Stormfeather Ch. 06

"You listen to me, Arn," she said looking up, "I haven't been doing all of this because I want to torture you and make you feel uncomfortable. I've been doing this because of the way that I feel about you. I care so much about you. From what I know, I'm the only one who's cared about you in a good long while. I think you'd better just get used to it. So if you're now going to feel even more ashamed because of this, I might just have to bite you myself to wake you up, and hellfire, you sure won't like it, my friend. You might have gone alone all this time getting hurt and healing yourself, but now you've got me, and I'm going to fuss over you whether you like it or not. You decide for yourself which is worse."

Her gaze was steady and he knew that she meant every word, but then she seemed to be speaking at least partly to herself, "I can't believe it. You run around almost naked doing things that nobody can do. You save my skinny backside as fast as I can get it into trouble, and then what? You ought to be proud of what you are and what you can do, but are you? Oh hell, no! You're ashamed of what you are and get bashful in front of the girl who's in your corner just because she can see all of you. Jesus Murphy, what are you so afraid of?"

She looked at him with a laugh, "I sure won't bite -- well maybe, but you'd have to ask me first."

She found herself feeling a mixture of relief, joy, affection and concern as her eyes flashed at him, "And this," she said with a tiny bit of pressure from her arm against his penis, "this isn't anything to feel badly about. If you've got any blood left to run your brain with, try to understand what it means instead of feeling foolish. It sure wouldn't be like this if either of us were dead or torn to pieces, would it? It means that we're both alive enough for this to happen. It's natural, and I sure don't mind it. Hell, I'm even flattered."

He said nothing as he stood there in shock from her words, but there was an increase in pressure against the underside of her arm. Amy kissed the wound once more and was about to stand up when she turned and moved her arm away slowly. When his manhood rose toward her, she quickly took it in her hand and kissed it softly as well because she felt an impish desire to make him gasp. As he did, Amy stood up smiling at him.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

She came close to a giggle, but said, "Because it looked like it wanted one too. Because I want to make you feel at ease here with me while I babble like a fool because I'm so happy that you're alright, and because I thought that maybe I ought to try to make friends with it." The way that he regarded her made her abandon the effort at sounding serious and she giggled as he began to laugh. The sound of it flooded her with relief. Finally, she'd made him laugh.

"It is an unusual way to make friends," he chuckled.

"Well," she said, "yesterday, you couldn't believe that I'm not afraid of you. I'm still not afraid, but I think I've found something that makes me just a tiny bit nervous." She opened her eyes wide in an obvious exaggeration of fear, and laughed at herself.

She pulled him forward again to get him at the same level that she stood at and put her arms around his neck to hug him tightly. She pulled back to kiss him. After a few seconds, she opened her mouth slightly and licked his lips very softly for a few moments before she put her head on his shoulder and sighed that it felt so good finally hold him.

"No," she whispered very softly into his ear, "I'm not afraid of you -- even like that. I know that you're wilder like that, but I've seen into your eyes now. That wasn't a cruel thing there looking back, it was still you, only different. And thank you for saving my life again. You put yourself in the way of a lot of pain for me."

"I do not want you hurt. The leader was too stupid to give up and leave," he said, "You were brave again to shoot that one with your pistol. I was surprised."

"What kind of wolf were they?" Amy asked, "Those things were monsters!"

"I have never seen them before, but the old one near the cave told me of them. They were Dire Wolves," Stormfeather said, "They were here long ago, but they lived on bigger prey than what wolves can find now to feed themselves. When their food disappeared, they died away and the grays and reds were left, since they can find enough to feed themselves here, being smaller. But the old one said they still live in the worlds beyond the cave. I saw the tracks coming out when I was there, but I lost the trail and then came here. I do not know why they came here."

He glanced down at Amy's eyes for a moment, "How do you know that old name?" he asked quietly.

"The very first night that I dreamt of you," she said, "I saw you as a boy. You were so adorable. If I ever have a son, I'd want one like you were then. You were huge blue eyes peeking out of a pitch black mop. My heart melted just from your smile. Your father was built a lot like you are now, but he was blonde and had a beard. I saw him teach you to fight with wooden swords, staves, axes, everything, right down to teeth and nails. I could see him struggling when you were slow to learn and he saw no reason for it. It hurt him when he hurt you, but he was careful never to let you see. I also saw how proud he was when you were able to beat him at archery. That was the first time that I heard him say your name so that I heard it clearly. He said, 'Arn, you can now hit your foe in the eye. Make sure now that you put enough into it to drive your arrow out the back, so that his friends may learn fear-"

"-and you might live to fight again." He repeated as she saw his warm smile. He pulled her to him and kissed her neck, "I think I forgot my own name, I have not heard it in so long. Thank you for making me remember him."

Amy reached down to run her fingers over the place in his ribs where he'd been hurt and he flinched again. "I may want to take advantage of your ticklishness sometime soon," she said, kissing his throat. She pulled away a little as she reached behind him to feel for the others, "You're healing well."

He grinned at what she did then, "I do not remember that I was bitten back there."

"Huh?" she said, "Oh, you weren't. I just wanted to touch that for a minute. You have such a nice bottom." She put her arm back on his neck and leaned against him.

"Did you dream of me last night?"

"Mm-hmm" she purred just below his jaw.

"What adventure did you see, then?" he asked with an involuntary shiver from her soft breath in his ear.

"Well," she sighed, "it's partly why I'm doing all of this healing this way with kisses for you out of more than my thanks that you saved my hide again. Last night was the first time that I tried to learn something about you in one exact way as I went to sleep. I hoped the answer would come to me as I slept. I guess it's important because that's what happened. I learned that I can ask to see what I need to see, though I still don't understand how or why I can do this."

"I'm hoping that you might understand something that I don't really understand myself," she said. "Most likely you won't understand this, but ... I feel in a strange way that what I see in my dreams isn't only what has happened or what might or will happen, Arn." She'd been looking at his throat and tattoos, and her eyes had often been drawn to the pale scars as she'd searched for a way to explain herself to him. Finally, she just looked up and kissed him for a moment.

"I sure can't explain it, but I have a really strong feeling that all of this is something that we must do - as though we HAVE to be here - where we are now, the two of us. I don't know why. All that I know is how I feel, and I'm sure I'd feel this way about you regardless, but I just know somehow that you and I are supposed to be together." She rolled her eyes a little, "I just wish that I knew why and whose rules we have to play by, because it goes against about every one that I was raised by." She nuzzled under his jaw for a few seconds because it felt both exciting and comforting to her.

"So here goes," she said softly as he caressed her back, "This is the part where I step away from the schoolteacher and just lay out the cards about what I dreamed if you still want to hear it."

"I want to hear anything that you say, Sheena. More so if it is something which gives you trouble, and even more if you have something about what is happening here. I know nothing about all of this and I must trust your dream-sight." He struggled for a second, "The way that I feel here with you, I think that it is also your heart which speaks a little and I could listen to this forever."

He felt her soft smile against him as she continued, "I know that you find it strange to hear that you're the only one who appears to like me the way that you seem to. I found that more than anything last night, I wanted to learn how to please you because it looks to me as though it's where the two of us are headed and you're very important to me."

Her hand drifted down the front of him, loving the second shiver that she'd caused. She moved herself back a little to give her hand the space to gently hold his manhood, "So I want to be sure that I get it right. I'm sure that you can imagine what I asked about. I know a little about pleasing a man, but for somebody like you? I wasn't willing to risk my own fumbling attempts. I don't get many chances to love someone."

A sudden doubt flashed through her mind at her admission, but before she could act on it and begin to retreat, one of his hands found her long mane against her spine and the other softly cupped part of her bottom. She found herself sighing in relief that she hadn't been wrong. She heard him say "Never," and looked into his eyes.

She felt as though she was standing in a bright blue shower of light as she looked into those orbs, "What did you say?" she asked.

He looked only very slightly embarrassed, "I have never met one like you," he said, "I know that I have said this before, but it is true. I cannot imagine why you do not feel yourself to be beautiful. I think that perhaps it is the cost to you for your ability to dream-walk while you sleep and see things in me when you are awake. But you are so lovely. Last night, you told me of your thoughts that maybe you belong with me."

Amy began to look away, but he caught her chin with his fingers and kept her gaze on his eyes, "Look here," he said, "You have nothing to feel shamed for. It was how you felt. Is this unchanged today?"

She tried to nod her head, but found herself drifting in his gaze, "Nothing's changed but today I feel it even more."

He nodded seriously, but kept his eyes locked on hers, "And you have just now said to me in a winding and cautious way that you feel love for me. I heard you say it. I know that you would not lie to me directly, Sheena, but I have also learned from you that your kind makes sport with your words sometimes. I need to know now that you were earnest with your words. I have not watched you in my dreams. I knew of you only very lately. From what I see between us here, you know something already and feel love for me." He looked away for a moment and then she felt his eyes boring into hers again.

"You cannot know how much this all confounds me, that is why I need to hear this clearly."

The young woman caught there in the blaze of his eyes wanted to quail at first, and then the Irish in her wanted some distance as she searched frantically for a quip or joke to ease or disrupt what she felt coming from him.

"Please stop trying to hide," he warned her, "before I begin to believe that you are not truthful with me. I have lived with my heart torn out for many lives of men and when that ache began to wear away at last, I had even longer to regret my unending time of loneliness. My youth was spent while I was shunned; the only loves which were truly mine were taken from me. I care more for you than you can know, Sheena, but this is something that I have no wish to hear joking over. If you say now that you love me, then say it so that I can understand it plainly."

His breath came out hot against her as he let it out the tension he felt in making this admission to her, "If it is not what you mean to say, then tell me that as well so that you can go back to your thoughts while I go back to my mine. It is all that I ask."

This time Amy did shake her head. She'd never cared to have a line drawn before her like this, and for anyone else, she'd have laughed in his face and never crossed that line. But after a second she knew that he wasn't drawing a line, he was only asking for her sincerity in the only way that he knew. She found that she had plenty of that. Coming from him, it wasn't an ultimatum; she knew that he wasn't that kind of man. His phrasing sometimes wasn't smooth. She already knew that he wouldn't leave her, but he might feel that she didn't like him enough to go where her dreams now told her that they must go.

They were too close now to risk any misunderstanding of each other, and if he needed her to say it clearly...

Amy made the conscious decision that he was asking of her. She looked for the center of his blue gaze and moved herself slightly to be in it as she reached for his cheek, "Then listen carefully."

"I'm in love with you, Arn. I've wanted to be in love with you before I even met you because of what I saw. I'm hoping that I was seeing clearly as I dream-walked as you say it, so I'm willing to take the step to see how much we can make of it if you are."

He kissed her and her knees felt as though they were buckling at the feeling which came to her from inside him. She tried to hold on to him, but had to move her hand under his hair to hold herself up with her hand on his neck to do it. He pulled back and she felt his warm breath against her ear, so soft now as he kissed the side of her throat, "I love you, Sheena," he said, "As much as I am surprised that I even can, I feel love for you."

She heard his tiny groan and realized that she was clutching something else of his tightly and released it to press her belly forward against it between them. "Sorry," she said as she felt herself loving the warm feel of it between their bodies.

"I have something to ask as well," she said after a moment, "I've been standing here naked for all of this time, and I know that you like me like this. I'm very happy to know that I'm beautiful to you. What I want from you is the same thing - that you stop feeling unsure of yourself -- about your body when we're together. It's not right, Arn. I think I understand that it comes from what you are and how some people see you, but you need to forget about it all when we're together. You have nothing to feel ashamed about. I'm very proud of how you look -- in both ways. If you can get over that, then I'd say that you can consider that you have a woman in your life again. Wherever we end up, I want us to be there together."

His warning came to her ears very quietly. It was something that he felt had to be said, in spite of how they both felt. "Sheena," he said, "there is something that you must know. I -- I am, ... when I am not like a man, I am, ...."

He felt her nod against him, "You're wilder. I know that." She let go of him and took his hand as she searched for the rise on the bottom with her toes. Finding it, she stepped up, turned carefully, and pulled him close again.

"Yes, but, ..." He found that though he believed in her acceptance, there was something else. "When I am like that, and if you are near to me, ..." He sighed and gave up trying to search for a nice way to say what he felt needed to be said. "I will want to -- "

"Shh," Amy leaned in close to him. Her words were quiet, but he heard her whisper clearly. "I know that. I'm already dancing as fast as I can on those stones that you were talking about last night and I'm more than prepared to fall in. I understand you, Arn. I saw how you looked at me after you killed the big wolf so I know what's inside you then. I know who I'm in love with, so trust me, I know what you'll want to do. You can't help it. I haven't said that you couldn't do it, have I?"

She heard his breath catch in his throat and looked up into his eyes, "I want you -- no matter which way you are. You don't need to feel ashamed at your nature. People use nice words for it, but it's still the same thing, it's just our need to mate. You don't know how much I've ached to have you and I'm aware that you think of yourself as a beast when you're like that."

She kissed him very softly and leaned up a little to kiss his ear. A moment later, he shivered as he felt her tongue lick along his ear. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I recognize what it is. I want you as a man. Maybe I'm not like most girls -- I sure don't know -- but I also want to be mated by the beast. I know that it's going to be hard for you to do, but I'm only asking that you try to remember that I'm just a human woman and I'm a lot smaller than you are. I'm certain that what you wanted to tell me will happen too, and I'm still not afraid. I'm going to want this from you sometimes."

He found her face before him again and she coaxed a soft kiss from him. "We're still one female and one male, underneath everything. So just get it into your head and let's just accept each other."

He looked into the warm green glow and his heart felt like it would burst. "I never thought I could ever hear words like this."

She nodded against him slowly as she looked up. Her whispers grew even quieter and almost blended into the soft sounds of the stream which emptied into the pool, but he heard them.

"If you hadn't been all torn up and covered in blood, we could have begun right then. It was what I really wanted until I saw how hurt you were, even though I'm frozen stiff. It's important to me that you get over feeling badly about yourself. I think you're wonderful, and in the simplest words, I want you as my male, can you understand that? Is that clear enough for you now?"

She smiled, and when he returned it, she slid her fingers into his hair, kissed his throat and pulled herself close to his ear again.

"We need to get out of this water before we shrivel into nothing and I'm hungry, so I know that you could probably eat a steer right now while it's still walking, so let's do something about that first. But before we do, while I have you in my arms right here, I'm going to make you a promise. We have to stop dancing around what we both need so,..."

She hesitated as she drew a soft breath, knowing that she stood on a precipice and that there was no way back. She was astounded that she now felt so sure that whatever came after this moment, it was the right thing to do for them both.

She already knew that they needed each other, so she stepped off the edge of the abyss and finished her thought.

"I promise that you can have me before the moon rises tonight. It's what I want for us and I don't want to wait anymore beyond that because I think that we both need this. As a man, as your beautiful furry self, one way after the other, I won't care. Just, ..."

She sighed, "Just try to remember not to break your new toy when it happens, that's all that I ask. I really do love you, Arn. You can't imagine how much I want you. I'd just like to survive it if I could."

She was already against him, but now she tried to pull herself up higher. He sensed it and easily lifted her so that their breastbones lined up. What she felt emanating from him then as she tried frantically to express her own feelings overwhelmed them both for long minutes.

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As a note relating to evolutionary biology, Red Wolves live in captivity mostly, though they've been reintroduced into North Carolina and that population is fragile but recovering. Dire Wolves don't live at all anymore. They died out over 8,000 years ago. Both were common in what is now New Mexico during their time.