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The moonlight falls softly through the overhead boughs, illuminating little and yet just enough as you peer out from beyond the campfire to the dark, rushing creek- past where the orange glow ends and the silver radiance of night begins. A brisk sweep of wind whips the fire, nearly threatening to put it out as you pull your ratty shawl tight around your shoulders. To your left sits a few choice branches and logs of kindling to keep the embers going, all provided graciously by the mysterious man far away to your right.
You’ve been travelling by his side for days now, yet not for so long that you’re ready to name how much you trust him. It’s as though he came from nowhere at all, and yet, in the reflections of his small eyes, you sense a compelling history that you mean to one day soon crack into. Just one quandary among many, you suppose... Only God knows the rhyme or reason behind the chaos of these days and the men and monsters that live in them.
After all, ever since the slaughter of your pilgrimage mates, your more pressing mystery to solve is why you were permitted to live. Surely the Lord must have use for you yet… but why?
The screams of your compatriots left a distinctive and yet indescribable buzzing in your skull, one that still comes ‘round to haunt you when the clash of steel or the squealing of animals overwhelms your senses. Even now, you gag at merely a whiff of blood or sweat covered iron.
Hell on earth. Christ above forgive you, but you’re sure that’s what it was.
Why would they do it? You had nothing. Nothing but a few Groschen between the lot of you and the rags upon your backs. You ran. Hid in a ditch, filthy and pathetic as any animal while the brigands slayed your fellow Christians. You prayed. Face down in the mud and soft, dewy grass of mid summer as you prayed for deliverance, the selfish notion that, if no one else might, that you might at least be saved.
And lo, so you had asked… and so you had received, even despite your wildest hopes.
The saving grace of countering steel ringing upon steel and blade upon shield, like the very fanciful miracle of all those heroic, knightly tales, would’ve sounded curious were you not so consumed with terror. Your fellow pilgrims were defenseless, yet the sound of decisive retaliation soon descended upon the very rabble that had seen to your fellow traveler’s demise. T'was an interceding so miraculous, that when the silence of death stilled the air around you, foolish you, had dared to think yourself saved by a heavenly host...
Strange, how immediately you suspected the Devil himself instead as the steely grip of a gloved hand turned you over gruffly in that ditch.
Backlit by the glaring sunlight, the man’s head seemed lit by fire, his shadowed eyes small and burning with all the hatred of a man who kills, the evidence of his deed splashed in crimson splatters across his raiment. The splitting shriek and pleas for mercy that poured from you in that moment elicited a glint in those same eyes that had you believe you were next to be struck down. Then, the most curious thing… nary a moment more than that was the glint of hell snuffed from the Devil’s eyes as he blinked, as though returning now from somewhere else, and at last, he freed your arm from his grasp.
You don’t know what made that change in him then. Nor do you know to where he had gone inside his mind. Perhaps a change he had already committed to making in himself, long before you had first crossed breath… Perhaps to a place you have yet to discover from him. Or, perhaps God simply had use for you yet, as evidenced in sending you a protector.
Or, perhaps…
It’s quite improper to look, you are aware, but you can hardly help it for curiosity's sake. Your eyes are distracted for only a moment as you toss some wood absentmindedly into the core of the blaze, tracking a long trail through the dirt and sparse shrubbery as you gaze towards the creek.
You tilt your head thoughtfully as you regard his naked back, a smile that you’re sure you should be ashamed of forming crossing your lips as you touch your wayward fingers to the heavy gambeson around your shoulders, beneath the forgettable rag of your old shawl. Hynek… A gentle name. Easy, and rolling off your tongue. Even as you chide him in your mind.
He’s killed again. Cut his teeth on more brigands, that is. Such is the source of your fine, heavyset raiment that protects you now on this oddly cold touched summer night. Would the Devil donate such an expensive, valuable gift to a common, wayward peasant girl like you?
You’d like think not.
Indeed, this man is far from the handsome, chivalrous knights you’ve heard tale of since youth… but there’s a certain nobility to him. A virtue. A righteousness, at least of some sort. After all, would the Devil escort a lost maid on her way to a monastic, holy pilgrimage?
You’d like think not.
Even now, as he meticulously washes the blood and unchristianly gore from his shining armor…
Even now. You cannot help but hold these opinions of him.
You rock forward towards the fire, stealing a look at his tightly strung back as he scrubs the metal and fabric in the dark waters. Here in the moonlight, despite the aid of the distant fire, it’s impossible to make out all of him, and yet you find you have no difficulty at all filling in the dark spaces from snippets of memory.
The shadowed block of his torso gives way to a wiry, interlocking of pocked muscles and sinews, a tall and lean map like roads and rivers across his flesh. You can see the roll of his shoulders, a little narrow and pointy, but tough and more than strong enough to swing a blade, draw a bow, or skin a poached deer. You can see the short contractions of his long biceps from a recent memory, as one hand wraps a stained bandage around his arm, refusing your assistance for only a short while before, eventually, giving in to your offer at last.
God forgive you for these musings alone, but… As your eyes travel down the shadow covering his back and spine, there is a sight amongst all these that you know you hold even closer, in secret sin…
Once... you caught the forbidden delight of a stolen glance at his unevenly muscled stomach. A silly thing to speak aloud, truly, but a rare and exciting thing to one as unaccustomed to such sights as yourself. Perhaps it was the brevity that caused it to be so ingrained in your mind. Perhaps the endearing splash of freckles, like so many stars in the sky, across his furrowed skin. Perhaps the faintest stripe of thin red hairs below his navel.
Or, perhaps it was only the simple thrill of seeing something so forbidden without facing recompense.
Albeit… a little skinny, for your liking, but oh- The giddiness you feel over even this makes you think you could afford an exception. Truly, no man can be quite perfect, no? You rest your chin on your hands, with a far away smile. You can forgive him this…
The more your mind colors him in, the more you take back your thoughts from before. His pockmarked face. His bulbous red nose and one cheek. His thin lipped, crooked toothed grin. The array of freckles across his skin, perhaps more like the tiny dark speckles of a flea-bitten horse than the stars… You hold the large gambeson tight at the collar and bite your finger to suppress a mirthful laugh over your private, devious thoughts.
Yes, you take back your idea from before. Perhaps he is a bit handsome… In his own, unique way. Is it so odd that some small part of you would like to say that to him? Although, you admit, you feel you should keep the horse comment to yourself, lest he grow cross. Begrudgingly, you can admit that he has enough of a temper as it is, after all... He saves himself in your eyes, however, with the small effort you’ve seen him make to manage it.
A gruff muttering and a cough pull you out of your thoughts, eyelids peeled from your own silly head back to the cold, dark world around you. He remains in shadow by the creek bed, but that doesn’t hide your view of how he snorts and drags his nose upon his sleeve before spitting rudely into the water as he finishes. You wrinkle your own nose in reply. Certainly, a gentleman he is not.
And yet… Your expression softens, eyes closed peacefully as you settle into your gifted gambeson, watching him from afar.
Surely, no devil either.
“What are you laughin’ about, girl?”, before you even register that he has begun to approach, a coarse and haggard voice crosses the mud to grate your ear, followed immediately after by the startling thud and clang of newly cleaned armor into the packed, dry dirt.
Your eyes widen, the whites glistening like the untouched coat of a lamb at the fright, and suddenly you remember all too intimately that you are alone. Alone in the forest, with a strange and dangerous man as your only company- and this is no silly game or fanciful tale.
You shake your head, averting your eyes from his intense, intimidating countenance as he scowls inquisitively, sitting now across the fire. The scars and discoloring of his face seem particularly inflamed as the orange tongues crackle and snap between you both, casting a harsh light upon him. Perhaps he sees the cowed intimidation in you, or perhaps he no longer cares for you to feel it- does the hound lose its joy from the hunt when the prey surrenders without a fight?
Perhaps he does indeed, as whatever thoughts transpire in his mind, their fruition is that the grimacing creases of his expression subside with a huff as he rolls his small, beady eyes in acquiescence.
His mouth falls open, an intake of breath that signals he is about to speak, but to say… what? To mock? To chide? To, dare you even think it? Perhaps, to atone for the fright?
Whatever it is, it does not matter, for the words die before ever leaving his head.
Although, perhaps they never needed to.
There is a shift in the small, shallow holes. He looks away, jaw tight as he second guesses the words he chose not to say, but that his body speaks freely of instead.
There is… remorse. Something penitent in those eyes. Something that digs at him far deeper than the sin of being too harsh or gloating in frightening you.
Would that he’d only tell you what…
Hynek stands up slowly, keeping his gaze off of you in a gesture that you’d like to interpret as deference as he fiddles with the loose hem of his shirt in an agitated manner, giving up on whatever he was aiming to say as he kneels down to dig through your shared, light pack.
Between the two of you, there is not one animal to bear the load of your travels.
Between the two of you, more often than not, that ‘animal’ is you.
Understandable, in a way- He needs his body and limbs freed up for any possibility of attack… yet that doesn't stop him from feeling sorry for you from time to time, you think. He is certainly no push over, but nor can you say you ever have much difficulty transferring the load off to him when your tired feet demand it.
Another bark draws you out of your flighty thoughts once more, a call to action as you brace your reflexes, ”Here-”, the Devil grunts, already pacing back to the collection of dirt and leaves that have served for his bed across many iterations of campsites these last few days.
He sits down with a heave of effort, “Eat that and go to sleep”, he commands, a subtle sigh of relief escaping him as fishes out a wine skein for himself, the first bit of sustenance for either of you in many hours these are, drawing out a long swig as he watches the core of the flames.
You soon find that you’ve caught a hunk of bacon for the road, the last bit of food before he’ll have to poach some more- Oh, you cross yourself for even the thought of it! It pains you to think that you travel with a man who willingly and easily commits such sins as theft from the nobility here in their lands, and yet what choice is there to be had? All your traveling stores were ruined and ransacked by the highwaymen who attacked your fellow Pilgrims, and this fellow seems to have no qualms about stealing or confiscating either game meat from the wilds or bits of bread and dried goods from the wretched bodies of those he needs slay.
In fact, it's all a bit... exciting.
Your eyes hold his as you debate in your mind- now that you think on it, doesn’t he need this more? You shiver to even imagine what might happen to you if your fearless protector, such as he is, were too famished to serve his role, especially with the roads being as fraught with trouble as they are.
”What?”, he growls, less a question and more an agitated demand for answer, as though the simple act of your staring is impeding him from ignoring you and laying down to sleep.
You avert your eyes, the ewe feeling intimidated by the hound, “Wouldn’t… Wouldn’t you rather have it, sir?”, you briefly eye the skein of wine in his hand. He hasn’t had a solid meal in several hours at least, and an ephemeral slosh of wine into his guts is hardly suitable sustenance for a man at arms such as he.
It crosses your mind to move from suggestion to insistence then, but Hynek snorts, that disgusting sound, and spits before laying down to face away from you dismissively, “I told you not to call me that”, his voice trails off, sharp in tone, but not enough to cut…
You try again.
“As you like, but I ju-”
You’re hardly given the chance to start at all before he interrupts once more. He reacts as though he could hear your hands merely moving, imploring for him to accept this humble offering back, “My… God woman! If you don’t want it, leave it already!”, the sudden snap and crescendo of his raspy voice makes you jump as his shoulders jolt with the explosive strain of his lashing words.
Your following silence must be telling, otherwise you’re sure he wouldn’t bother moving to look at you at all.
The glower he fixes you with solidifies your frozen posture upon the ground, fear of his temper freezing you from the inside out… until he heaves a sigh, a thaw taking root within you, as he turns his scowling gaze upwards to the night sky, searching for some unseen fount of patience.
“Fine… bring it here”, Hynek lays on his back, stubbornly transfixed on the infinite heavens above, perhaps finally finding that fount, as he extends his arm to beckon you over with the prize. Cautious, but intrigued, thoughts of fear subside slowly as you circle the fire and come to him.
His hand clenches into a loose fist, one finger extended limply and curling into a gesture as he indicates where you shall sit, “Half it, eh?”
The suggestion brings a smile to your face, relaxed once more as you breathe a sigh of relief and do just that as you sit politely by his shoulders and split the bacon between you, favoring him with the better portion. He doesn’t notice. Or, if he does, he takes it graciously still and props his head up under one arm, eating casually with the other. A pleasant shiver of comfort runs up your back now that the full force of the campfire faces it. Your face and hands feel dry and chapped in comparison, as though you’d been facing the roasting heat for far too long.
There is a noticeable coolness taking place now, as you face the red devil. While your expensive gambeson protects you from the bite of cold, the exposed skin of your face and hands find balance between hot and frozen as the umbral air passes over you both. The trees overhead rustle softly, an animal in the distance calls a lonely cry, and the deliberately cut and styled hairs on his head become suffused with the orange light of the fire.
The glow they hold is gentle, almost… ethereal.
You remember the day you first saw him, the sunlight so harsh upon the silhouette of his head that you thought surely a flaming demon had come to escort you to your death. But now? It’s strange… even lit by a true fire, he still does not seem nearly as harsh to you now. Like the warming embers of a furnace, not yet hot enough to cook or scald or melt even iron to its will… only just warm enough to bring comfort to a wayward hand on a cold, inhospitable night.
The two pads of your fingers are upon his forehead, attracted to such unusual hair, and hardly thinking at all save for, perhaps, a dull notion of surprise- surprised at how cool his head is, even whilst knowing how his temper can flare.
He doesn’t always run so hot and prickly… Do you still remember? After he yanked you over, after you screamed and pleaded in the fright of your life, after you were convinced the Devil had come to take you?
Do you remember how he pulled you up from the dirt and the bloody ditch? Do you remember how he caught you in his arms, held loose but secure against his armored chest? How his sword thumped to the ground as it left his hand, the same hand that hesitated for a moment… then, only a tad reluctant, caressed long swathes down your disheveled hair?
How he said he had you? How he said you’d be alright? How his heavy, tired gasps for air quickly reversed to short, shallow pants? You thought then that he seemed scared to even breathe as you embraced him readily, wet cheeks and lashes tickling cold streams against his sweaty, dirt and gore encrusted neck…
How quickly he became like the dashing knights of old to you on that terrible day. Just as quickly as it took you to know what kind of soul laid beneath the roaring, coarse surface he so often shows you.
He watches you now with a familiar sort of baited breath, short and shallow, as your finger pads sweep the fringe of his red hair away from his brow. His chest rises and falls, slowing into an elongated rhythm as peace takes hold of him again. The firelight falls across his eyes, revealing a depth to the darkness that you hadn’t yet noticed. Bright, yet foggy green… like the horizon of sky as a flight of birds caw and cut across the grey clouds in the moments before a storm. Like the infinite stretch of trickling creek, and the small, precious stones it hides amidst muddy beds.
What will he do when he sees you to the end of your pilgrimage? Will he see you home again? Will he sweep you away on an adventure of his own? Would he ever…?
Your wandering hand seems to float weightlessly in front of him as he sits up, the shallow, reedy roots inside his small eyes staring boorishly into your own as he regards you, now eye to eye. The tarnished glass turns cold and sharp, but no less alluring, as he weighs every word he could possibly wish to say against what he impulsively feels. They look up and down your countenance, impossible to decipher if they mean to tell you insult at the unprompted touch or, maybe…
Flustered, you turn away sharply, voice low, “Forgive me, my Lord, I-”
Although you stop yourself, for all his tendencies to interrupt, this time- the Devil is silent.
His glassy eyes are shallow, the pale green seems to reflect the flames at your back like small tin disks. They glow like an animal’s. Or is he still like that devil?
Even with the fire at your back, you feel a shiver run down your spine. His corners crinkle, fine lines narrowing the focus around his eyes as the hound sets a hunter’s sights upon its mark. Like an animal indeed, in the lowlight, the rest of his personage seems to fade away til there is nothing to focus on but those cold, reflective eyes.
He scans your face.
Up…
Down.
You’ve made a mistake. It’s too late now, but now you see it. Idiot girl! Why would you ever do such a thing like that? Whether he accepts the title or not, he’s still a Noble. And you, an unworthy peasant.
A shaky breath rattles your chest and trembles your hand, suddenly not so bold at all, as you think how to fill the silence of your error with a suitable recompense for the sin of unrequested touch… A breath that is immediately stolen, as all at once, what you thought you knew of the world seems to erupt around you.
All at once, the Devil is upon you.
The flames of the campfire seem to recall their heat as your skin prickles along your neck and shoulders, the itch of an uncomfortable flush and burn like the sickness that surely ravaged the Devil himself so long ago… You are caught between two blazes, and the force with which he meets you is enough to knock you over.
You feel the dull pain of his row of teeth hitting yours with all the attack of a headbutt, mercifully mitigated only by the flesh of your upper lips. Your heart leaps in your chest, you feel it scream to your arms that you are falling- On instinct, you retract your hand from his middle to buttress your falling body.
He takes it from you.
You feel the gentle wrench in your shoulder as the length of your arm is drawn tight. His hand is hot, boney and callused as the Devil grips your wrist tightly, not letting you fall… nor giving you room to retreat from him.
Your blood races. He is no longer looking at you, too engrossed is he and his lips in whatever this is to him. You cannot tell if it’s a shame or a blessing that he now cannot and will not see exactly what this is for you.
The night wind whistles over you, carrying with it faint cries as you witness your savior. It is true… He is no handsome, romantic Prince. No chivalrous, noble knight.
Indeed, he is every bit the same class of brigand that slayed your Pilgrim band, no matter how he may pretend otherwise. Just as surly. Just as underhanded. Just as deadly.
And yet…
He has chosen to be like this, with you.
This devil has shown you glimpses of something else. Some kindness. Some patience. Some mercy. All in his own gruff way, yes, but…
But in this new moment, a different sort of excitement possesses you. Not one borne of the fear one woman feels when alone in the wilderness with a strange man… but rather that of the foolish girl meeting in secret with the young man her parents do not approve of.
Although, you cannot say you’ve ever had such an escapade as that before… and certainly, you did not expect one like this.
You are a peasant. He is a Lord.
A Lord who has shed blood in your defence. A Lord who pulled you out of the dirt and set you on your feet. A Lord who is accosting you on this journey to spiritual reconciling.
A Lord who is kissing you. Filthy, tattered, common you…
Your mind changes once again, a new perspective emerging in the heat he gives. Isn’t this so much more exciting than chivalry, or noble acts? Perhaps he needn't be a Prince or a Knight… Not for you to enjoy this superlative thrill of passion, at least.
In your soaring flight of fancy, at long last you kiss him back. Your hands accept his hold, finding contact with his impermissibly bare body, the pale and sagging skin of his thin chest cool from the water he had not so long ago washed in.
He flinches as your nails scrape across two furrows where the once taut flesh of younger days bows to connect chest and ribs... But he does not discourage it. Something like a groan and a smile transfers from out of him and into you as he presses harder against your mouth. His muscles are small and lean, not packed dense, but rather stretched thin over his tall frame. Like leather on a rack, or long strips of iron waiting to be shaped by the smith…
You are not used to feeling another’s body. You certainly aren’t used to the way his weathered flesh, having lost some of its supple young charm, shifts just so when you move your hand. But his skin is soft, surprisingly so, even in the few places the pox ravaged the rest of him.
A different grunt from him, at that. It sounds like no… Shame masked by agitation coiling behind the noise as he encourages you towards anywhere else. You oblige… but not before committing to memory the near velvety texture of the little bumps and valley at his side. It reminds you of the small warts and fine wrinkles of a horse's soft nose. It returns to you the memory of his multitude of fleabitten spots.
It cannot be helped. You break the kiss for just a moment to laugh- a little amusement for your thoughts alone that you now swear he will never be made privy to.
For all the time you’ve spent on the road together, you almost swear you can hear him scowl. The separation between your lips lasts just long enough for him to begin an agitated question- or maybe, it’s one drawn of vain shame. But you don’t let him. Before the Devil can accuse you of anything less than relishing this sacred moment, you reconnect where you last left him forthwith.
His lips are dry and cracked, almost sharp as you feel them scuff your skin. You smile against them. A small sigh in your throat as you meet his efforts with your own shadowed attempts, perhaps a hint of an effort to apologize for the misunderstanding of laughing.
The Devil growls a phlegm coated, scratchy sound in reply- a small, upwards lilt on the ending cadence.
A question, as you come to realize… but one that seems to have already forgotten the prior faux pas.
He regains control. His mouth moves in a manner that you are unfamiliar with. His lips part just enough to break the seal you had between yourselves. The reason becomes immediately clear, and yet… not.
The tempo and fight with which he handled you before has slowed, not quite to something romantic or tender, but certainly to a facsimile of such things as he wants you to believe in. His tongue touches the seam of your lips, exploratory and encouraging as he gives a gentle caress of it along your lower lip.
It tickles. You smile. You even laugh, just a little, fingers curling into his thin, loose skin merrily.
The Devil smiles too.
You don’t know that one, do you? Never been taught, he wonders, or just never imagined…
He can’t stop the sharp toothed grin that breaks off the kiss again, his mind relishing in the new information you have unwittingly submitted. It’s just enough time to catch your own breath. Just enough time to see his grin. To see his cold, glinting green eyes… The skin that wrinkles around them, sharp and focusing lines as he fixes his attention on something about you that you do not grasp.
Your lips stay sealed as you push back, a silly smile shaping your mouth as you resume the moment before, now filled with the misguided confidence of youth that you’ve responded to him in some impressive manner.
The Devil’s grin does not last long. He takes your hand by the wrist and shows you where on his lean body he wants to be felt. Lower. Lower… You jerk your hand back up sharply, back to where it was. For the first time, something feels off as his insistence then irks you.
He puts up with your playful, amateur kissing game for a little longer.
You put it out of your head, clearing your mind as you return to trying to enjoy the sensations once more. There is not truly enough substance to him for your hands to grab or squeeze. If anything, you feel more of his sternum and ribs than pectorals or flesh. But you try. Your nails bite his skin. His chest feels lavished upon, much broader and stronger than it really is in your curious hands.
He presses your hand harder, like he wants you to claw him. If he cannot move your hand down, he will move it in. He growls that thick, watery sound as he swallows something down that was loosened from his throat.
Your shoulders hunch.
He’s gripping your wrist a little too tight.
You open your eyes, the moment interrupted for you again. The idea to protest tenses your muscles, a sensation he must feel. His teeth graze your lips in response, keeping you contained as he meets your open mouth in turn.
You push his chest, no longer fondling or petting as your confidence begins to wain. This is starting to feel too fast-
He increases the tempo.
He shoves his lip sheathed teeth against yours.
By the second, you’re beginning to lose certainty that you wish to keep up with him, and yet to him it only feels that you are unimpressed now. What has he done? Or what has he not- Was it the pox that has made your interest begin to wane? Or maybe… Maybe he got you wrong. Maybe he just hasn’t shown you something interesting yet.
Is that the case? Perhaps so. Indeed, he can try something new, if that’s what you want from him. In the throes of protecting his own righteous, masculine ego…
He bites.
He bites.
You yelp with shock and a tinge, at first, of pain. Though his grip gives resistance, there is no stopping you as you pull away, your one free hand immediately upon your lip and the small split cut into it.
The Devil is drawn to the blood, a sight and taste all too familiar to his ragged, red lips. He pants with wet, hot breaths washing over you like fog- murky and enshrouding as they penetrate through the memories in your mind of these last moments.
You feel lost.
All at once you feel alone, or perhaps worse- surrounded.
Encircled in the green pasture by something far more fanged and clawed than you are… The flock has been slain. The Good Shepherd feels too far. You taste the bead of blood as it lines the seam of your lips like an empty river bed.
You lock eyes with the hound, the tool of the Shepherd to guide His sheep. You wonder, what truly separates the dog from the wolf- the tool of the Devil. Something answers, as Hynek licks the inside of his lip, eyes cast aside in bewildered contemplation. There, you read a familiar sensation of yours within himself as he seems to deliberate inside.
Lost.
He clears his throat, the viscous sound of his usual phlegm oddly coming up dry. He wipes his open mouth with a swipe of his hand, a long thin smear of your blood left behind.
“That’s enough…”, he mutters, scowling and speaking as though to himself as he refuses you eye contact.
His hand is still wrapped around your wrist, his grip now light enough for you to slip free and reclaim it. You do not.
He holds it still, trailing backwards until your palm perches upon his fingers. Even after all this… They defy their master. They hate to see you go.
The air feels still. The cold wind has stopped. The fire seems low.
Absence.
Is that it? Is it over?
There is confusion. There is an absence. Not of passion or desire, not even necessarily of will- something of his. Something he’s lost, long before he crossed paths with you. Hynek brings your hand up in a gentlemanly gesture, your mind spinning to catch up. He supports your knuckle with his fingers as the chaff of his lips plant a kiss there, astride in spirit to the chivalrous knights of all your stories and tales.
“Off you go now”, he lets you go. Just like that, he lets you go. There is a hard edge to his voice as he nods curtly to your modest bedroll on the other side of camp. The kind of hardness that makes you miss his soft skin.
You take a quick breath, opening your mouth to speak. You don’t know why. To stop him? To demand an explanation? An apology? Perhaps, maybe even to ask for another try-
You don’t know. How can you? It’s not as though you’ve done this before.
But his gaze meets yours for less than a moment, the wrinkles upon his face seeming like so many dark fissures of stone in the firelight. Despite them, the effigy of his own displeasure that he has crafted does not hide the remorseful glint in his averted gaze. Of course- He fucked it.
He’d only wanted to-
But he just thought-
Ah… Sakra. Fuck it.
So many unspoken things communicated in a look that lasts less than a heartbeat, “Goodnight, my lady”
Just like that, it is over.
Your lip throbs and stings as the cold air seeps into the wound and then your fingers and nerves too as he lays down, his back a flat and boney wall between the moment you’d just shared- the moment a small part of you even now longs to return to.
Maybe if you’d only said-
Or, what if you had instead tried-
But you feel the Devil’s absence as you stare into his narrow shoulder blades, the cold so much more sharp and confusing then the heat of his skin and the cut of his teeth.
You look up to the heavens and then around at the dense tree-line. Once again, you are alone. The flock is slain. The Shepherd surely sleeps.
And now, even the wolf has left you to your thoughts.
You’ve changed your mind, you think, as you slink with such shame back to your bed…
Perhaps this man, this animal, is not the Devil... but without doubt, surely he is one of them.
What other word could there be for one who torments you so? Long glances, wayward touches, casual jokes and reassurance over the many days of this journey… For what? For you to come together this night, oh so very close. For you to touch his body, feel his hands, his lips and have every one of your longing, curious thoughts broken and remolded with the hunger for more, new things after the dreams turned solid reality you experienced?
The delight, and the pain. The heat, and the cold…
You yank the thin blanket almost to cover your head as you feel fit to scream.
You hate him, you’re sure of it. Hate him.
And yet.
Oh, but yet… Who else has given you such an experience? Such thrill. And, more pressingly, would he give it again?
You worry your lower lip, your teeth picking deliciously at the gash the Devil left as you glance to the dark woods in thought. There is so much you don’t know about him even now- but you know you saw it. That little thought… When the wolf knicks the ewe, does the hound lick it better? He must. You felt it.
The tender, quick salve of tongue over rigid knuckle when he kissed your hand. Such behavior for a man who would be Nobility… And yet, your skin is damp and lightly fragranced with spiced wine as your cradle your hand close to your heart.
You know it to be the closest to an apology that the Devil’s tongue has ever uttered.
As you feel this and know it, you wonder if he does too. Being nothing if not curious, your wide eyes wander over your shoulder and across the smoldering ashes to catch one last look at the Devil before the flame goes out. A weathered, callused hand of his lays on top of his bicep, knuckles going red from the exertion of gripping and readjusting his hold, frustrated and tight with the very same effort it took to turn you loose.
Your suspicions confirmed.
The last embers of the flame fizzle out, his back turns to a blackened, tense silhouette in the moonlight as you are left to mull your thoughts and guess at his own. All the while, only one thing is certain…
Firstly, that hate is far too strong of a word for what you feel. Indeed, a bit rash.
For another, for reasons indiscernible and undeniable… God has sent you a true, branded, devil.