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“Sleep,” I tell him. “I’ll take first watch.”
4
ARIADNE
This time I don’t move from the spot, curled up on the furs, cataloging my new cuts and bruises from my tumble down the slope.
I’m okay, at least that’s true. Nothing worse has happened, unless you count the fact that every time I touch him or he touches me, the ache in my belly recedes and then returns, making me grit my teeth.
What should I do?
Keep talking to him, I tell myself. Get him to relax. To like you, trust you. Then tell him again to take you back.
But back where? Finnen and Taj won’t stay where I left them indefinitely. In fact, if my hunch is correct, they’re tracking us, so only the gods know where they are right now.
What do I do?
I drag my fingers through my bedraggled hair. I need a wash. And a comb. And clean clothes.
And so does he, I think when he enters the cave a while later, carrying two skinned hares. He glances at me, his shoulders relaxing—he had been afraid I’d leave again, I realize—and then sits at the entrance and quickly starts a fire with a flint and a stone.
By the time he has stuck a spit through the hares and has them roasting over the low fire, I go to sit beside him. His eyes track my movements. He says nothing as I sit on a protuberance in the rock. With a small stick, he pokes at the burning wood.
“I need a wash,” I say.
His eyes narrow.
“As do you,” I continue. “Let me cut your hair, shave your beard. Wash you.”
“Wash?”
“Wash.”
He seems to be considering my offer. “Wash? With water?”
“Yes, with water. That’s how you wash.”
“Wash hands,” he says.
“And body. And hair. And face.”
Another narrow look. “Why?”
“Why not? If I’m stuck here for now, might as well get comfortable, and you could use a wash and trim, if only to check if you really are human, as you claim.”
He doesn’t rise to the bait, still nailing me with that sharp gaze. “Not run away?”
“I won’t,” I mutter.
That’s not really a promise, is it? I haven’t sworn on any god or goddess that I won’t try to escape. This is just conversation.
That’s falling low, a voice whispers in my mind. Twisting logic and ethics to fit your actions. Then again, who’s in the wrong here? Ethics is already twisted, and none of this makes any rational sense.
Besides, I still don’t know where I could run to.
And maybe, just maybe, all I want is a chance to see his body underneath all those furs, see his face under all that hair, and prove to myself that he’s not as desirable as my body seems to believe.
One can only hope…
