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wo days on the open sea was enough to make most landlubbers stir crazy. While the seasoned sailors used their down time to repair sails or splice ropes, Brigit was making awkward circles around the perimeter of the tiny vessel. There was not much room for strolling. The shallow ship did not have a deck, only rows of benches and an open area along its centerline for cargo and shelter. So far there had been fair winds for sailing and no need for oars. She gave up climbing over the benches and settled in the prow, sheltering from the wind as she rubbed her arms against the cold.
Armand watched her from his place in the stern. He traveled well given his love of the open road and had made a comfortable nest out of a blanket, his fur-lined winter cloak and the curve of the bulwark. His hood was drawn up over his head so that he could alternate between reading and sleeping with his long legs stretched out over the oar bench. Zhou had insisted that he take a tome of magical treatises with him but had given him no suggestions on which of the boring essays he specifically thought he should read. Armand was not a typical academy-bred wizard. His traveling family had passed down their art by oral tradition. Books tended to be too delicate for prolonged journeys and he wondered what the foolish Canthan had been thinking by foisting the heavy volume upon him. He decided it was revenge for Mog.
Armand prided himself on being resourceful. The book proved an excellent soporific with its thick prose and archaic diagrams. Otherwise it made an excellent foot rest and was currently propped beneath his booted heels as he leaned back, his arms folded comfortably behind his head. The soft creak and groan of wood and rigging was barely audible above the slap of the waves. The sky was almost clear of clouds. Its fairness had driven him from the dimness of the communal tent. Ice glistened on the stays and bulging sail but he was well clear of the biting wind.
A shadow fell over him and he opened his eyes, peering up into Brigit’s wind ruddied face. The fur of her hood and cloak fluttered around her chin and a banner of fiery hair was flickering beside her freckled cheek. She was pretty and surprisingly voluptuous when she wasn’t clad in metal plates or shapeless padding. He remarked the graceful length of her legs and the way her breasts emerged like lost islands amid the sea of her slate blue cloak when the wind drew it taut against her body. He imagined the delights of exploring that undiscovered land.
“Animal,” he thought, blushing. Thank the five gods she could not read minds.
“Do you mind if I sit with you?” she asked.
“Yes…I mean, no, not at all. Please make yourself at home.”
He dared a glance at her surface thoughts, surprised to find them extraordinarily opaque. There were silvery flashes of anxiety and a vague turquoise cloud of sadness. None of the red turgid lust was present and he was oddly disappointed.
“What is wrong?” he asked. He rarely cared what other people were worried about. Most of the time, if someone was excessively anxious, the problem was self-evident and it usually involved him by default.
“That sailor over there,” she murmured, gesturing toward an enormous barbarian clad in a bearskin cloak. The man was the equal of Mog for height but his limbs were like young oak trees, thick and muscular. He had a ragged mop of greasy hair and a matching beard that was braided down to his navel.
“What about him?”
“He fancies me.”
“What’s not to fancy? You have all the right parts in all the right places,” Armand muttered feeling annoyed, and immediately regretting it as a look of wounded horror crept onto Brigit’s face.
“I thought you liked me,” she murmured and to his horror she began to cry.
“I didn’t mean that, I was just making an observation… it’s not worth leaking all over the place…”
He was making it worse. She was curled against the bulwark with her face burrowed into her arms sobbing.
“I can’t do anything right,” she moaned, “I keep picking the wrong people. I can’t help it if I love you, Armie. You’re so beautiful and brave and all I ever wanted was to just be with you and maybe protect you if I could...”
Her words trailed on through her sobs. Armand stared dumbstruck at her. Then, to his further horror, he realized all the sailors were staring at him in a decidedly unfriendly fashion.
“Brigit… look, don’t cry, I really stink at this love thing. I mean… oh gods, I should just shut my mouth and let you have your way with me.”
She grew quiet for a moment as if trying to decide if she had misheard him. And then she snorted and began to laugh.
“You really do stink!” she howled, “I mean… it’s alright… love thing. Oh gods, Armie. I shouldn’t laugh… but honestly…”
He did not share her amusement. Burning with embarrassment, he stared at his hands and considered his hiding options. Thankfully, the sailors went back to what they were doing even though he could hear them chuckling knowingly about women troubles.
He cursed his miserable luck. Gifted with grace and intelligence, Armand had proudly held his ground against a demon and survived the horror of his broken childhood. Yet when it came to a simple flesh and blood woman he turned into an emotional cripple. It was as if he had landed on the shores of a foreign country whose language only mildly resembled his native tongue and yet was full of horrible linguistic pitfalls.
All he had left was blunt honesty. It was the only thing that had served him over the years. He did not know how to woo a woman. His only knowledge of coupling was tainted with helplessness and pain. Why was he doing this to himself? He had once sworn he would never need another human being so badly that he would endure that kind of humiliation again.
“What are you thinking about, Armie? You look so sad and frightened?”
“I’m alright,” he replied, annoyed when his voice came out sounding small and vulnerable.
“May I hold you?”
He stared at her, frozen between the twin desires to flee and curl into the loving arms of another human being. How long had it been? He was like a desperate animal prowling at the edge of a feast, too frightened to take what was freely offered and too hungry to flee.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being alone?”
“You’re never going to get another chance. It’s now or never. Starve or get over it.”
Armand nodded stiffly and she smiled, her long fingers stroking his face as she beckoned him down beside her.
“I will never hurt you like that,” she whispered to him, recognizing the fear and pain in his rigid expression as he laid his cheek against her shoulder and she folded her arms lightly around his back.
“How do you know?” he whispered, feeling exposed, his innermost fears visible to her gentle gaze.
“I remember when we were hiding in the cave. You needed someone to clean your wound, but every time I touched you, even in the most innocent way, you flinched as if I’d burned you. It broke my heart. Someone must have hurt you really bad.”
Armand was silent for a time, listening to the slow knell of her heart and drawing her alluring musky sweetness into his lungs as he lay wrapped in her warmth.
“I love you,” she whispered, “and if all you can stand is being held, that is just fine with me. We’ve got lots of time.”
Sweet gods, what had he done to deserve her? She smoothed away his tears of gratitude, nuzzling his crown with her nose.
“Kiss me?” he murmured. He closed his eyes as her lips brushed softly against his, her tongue entering his mouth with the tenderness of warm honey. She moaned softly as he rose to meet her.
“I don’t want to love you… it hurts.”
“But I don’t care any more. Being alone hurts more. I don’t want to be alone any more, not when I feel your light inside of me. I want you. Never leave me.”
“Gods I love you.”
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