountain, let alone all the way to Ornea. And with Doryagus in tow the last thing you’d want to be doing is worrying about me." He paused to glance towards the place where Celæno had settled herself, seeing nothing but a glimmer of firelight reflected off blue back feathers. "Let’s face it," he said. "You’re just going have to go without me."
Hercules lifted himself a little higher, craning to catch a glimpse of the Harpy, just as his partner had done. "Leave you here?" he questioned softly. "Alone?"
The wounded man tipped his head back, relaxing into the comfort that supported him and stared at the pattern of light that danced across the ceiling. "Not alone," he murmured, knowing full well that it was exactly that that was concerning his friend. But he also knew that Hercules would fret about matters left unfinished down in the valley - and until he had recovered his strength he would be more hindrance than help in that business.
"I could wait a couple of days," Hercules suggested anxiously. "Then - maybe - you could stay in the village while I -"
"Herc," Iolaus interrupted a second time, hiding a smile in the darkness. "The only way I am likely to get down this mountain in the next few days is if you carry me. Or she does," he added, identifying the possibility and studying it with mixed feelings.
"Mmm." Hercules rolled onto his back and joined his partner’s contemplation of the ceiling.
"Besides," the hunter continued, "if I have a choice between recuperating up here - or displacing some poor villager from his flea ridden bed …" He’d been thinking about that, ever since he’d woken up that afternoon; Celæno’s nest was easily as luxurious as silk sheets and the kind of soft bedding that royalty tended to offer as hospitality. Normally he wasn’t too bothered about where he slept - providing it was reasonably clean and dry - but the prospect of dragging his bruised and damaged body down a cold mountainside only to replace wallowing warmth and softness with a hard straw mattress and coarse linen was not an enticing one.
"Mmm," the son of Zeus observed a second time.
"You’d be gone -what? Two, three weeks at most? Long enough for me to get over this and make it down to the village in my own time."
"Uh-huh."
Iolaus turned his head to study his friend’s profile where it was outlined by the dim light. "She did promise she wouldn’t eat me."
A smile curled onto those familiar features. "I know." Hercules turned his head, and sought his partner’s eyes. "If you think she can be trusted …"
"I don’t know." He’d been thinking about that, too, trying to assess the way he felt towards the dark haired Harpy who had seized him, hurt him - and then cared for him. The tale of her curse - and the reasons for it - still occupied his mind; he’d wrestled with conflicting emotions as he’d studied her beauty and contrasted it with the truth of her monstrous existence. He’d forced himself to face the fact that - had she been more gentle when she’d abducted him - he might well have surrendered to her charms without ever knowing the truth about her. And he’d skirted around the thought of what she might have done to him had she been more determined to fulfill her needs and less scrupulous about how she went about it.
She’s strong, he’d realised. Strong enough to hold her own against Herc in a fight …
Weakened and wounded, he’d have had no chance to defend himself had she decided to - what was it she’d said her sisters did? Play with him? He shuddered inwardly, and focused on other things. On the soft touch of her hand and the way she had cradled him while the fever fought to consume him; on the pain in her voice as she confessed her sins - and on wise words, offered to him in a dream.
"After everything she said … Well, I guess she can’t help what she is. But -" he struggled to put his feelings into words. "I want to trust her, Herc. Is that crazy, or what?"
"It’s not crazy at all." Hercules sunk his fingers into feathered depths and stirred at them distractedly. "What she’s trying to do - to deny the evil she was cursed with … Its not an easy thing to do. Sometimes a little trust - a little faith - can add the strength that’s needed to succeed."
The way you had faith in Xena, Iolaus considered a little ruefully. Still - she’d proved worthy of trust in the end, despite her manipulative scheming. She’d even apologised - in her own way; he owed her his life, and that was something you did not forget …
Hercules was smiling to himself, a warm, slightly embarrassed smile, as if recalling something very precious.
"What?" the hunter demanded suspiciously, wondering if the man’s thoughts had turned the same way his had. His friend glanced away with even greater embarrassment. "What?"
"I was just thinking," the son of Zeus explained with a small shrug. "’Bout how we met." His grin was affectionate; Iolaus coloured, a reaction safely hidden in the dark.
"Oh," he said, tipping his head back and wrestling with an absurd sense of guilty warmth. It seemed a lifetime since that day when a young warrior had waded into a uneven brawl and rescued a would-be hard nosed, independent street rat who hadn’t appreciated the help one bit. He’d been heading down the wrong path in those days - and it had been that same young man’s willingness to be his friend - to offer him trust - that had straightened him out and given him a better reason for living than just his own self interests. He’d been trying to prove himself worthy of that faith ever since …
"You know," the voice of that same young warrior observed softly, "yesterday, when I thought you were dead, I - " Hercules’ hand stretched out in the darkness, his strong fingers wrapping themselves around his partner’s wrist. He wrestled with words for a moment, trying to convey something Iolaus knew didn’t need saying - and then he smiled, and squeezed the wrist and let go. "Doesn’t matter," he dismissed. "Good night, Iolaus."
"Good night," Iolaus echoed softly. He slid a little lower into his cocoon, closed his eyes and let out a quiet sigh of contentment. So what if he was weak as a kitten and nursing hurts that were going to keep him awake for hours? There were some things that just made you feel good to be alive.
And being able to call Hercules friend was one of them ...
She went hunting again the next morning, bringing back fresh fish and a young buck that Hercules butchered with easy skill. If he wondered at how cleanly the beast had been gutted then he kept his thoughts to himself. Nor did he comment when she refused his offer to share the fish after it had been grilled over the fire. Cooked flesh held little appeal to an appetite that had broken its fast with the heart and lungs of a fresh kill, but she refrained from saying so; she had to eat, and she always preferred to feed away from her lair anyway.
There was a real pleasure in hearing voices echo in her caves; the voice of friends, sharing a joke and simple conversation. Her friends, she reminded herself, hovering at the edges of their companionship much as she had once hovered above the battlefield. Watching. Relishing every movement. Savouring each and every word ...
Her chosen warrior - Iolaus. His name is Iolaus - had recovered a little of his strength. Enough to sit up and feed himself at least - as well as greet her appearance with a smile forged from pure sunlight, a dazzle of gold among the rich darkness of her nest. The trumpets of war had never stirred her heart the way that simple welcome did; it was offered without conditions, without challenges - just an easy acknowledgment of one friend to another.
And then Hercules announced that he was leaving.
Alone.
She stood and let his explanation wash over her - something about unfinished business in the village and how his partner wasn’t going to be well enough to travel - while her heart pounded inside her like a battledrum. He was willing to leave his friend in her care. He was willing to stay. They were saying that they trusted her.
They trusted her.
She’d never expected this. It was a gift she’d never dreamed of, in all the long nights of needing human warmth, of wanting to feel the fire of life, of wanting to live.
There was a part of her that felt like lifting her head and howling in sheer delight.
And another that wanted to just turn and flee.
Because she wasn’t sure she could be trusted. Wasn’t sure she could resist the need that still burned inside her. The heat of the battle was never stilled; not until the prize was hers and she was truly his. She had made her choice - and since he knew what she was, she knew he would never answer her need. While he lived, she would never be free to choose another.
She glanced across at where he was lying, cradled in her nest like a young god, gold against black, his blue eyes watching her with gentle consideration and she drew in a trembling breath.
Do I want to be ...?
If it were a choice between one night in his arms and keeping this precious friendship for the rest of his mortal life, then it was no choice at all. She would face the test, accept the trust - and take whatever came of it.
She didn’t dare listen to the inner voice that suggested there might be a way to have both ...
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