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She made him have faith in himself again.
Only she!
And now? She had seen his fear. She had felt it. He could no longer hold it within himself like a dark sin that he had no control over. He could no longer live a lie!
The blanket dropping away from him, Strong Wolf turned to Hannah and gripped her by the shoulders, causing her own blanket to flutter to the ground. He drew her into his embrace, their bare bodies pressed together as he held her.
For the moment he enjoyed the pleasant, sweet smell of her, the gentle way she clung to him, the way she pressed her cheek against his chest.
She could have plied him with questions!
For having left her so quickly, after having just made love, she could even hate him!
“I have much to tell you,” he suddenly blurted, feeling her grow tense within his arms. “Hannah, I should have not waited so long to tell you. But I was afraid of losing you, I may even lose you now. If I do, I am not certain I can go on. Please listen. Please understand. Please do not go away hating or loathing me.”
Hannah scarcely breathed as she heard his pleas. Her eyes were wide as she clung to him a moment longer, afraid now for him to tell her the secret that she knew he had held from her. It seemed not at all to do with his people’s welfare, after all, as she had hoped. It was something else . . . something frightening.
He seemed so afraid to tell her. What if she couldn’t understand? What if what he said did cause her to want to leave him?
Oh, how she loved and adored him. Surely there was nothing that he could say that could change her feelings for him.
“Please tell me,” Hannah said, easing from his arms. She gazed up at him and saw the silent torment; the wavering of his eyes as he stared down at her. “How could you possibly think that anything could change how much I love you?”
He reached down and grabbed a blanket. He wrapped it around her shoulders, bringing the ends around his, so that they were locked together amidst the warmth of the blanket. Gently he led her down beside the fire, then secured the blanket again around them.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Hannah said, gazing over at him. “If you feel so strongly against my knowing, you . . . don’t . . . have to tell me.”
“I must,” Strong Wolf said, trembling inside at the very thought of what she would soon know. “I feel that you are the sort of woman who won’t look at me with disgust when you know that secret part of me and my family. I must tell you. It has to be said. I should have told you before we exchanged vows. Then, should you have not understood and wanted to back away from me, it would have been easier. But now we are married. We might soon have children. You must be told my reasons for fearing fathering a child.”
Hannah froze inside as she gazed into his smoke-black eyes. “I’m listening,” she said. “And, darling, I will never stop loving you. No matter what you say, I will love you.”
He brushed a kiss across her brow, then looked away from her. He stared into the fire as he began telling her what happened all those many years ago between himself and Doe Eyes.
“Doe Eyes and I were born on the same day, at almost the same hour, to best friends,” he began. “My mother, Swallow Song, and Doe Eyes’s mother, Dawnmarie, plotted on that day that their son and daughter would be the best of friends who would then grow up and marry. I went along with their schemes, not seeing harm in them, since I was so enamored with Doe Eyes, at our young age of ten . . . until Doe Eyes revealed her true self to me.”
“What did she do?” Hannah asked, her eyes wide as she listened. She wasn’t jealous of Strong Wolf loving someone so much at such a young age. She had gone through many puppy loves herself at that age. The only true love that she had ever felt was for Strong Wolf. She had to believe that it was the same for Strong Wolf.
“It was not so much what she did,” Strong Wolf said, gazing down at Hannah. “It was what I did to cause her reaction to me, that turned her to loathing, not loving me.”
Hannah’s pulse raced realizing that finally she would be told what caused that haunted look in her husband’s eyes; yet now she feared that knowledge.
Strong Wolf took both of Hannah’s hands and held them in a tight grip. “On that day, Hannah, my mother’s·fears became a reality,” he said thickly. “On that day, Hannah, my body became something unfamiliar to me. It was then that I discovered that I had inherited something from my mother that was humiliating, degrading, and loathsome.”
“What . . . did . . . you inherit?” Hannah asked, her voice barely a whisper, for now she realized how much her husband feared her knowing. And what if his fears were founded? What if she saw him as someone who made her turn her head with disgust?
“What?” she persisted. “Tell me what happened? What did you inherit?”
“I was with Doe Eyes,” Strong Wolf said, releasing Hannah’s hands. He lowered his eyes. He swallowed hard.
“We were only ten. We shared our first kiss. Then . . . then . . .”
He turned his eyes away from her and moaned, as though someone had hit him.
Hannah moved to her knees. The blanket fell away from her. She knelt in front of him and placed her hands to his face. “Darling, please go on,” she encouraged. “When you get this behind you and realize that I shall always love you, then don’t you see? Your life will be like a newborn child’s. You won’t have to ever think about this again. You can begin fresh. I will be with you all of the way. I love you so!”
His eyes locked with hers. “While kissing Doe Eyes, my body began to tremble strangely,” he said, his voice breaking. “I suddenly jerked away from her, not by choice, but by being forced to as my body began shaking and jerking strangely. I was thrown to the ground by the impact of the shakes. My head was thrown back. My eyes rolled back inside my head. I almost swallowed my tongue, my body uncontrollably shaking.”
He paused and swallowed hard.
