Yeah, clearly something had. He looks at his fingers like they’ve betrayed him.
I wipe while he’s distracted, then rinse my panties and wipe some of the mud off my arms and legs. “Is there mud on my face?”
His lips twitch. Not a smile, but something close. He dips his human fingers into the water and uses them to clean my face. Either he now wants to touch me, or there is heaps of mud on my face. What I need is a shower, but a bath is the only thing available, if I’m brave enough to get back into the water.
“I think I should have a proper wash.” I point at the puddle, but I already know what he’s going to say.
His hand falls away, and he shakes his head. “I want to take you home. It will be easier to protect you there.”
“Why were you so far away?”
“Scavenging. Sometimes there are things we can use.”
I pause, not sure I heard correctly. “We?”
“Existing is hard. It’s easier with a partner.”
Partner or lover? He hadn’t seemed too worried when he ripped my panties to seal our arrangement. Now he’s taking me home to meet another monster, the one he lives with. I can’t imagine that going well.
“Is that why you wanted your scent on me? Will he fight you?” Was his partner even a he?
“He will not fight.” But there is something in the way he says it that makes me question if that’s the truth.
“What? Don’t lie to be, Horn.”
He looks up sharply when I use his name. “What makes you think I’m lying?”
“I don’t know.” There was no one thing. Maybe it was the way he wouldn’t look me in the eye or the note of doubt in his voice, but I don’t know Horn very well. In that heartbeat, I doubt myself. I don’t want to argue, and I don’t want him to leave me here alone. I shake my head. “I was wrong.”
“You weren’t. But I’m not lying about that.” He stands. “We need to move.”
This time he doesn’t scoop me up and carry me, so I am left to follow. “What is it? If he won’t fight you, what are you lying about?”
He growls and turns. “I cannot protect you on my own.”
I stare at him. “But you did.”
And he’d lost an eye.
“We are on the outer fringes. The monsters here are like me. And if there are two of them and only me, then it will be over.”
“Oh.” My mind immediately starts leaping ahead to the numerous ways I could die. Then the ways I could survive. “Ohhh. You are taking me home…”
To meet his friend, another monster.
Another monster who will expect something for his help. Payment for the changes fighting for me will inflict on his body. His friend won’t fight for possession of me. He won’t need to because Horn will share.
His claws trail over my cheek. “How badly do you want to survive as you are?”
Claiming that I’ll do anything has now taken on a whole other meaning. And surviving as I am, is different to surviving. Horn is surviving. Barely.
“I don’t want to forget. If I start forgetting things, I’ll forget I want to go home.”
“That might be one of the few blessings in this place,” he grumbles.
Already home seems like a distant dream, something from the night before that disintegrates in the dawn light and is gone by the first cup of coffee. “I need to go home.”
“We all did once.” He turns away and starts walking.