He cracked an eye again and looked to Zee as she lowered herself to the ground, so that they could speak level to level, eye to eye. An interesting change for once, he supposed. He wished she had gone to help Marshall hunt for feathers, but instead she continued to poke at the wound her words had already started. Didn’t she see he didn’t want to change? He could never be more than a slave. It had been too long, he wouldn’t know what to do with freedom if he was given it. He wanted no reason to spend less time ad Bee’s side. He wanted to be with her, but didn’t want her to get ideas, for he could never see himself as worthy.
He managed a wry smile as she spoke of explosive strength, for he had almost used exactly that to kill her… on more than one occasion.
He raised his head a little higher, meeting her eye to eye as she cut off her words, changing them abruptly, and he tilted his head to her. How exactly did she see him? He stayed in his silence for a while, watching her shuffle as she moved beside him, and she could feel her warmth against his lake-chilled fur. She began to clean him, and the rough, soothing tug of her tongue across her coat was a strange, and unusual experience. He had never received anything like that, he had never let another touch him in this way before. And he and Belle had always kept a polite distance between themselves in respect for their feelings.
He let out a soft sigh, and sunk fully to the forest floor again as she worked. “The majority of my identity is wrapped into the experiences I know, I wouldn’t know how to be anything else Zee. How would it destroy my identity to be something I always have?” he asked, the words were spoken aloud, but he wasn’t really certain he was asking her.
She reached an itchy spot in his coat, and he let out a grunt instead of a groan, for he wasn’t certain how she would take the other. “How do you see me, Zee?” he asked at last, unable to let the question lie, through he knew he probably should have.
Bloodletter
