Angelica nodded approvingly as she sat down across from me. “You’ve always had a knack with animals.” She swept the breadcrumbs off the old pine table into her hand. “And something tells me your fighting days are done. You’ve got the look of a broken man.”
“Broken? Gee, thanks,” I said around a mouthful of bread, shaking my head.
Angelica shrugged and pursed her lips impatiently. “I mean, you look tired, Bors.” She reached over and gave my forearm a squeeze. “In all our years, even when I’ve seen you bruised and bleeding, I’ve never seen this look in your eyes.”
She spoke the truth. “Working for the clan has lost its lustre. I’ve earned something better. But I bet you’ve met enough broken men to know when one can’t be repaired.”
Angelica tipped the corners of her lips upward with grace in her shimmering hazel eyes. “Maybe. But I know I’ve never felt a hint of what I see in your eyes now.” She stood from the table and dropped the breadcrumbs into the pig slop bucket beside the sink basin. I knew she was waiting for me to reply, but when I didn’t, she went on, “Horses and animals are all well and good, but they won’t keep you company at night. They won’t see you through the long winter. They won’t fill your house with joy. Why not find yourself a wife? I could find you a willing woman in no time,” she said with a wink, as if to say she might be willing herself.
Just hours ago, I’d have agreed with her that a wife was what I needed. But not anymore. I wanted only her. I knew I was too much of a brute to be with her, but that didn’t stop me from rubbing salt in my wound. “I want to ask you about someone I saw today in the village.”
Angelica narrowed her eyes at me. “Someone?”
“A girl.”
She nodded slowly and shrewdly. “Go on.”
How would I even begin to describe her? How the fuck was it even possible to reduce these impulses, these urges into ordinary words? “Raven-haired. Eyes like emeralds. Skin like cream. Cherry wine stained lips so full they…” I trailed off realizing I was about to slip into a description of things Angelica would understand, but need not be said.
“Sara,” Angelica said, laughing lightly. “She’s pretty. And good. I approve.”
It was a beautiful name and it suited her well. “Sara,” I repeated.
Angelica nodded. “Lives out by the old forge with her family. She’s like an angel among them, if you ask me. She’s far too good for their sort. They treat her like a charwoman, a servant. Never heard them say a good word about her. They don’t treat her right.”
I clenched my beer mug in my hand, so hard I damn near crushed it. The idea of her hurting was fucking unacceptable. “Do they hurt her?”
“It would seem their way. But more than anything, they don’t value her. And that’s its own terrible pain. Take it from me.”
My desire to protect Sara was an animal urge, a simple instinct—a stallion guarding his mare when she went into heat. “I saw her for the first time today,” I said, letting my eyes wander over to the window, looking out into the garden. “I was like a man possessed. An army couldn’t have stopped me from putting my hands on her, nor God himself. The only reason I didn’t touch her is…”
Angelica got the measure of me from across the table, eyeing me up and down. “Talk like that is enough to make a woman jealous. Oh, don’t look so torn, you know I’m only teasing. You and I are better as friends than lovers. So, you didn’t touch her because?”
“A girl like that and a man like me? Fucking impossible.”
“You might have a knack for animals, Bors. But I have a knack for people. You might be just what that girl needs. A man who’ll treat her the way a woman ought to be treated. Take her away from a joyless existence.”
The idea of having Sara made me fucking wild. I felt my heart and cock ache at the same damned time. Still though, it was insanity. “I’ve seen too much of the bad in this world. I’d break her. I’d ruin her,” I said, not entirely sure my body agreed that was a bad thing.
But Angelica poured me another mug of ale, without breaking my gaze, and said, “Storms come on sunny days. Night follows day. The light needs the dark.” She smiled enigmatically. “That’s the way of the world.”
“Maybe.” I considered her words deep down knowing poetry and reality had little in common.
I drew my ale from the mug, swallowed hard thinking maybe drinking would be my new charge. Staying sober without her would be too painful.