“Perhaps not,” she finally says.
I finish cleaning her wrists as she squirms, still mulling over what to do with her. If I leave her, she’ll die. She needs the help of a strong tribe, and the women she was with are clearly her lessers.
But her outward frailness isn’t what bothers me most. The fact that she’s a woman poses grave issues.
How long has it been since I’ve last glimpsed the fairer sex? Too long. A price I had to pay for my own weakness, as have all of my men.
Her cream-colored skin is delicate, contrasting her long dark hair that is still damp from her ocean bath. What’s more, she’s impossibly soft, making her flesh easy to pierce.
My men won’t like that.
Regrettably, I feel myself grow tight against my breeches. It’s shameful that I should want anything so incapable, so helpless.
Is my desire for this girl simply because it’s been so long since I’ve last lain with a woman? While that’s possible, it was she that caught my attention on the shore, despite there being many others.
“I know you can understand me. I just want to know what you’re going to do with me.” Her quiet voice trembled with each word.
Another sign of weakness.
My eyes dart to hers, and I have to look away lest I get caught up in her stormy grey gaze.
Everything about her makes me curious. She doesn’t just look strange; she smells different from the women of Tempest, musky and sweet. I long to drink of their depth, discovering her mysteries.
Which is absurd. Pleasure derived from such weakness would be a grave mistake.
I grab cloth bandages from my bag after putting a thick layer of salve on her wrists, then I begin wrapping them.
“Whatever that second ointment was, it feels good.”
I tie off the bandages, then look at her feet. She yanks her leg away, so I grab her more firmly and give her a stern look.
Her leg turns to jelly.
Her feet aren’t as bad, but there are a few cuts that need tending to. Perhaps I can make her a pair of shoes out of spare scraps of leather.
I pause when I realize how appalling my thoughts have become.
“If you could tell me where there’s clean water, I can be on my way.”
I scoff at her words, knowing there’s no way a frail girl such as she will be able to brave the forest unscathed.
A gust of cold rushes through the forest, and the small girl shivers.
“I don’t understand how it can be so hot one moment, cold the next, then hot again.”
“They’re called ribbons.”
“So you can speak.”
“You don’t belong here.”
“Ah, we agree on something,” she says.
“You won’t survive.”
To that, she doesn’t reply. She just looks at her bandaged wrists, her hands balled into tiny fists. “I’m beginning to realize that.”
I don’t want her to die.