"Did it work?"
He shrugged. "I never saw her again, so I guess in her eyes it was futile. But I got my point across to all the others who thought I was weak. Nothing like a good ass-kicking to put fear into others." But that wasn't the same as respect. He'd gone from being a pathetic milksop to a homicidal psycho, and learned that the only things that changed were the names they called him and the tone and volume level they used when they did so.
Neither position was desirable or enviable. Both left you isolated, lost, alone, and insecure. No one to trust.
No one who gave a shit about you. The only real difference was that when they thought you weak they didn't try to kill you when your back was turned.
Sighing, he released her, then rolled over and rose to his feet. She got up and dusted herself off.
When he started to walk away from her, she put her hand on his arm to stop him.
"For the record? You're not a pathetic wretch, Ren, and you don't have to end the world to prove it."
He snorted at her naivete, but a part of him he didn't want to acknowledge took flight over her kindness-even if it was feigned. "I have the blood of three competing pantheons, two of which are born warring, flowing through my veins. Since the hour of my birth, I've been at war with myself. You want to know why I stutter?"
"Why?"
"I was suckled for a year by a demon. Her milk infected me with her venom and it was her language I learned first. It's so radically different from anything human that I was five before I could even begin to comprehend our speech patterns. By that time, they all thought I was slow and stupid because of it. Then when I finally learned how to make their sounds, I stuttered with them because I have to translate from demonspeak to human. It's taken me a million lifetimes to speak without hesitation. And still whenever I think or dream it's never as a human." His gaze burned her. "Because of what Artemis sent to care for me, I became a conduit of evil. That is my true nature."
She shook her head. "I don't believe you. If you were truly evil, you wouldn't fight that nature. You'd go with it and let it swallow you whole. Yet you don't. You came for me when you didn't even know me, and rescued me. You have fought for strangers for centuries. How is any of that evil?"
"I killed my own father while he begged me for mercy."
Kateri hesitated at his confession. But as soon as she felt compassion, she remembered her visions of his father's cold brutality. "The same father who left you to die in the woods alone when you were a defenseless infant? The one a demon had to threaten in order for him to care for you?" One who had abused and belittled him? "Pardon me if I don't shed a tear for that bastard. I mean c'mon, Ren, really? You've kept yourself celibate for eleven. Thousand. Years. Eleven," she repeated.
He scoffed at her tone. "You don't have to keep saying it. Believe me, no one is more aware of how long that is than I am."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for being impressed. That kind of self-control is off the grid. Seriously, off-grid. Especially to a woman who can't pass by a donut without having a bite of it. Sad, but true."
He snorted at her disbelieving tone. "It wasn't as difficult as you think. Trust me. It's kind of hard to have sex when no woman wants to be seen in public with you, never mind share your bed."
Yeah, right. What woman in her right mind would turn down all that yummy goodness? He was far more tempting than even a chocolate-drenched donut.
"Obviously you've been living in a closet. Alone." The instant those words were out of her mouth, she saw Ren in his past....
He was with his friend who spoke to him in sign language.
His friend kept glancing over to a group of women who were shopping at a nearby vegetable stand. Two of them were insanely beautiful-the kind of perfectly formed women every woman wanted to be, but only a tiny handful were lucky enough to attain. The third was cute, but she paled in comparison to the two goddesses flanking her.
"Go on, Makah'Alay," his friend urged him. "It's a perfect opportunity to speak to her."
Ren shook his head.
His friend rolled his eyes. "You are the fiercest fighter we have ... fearless in battle. Eldest son of our chief. Are you honestly telling me that you're so scared of a woman that you won't even go talk to her? Really? You're going to let a mere woman cow you?"
Rage darkened his gaze at his friend's insult.
Clenching his teeth and glaring at him, Ren turned and headed over to the women.
Kateri held her breath, expecting him to go to one of the two perfect girls.
He didn't. Instead he skirted around them to the third girl, who didn't have enough to pay for her purchase.
Tears swam in her eyes. "It's all I have. Please. I can't return without it. My mother told me that I had to have it or else."
"We don't lend credit here. You'll have to go beg from someone else. There's a price to be paid for every drop of sweat." The vendor reached to take the bundle of maize back from her.
Ren stopped him. "I'll cover it."