"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."
The man curled his lip. "How do I know you have it?"
Ren pulled out a piece of gold and handed it over.
After inspecting the gold, the vendor returned the maize to the girl.
"Thank you," she said to the vendor, not Ren. In fact, she wouldn't even look at him to acknowledge his presence.
Placing it in her wicker basket, she moved to join the other two, who were waiting for her.
"Itzel?" Ren called as he tried to catch up.
She hesitated before she turned to pin him with an irritated grimace. "What?"
"I-I-I was w-wondering..." He hesitated as if searching for the right words. The quivering in his jaw worsened as her look turned from irritation to disdain.
"Wondering what?" she snapped.
He bit his lip before he tried again. "W-would you m-m-mind if I c-c-c-"
"If you're asking to see me, yes I mind." She glanced toward her friends. "Do you think I want to be laughed at and mocked? That I'm desperate enough to be courted by you?" She sneered that word, twisting her face up into an ugly mask of cruelty. "Forget it. Go find yourself a woman as stupid as you. Oh wait, there's no one here that dumb. Not even the whores will take you when you pay them for it. Maybe you can find a horny goat or something in one of the other towns."
Ren stood ramrod stiff as she stalked off and left him to hear the vendor's laughter. As soon as she reached her friends, they all three looked at him and burst out laughing. He lifted his head, but as Kateri watched, the pain in his eyes brought tears to her own.
His friend started toward the girls, but Ren stopped him. "Don't m-m-make it worse."
Shaking his head, his friend headed off in the opposite direction, leaving Ren to glance back at the girls with a wistfulness that shredded her heart.
Kateri winced over what they'd done to him. No wonder he was celibate. Those bitches had trained him well to avoid women. Drawing a ragged breath, she sniffed back her tears. What could she say to ease that kind of meanness? What could ever undo such cruelty?
Unable to stand it, she pulled him into her arms and held him close.
Ren was completely stunned by her actions. Worse, his body roared to life as she pressed her warm curves against him. He stood there completely stiff, in more ways than one, unsure of what to do. "Why are you hugging me, Kateri?"
"Someone needs to."
That only confounded him more. "I don't understand."
Kateri pulled his lips to hers so that she could give him a scorching kiss the likes of which he'd never expected. The intensity of it, the sensation of her tongue dancing with his, made him light-headed and breathless. He growled low in his throat as he wrapped his arms around her and reveled in the taste of her lips.
He didn't think anything could be better. Not until she slid her hand down his chest and stomach, blazing a trail that left him trembling. Then, to his complete shock, she cupped him in her hand.
Completely stunned as she stroked and fingered him through his jeans, he broke off their kiss. "What are you doing?"
"I'm about to rock your world."