Micah sighed heavily. “I wish I could be like Sasha. He always has his heart on his sleeve.”
“Sasha’s a rare one. The rest of us have to trudge through the bracken while he’s stomping about on clear ground. So.” Zev grinned. “Tell me about last night.”
Micah blushed and pushed at Zev’s shoulder, and Zev pushed back, as playful as he was in wolf form. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing, huh? Well, tell me about nothing.”
Micah rolled his eyes and walked off, and Zev followed him, laughing as a cool breeze stirred the trees, making golden leaves twirl about them like gentle rain.
* * *
Sasha was humming as he went about preparing some tea, and Viv watched him from where she was working at her loom, wondering if she should say anything.
She felt better. Not back to full strength, but she was clearly headed that way, and it was a relief. In the midst of the fever, there was always that horrible moment where she thought,This is how the others felt, only they never got over it,and despite her firm admonitions not to, started wondering if this would be the time it took her, too.
Then the fever would break and she would sweat, and clarity would return along with her usual determination:I won’t give her the satisfaction of dying yet.Macabre, perhaps. But it helped. After all, shewasLukoi. Spite was the main reason they were all still here, whether villager or Compound-dweller.
“I wonder what he’s working on.” Sasha set the tea to steep and wiped his hands on a towel. He went over to the table where Micah had set up his slate and tools. Peering down, he said, “Doesn’t make much sense to me. Is he, aw, making you a throne? That sounds about right.” He picked up the slate. “I don’t know what these arrows mean, though.”
“Sasha, put that down before you erase something.” He wouldn’t mean to, of course, but his hand was almost the same size as the slate itself.
“Yeah, good point, babe.” Sasha returned the slate, then picked up a curved piece of wood and blinked at it. “Snow-Walker has a chair with a bottom like this. I thought it was strange, but it turns out if you sit in it, it moves back and forth. Maybe Micah is making one of those.”
“Sasha,” Viv said, shaking her head fondly. Her husband’s curiosity was just part of who he was. “Remember how I don’t like when you pick up my tapestries and ask what they are, before I’m done with them?”
“Yeah, yeah, artist’s mystery and all that.” Sasha put the wood down and went back to the stove to pour the tea into a mug. He added a bit of honey and brought the drink to her. “Here you go.”
She smiled and took the tea, sipping it and eyeing him. He was wearing a shirt, but it was loose enough that she could see the marks on his shoulder from Micah’s teeth, and she shivered remembering last night, how good it had been between them.
“Kneel here for a minute,” she urged, and she barely needed any of her natural dominance to make Sasha do so. She laughed, setting the tea aside and running her fingers through his hair. “Someone’s awfully agreeable today.”
“Aw, come on, you know I’m always agreeable,” Sasha said, leaning into her touch. He chuckled. “Probably a little more so today, though, yeah. Can’t lie, last night was fuckingawesome.”
She laughed and tugged on his hair. “It was, wasn’t it? The two of you together were quite something.”
“Right?” Sasha beamed, as he should. He’d taken quite a lot. “And next time, he can use the briar bitch, some salt,reallyget me going.”
“You are insatiable,” she teased, patting the side of his face. “But do you think there will be a next time?”
Sasha looked confused. “I mean, sure. Why wouldn’t there be?”
Viv sighed. She loved Sasha with all her heart, but he was one of the most easygoing people she’d ever met and tended to think people were less complicated than they were. Which wasn’t necessarily a problem, since they wouldn’t be married otherwise: he’d seen her as desirable and appreciated her talents, when others thought she was strange and best avoided due to the tragedy of her family line.
Being so reliant on strength for survival meant the Lukoi had little tolerance for perceived weaknesses. Sasha was one of the few who didn’t see Viv’s recurring health episodes as a point against her. He wouldn’t see Micah’s need to avoid crowds as anything other than part of who he was, either. But for people like Viv and Micah, that sort of attitude was the exception, not the norm.
“Micah’s people, when they have sex, it usually means they’re mated for life,” she said.
Sasha shrugged. “Not like I want him to leave. And you don’t, do you? I thought you liked him.”
“I do like him,” Viv assured him. “I like him a lot.” She did. It was surprising how seamlessly Micah fit with them, like a thread in a tapestry that both brightened and complemented a design. Micah could keep up with Sasha without adding to her husband’s chaotic energy, and his intensity for his work was well suited to Viv’s own. He was thoughtful and kind, and his dominance didn’t keep him from letting Viv boss him about a bit, which was a plus.
“Then what’s the problem? Did he say there was a problem? Did I do something wrong?” Sasha looked crestfallen.
He loves Micah already,Viv realized. Of course he did. Sasha gave love like flowers gave pollen in the spring—as if there were no other choice, as if he had an unending well of it to share. And Micah, despite what he might have been taught, was an easy man to love. She was headed that way herself.
“You were wonderful, and you know it,” Viv said, leaning over to kiss the top of his head. “But we’ve had others join us before, and they didn’t stay.”
“Yeah, I know, but they weren’tMicah,” Sasha said, like it was obvious. “He’s not, you know, just for sex.”
