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He’s not relaxed at all.
I don’t think he likes me. I did cut him, then stole the girl he obviously wants. So it makes sense.
He wants me, too, though. Like with the other one, I can tell and I don’t need to see his crotch to know he’s hard.
But he’s unsure of me. Of what I might do. Where my loyalties lie. He’s protective of the other two, and I appreciate that.
I understand it.
Still don’t know what my role is, my place in this group.
You don’t have a place, I tell myself. They are a… a family. Yes, that’s what it’s called. And it’s not your family. You have no family anymore.
Haven’t had one in so long you hardly remember what it feels like.
I don’t know why I’m still here.
“So your name is Kiaran,” Taj says, still gazing at me with those intense pale eyes. “What’s your family name?”
I shrug. “I don’t remember.”
“You’re a Drakoryas. A berserker. Living alone in the wilderness, sworn to fight in the Emperor’s army if the occasion arises.”
“If there is war,” I mutter. “They said that.”
“The recruiters. Always looking for more Wildmen to add to the ranks, always fearing another great war that will require every resource available to man, even though the Fae are vanquished and gone.”
He keeps stating facts. What is he after? I gaze at him, trying to read his signs like I read the signs of the forest and the hills, of the animals and the elements.
“How old were you when they found you and recruited you to the cause?” he asks. “When they told you that you were a berserker, a soldier of his Serenity the Emperor and would be called by means of a fire at the top of a hill nearby if you were needed? Or did they just mark your cave and said they’d be back if you were needed, no promises and no threats?” He stops. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” I say, annoyed.
More or less. Thinking is fine, half-images, half-words. Speaking, though… I’m out of practice, and he uses many words I don’t know.
Out of practice of speaking and being around people.
It’s easier with her. There’s a sweetness about her, a softness that calms me down, that hooks me and gently pulls me to her.
This man sitting beside me is the opposite of her. He’s more like me, all hard edges, planes and angles.
“So how old were you?”
I lift my hand, then the other, frowning down at them, trying to count. I knew how to count when I found myself in these hills. “Seven.”
“Seven?” He frowns back at me. “You were a child.”
Sure I was. So what? All of us were children once. So I wait for him to explain or ask. I don’t know what he wants from me.
“You’ve lived here alone all this time? How many years now… eleven? twelve?”
I throw up my hands. He’s asking too much. After all this time, how am I expected to count and talk and do all the things humans do, when I grew up like an animal in the woods?
A fist closes around my chest and I can’t breathe. With a grunt, I scramble to my feet and pace a few steps away.
I’d have left already, only… Only she is here, and her perfume is like a rope around my neck, around my chest, around my dick, around every part of me, and I can’t deny that it’s not just that. Not just her perfume. And not just her. I want… things. These people make me want things, with them, that I can’t name and can’t understand.
“Wait. Where are you going?” Taj comes after me and I stumble further away, to keep some distance. I don’t know how to deal with him.
