Page 21 of Far From Center
“They do, but we’re useful livestock to them. Children would divide our loyalties. We’d want to run away, to rebel and rise up against our elven masters. They knew that if they separated us from our children, sold them off, we’d not be passive. It was easier for them to render us infertile and get more slaves through the traps and changeling swaps.”
“By the creator, Nyalla, I want to kill them all for this.” Another drop hit her shoulder.
“It’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it. I have friends with babies that I see and cuddle anytime I wish. I can always adopt or foster a child. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay, but she didn’t want him to be upset. There was nothing anyone could do to change what had happened, and his grief was making it all worse, not better.
He pulled away from her and she shivered, suddenly cold. Had he believed her lie and figured the whole thing wasn’t a big deal? Was it all too much for him to handle? She’d never told anyone besides her brother Wyatt and Sam. She took the birth control pills, used condoms, and pretended to everyone else that she was a normal young woman, waiting for the right man to come along to marry and start a family with. She’d shared something with him that was so incredibly personal, that was still a gaping raw wound in her heart. She’d shared this and she hadn’t even known this angel twenty-four hours.
“Here.”
His arms came around her once more, and this time they held a bundle of plaid fabric. His boxer shorts. And the fact that he hadn’t neatly folded them spoke to how distressed he was at her tale.
And now she was the one crying. And it wasn’t just little teardrops, but big ugly blotchy-face sobs.
The angel hesitated a moment, as if he wasn’t sure what to do, then he spun her around and hugged her close, stroking her back, the boxer shorts, as well as her own underclothes, still in his hand.
“I’m sorry you had that happen to you, Nyalla. I wish I had the power to go back in time and save you from that whole experience — all the slaves in Hel. Well, all of them, but especially you.”
Then he let her cry, making soothing noises, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her back until she felt the grief ebb away like the tide…and felt something else.
She arched her back so she could look up at him. “Do you have a boner?”
“I’m assuming you don’t mean the skeletal remains of an animal and are instead referring to the fact that when you’re near like this, blood tends to leave the rest of my body and head straight to the appendage between my legs,” he commented dryly.
She choked out a laugh. “Yes, I’ve been told it has a life of its own, and that you have no control over your actions because of that particular organ.”
He made a huffing noise. “Don’t be ridiculous. This doesn’t happen when I’m around Snip or Terrelle, or that waitress who brought your dinner. And it went down pretty fast when those maids came into your room and found me tied to your bed. I absolutelydohave control over my actions, regardless what my body parts are doing. And if this appendage springs to life around you, then I should probably pay attention to what my subconscious is trying to tell me.”
She lifted her head. “And what is your subconscious trying to tell you?”
“That right now I’m a human, and this is a very human way of my body agreeing with my mind and my heart that you are an amazing woman, Nyalla.”
“And if you weren’t human right now?”
He sighed. “I wouldn’t have this ‘boner’ trying to poke through your thigh, but I’d still feel the same way about you. Angels demonstrate their affection one way, humans another. And right now I’m human.”
“So am I. And I feel the same way about you,” she said. Then she reached up around his neck, and pulled his mouth down to meet hers.
