Sleeping Beast Ch. 10

Tying the thick brocade belt, he settled himself on a small ottoman, and took a moment to simply look her over. Her eyes flickered uneasily back and forth between his, but they weren't as puffy or red today as they'd been yesterday or the day before, thank God. Argus honestly didn't think he could cope with any more tears. He sighed again.

"Troi, there are many things you don't know about us."

Her eyes fluttered over the walls and curtains before coming back to his.

"I don't . . . this is too long and too complicated to spell out now. Nivid is hurt, badly."

He let her stew for a second, her eyes panicky and bright.

"Not his body, Troi: his soul. And I'm saying his, even if it's ours, because my part isn't-- isn't-- " His hands gestured weakly, seeking a way to convey concepts for which language hadn't been invented, and finally giving up on the attempt.

"When we did as you'd asked us to do, sharing minds like we hadn't done in such a long time, I learned many things. I learned Nivid's theory about the curse, I learned that my body is dying, and I discovered that Veli has been spending all day, every day, terrified that he will lose you."

Her gasp was audible, her body still and straight.

"You are his salvation." The shrug Argus added said he believed it was inevitable.

"I've had no wife, no children, no long-term lovers, but as you pointed out, I can go to a city or town anytime I wish to socialize. Nivid would be feared and hated and likely slaughtered. Before you came, the emotion he scented most frequently was fear, but the one most damaging to him was disgust. And everyone reacted with disgust, Troi. Even me at first, even Talgut.

"You . . . you are the only one . . . the only woman who hasn't hated and feared him, who has listened to him and held him and loved him despite his appearance.

"The night you first faced him in front of the fire, you tapped one of the gold rings he wears, and you smiled at him, and you gave him back his soul. The witch had taken some of it, the curse took more, what we had to do claimed the largest portion, and disgust took the rest. You, Troi . . . your smile, your arms, your touch, your kiss . . . your love and respect . . . you gave Nivid back his soul.

"And he's been terrified of losing you-- losing his soul again-- since the night we told you the truth about the curse. When you learned it was possible for he and I to share a mind and a body, he felt your desire to leave, and he hasn't forgotten. He is terrified. He doesn't call it that, not even in the darkest corners of his heart, but that's what it is.

"The morning he left, I also learned that my mind has been wandering while I sleep. Four? five times? now, my sleeping mind has broken in while Nivid was making love to you. I don't remember it, but Nivid has been unable to block me. He's convinced you'll leave him when you discover this, but he hates himself for being a coward and not telling you. He meant to tell you that day, too, and again he didn't."

Argus paused for her reaction, but Troi didn't even twitch. Her eyes showed no sign of the fury or disgust his brother feared, but Argus didn't lower the shield he'd erected the minute he heard the thunder of her small fists on his door.

"This has been his life for weeks. On top of me being a bastard to everyone, Nivid knew that my body is dying, and now I'm dreaming invasions which he's certain will send you running.

"You can imagine how he felt." Argus paused to examine her reaction. Her face was flat and empty but for her eyes, and the intensity he saw within was impossible to read.

"Now imagine how he felt when we ran from the castle that day: he believed he'd find you torn to pieces by the pack, but when he faced you in the meadow and let his own feelings slide away, he sensed yours. Not only was your love for him absent at that moment, you were horrified that you had been with him; you were disgusted."

For a long moment, he looked away, hiding his thoughts as he collected himself.

Argus finished the soliloquy by answering her question. "He's in a cave, not eating, not being," he said simply. "I have everything-- his will, concentration, but not consciousness-- and he's barely conscious. He's barely alive, and he doesn't want to be."

He lifted his eyes and waited for her to speak.

Much as she'd watched Talgut, Troi hadn't moved while Argus spoke. Her eyes had been on his, but she'd mostly been seeing memories. She remembered their very physical lovemaking session and wondered if Argus witnessed, or mayhap experienced, Nivid holding her against the bedpost, but Troi found she no longer truly cared. Nivid was still Nivid. She just wanted him back.

She was twice as sick to her stomach as she'd been after deciding her family members were all murdering, godless rapists, but this time her disgust was directed inward. She pushed the feeling away as unhelpful and ignored the tears slipping down her cheeks, unobstructed by hand or handkerchief. "Where?"

Argus shook his head.

Troi's first thought was for the wolves, maybe they could lead her to him. That seemed doubtful, however, and she didn't have time to waste. Her eyes re-focused. Her second thought was much better. Difficult, and painful for everyone, but better.

She took a deep breath. "You're ill."

Argus nodded, his brow wrinkling. He could still walk, still search, if that was her point.

"But you've been sleep-- dreaming-- whatever you'd prefer to call it, and Nivid hasn't been able to block you."

Argus nodded again, although she'd phrased it as a statement, and her words felt empty, like she was just using them to lead him somewhere.

"Can you do that when you're awake? Do you have the strength?"

Her destination appeared on the horizon of his mind, and Argus' attention sharpened. If anything would bring Nivid back to his senses, this would. Suddenly, he was incredibly grateful for Troi's quirky thought processes. "What do you need me to do?"

"Can he see what you're seeing?"

Argus half-shrugged, nodded his easy assent. That was no challenge at all.

She stared silently through the curtains, for quite a while before her eyes returned to his. "How does it work? Is there a time limit? Can he hear what I'm saying? Will--"

Chuckling, he stopped her. "No, it doesn't end. It's just like your thoughts right now, but feeling with two bodies, smelling through two noses. It's not as confusing as it sounds, because one is always further in the background. But, yes, I can push my consciousness toward him. He can try to block it, but he hasn't been doing that. He just-- he's not even sleeping-- he's just decided not to be there anymore, not to be. I can feel him, still feel his body. He went to the brook for water earlier. So, yes, I can shove my way in there, and Nivid will see and hear everything you say, exactly as though he's in my head, as though this body is his."

She stared blankly again for a minute, and when her eyes settled on him, the first thing she did was blush.

He had to bite back a laugh at the incongruity of seeing such a thing in their current desperate situation. How constantly intriguing she was! And how surprising that she could blush after what she'd endured.

Her cheeks were still pink, but her lashes fluttered up and she met his eyes. "I do not want to be unkind, nor discourteous to you, Argus, but--"

He held up a hand. "This is more important, Troi. Pretend I'm a blank scroll, and you're writing a letter to Nivid. I'm not here, I'm passing everything on to him. For now, I AM Nivid, da?"

"Da. Do-- do you tell me when to start?"

He let a small smile slip out. "No. Just go ahead, Troi; he'll see everything."

She looked down at the floor, biting her lip as she thought how to begin, and Argus pushed most of his consciousness onto Nivid, so he'd see Troi's nervousness, too, see how much this mattered to her.

Nivid also gained a week's worth of memories in that moment, things Argus hadn't been passing him in the past few days: like Troi ignoring them and stomping outside. The only thing he blocked-- which would stay private until sleep changed it to a shared memory-- the only thing he held back was the conversation which had just taken place.

Even before Troi began to speak, Argus could feel Nivid was more present than he'd been all week. Then she lifted her eyes, and both Denovas gasped.

She let everything show. She focused on Argus' hazel eyes, turning them to cloudy gray windows between her and Nivid, then Troi looked at him with all her love written clearly on her face.

"Nivid, come home."

She hugged her elbows. "I don't want to be without you. I don't ever want to be without you."

"I was horrible to you all, and I'm so sorry. I-- I still have a questions, but I need you to put your arms around me, tell me you love me, and that those . . . those other women . . .."

Suddenly Argus saw it: her insecurity, her jealousy, her fear. Thus Nivid saw those things, too.

"I need you to tell me you love me," she said again. "I need you to tell me I'm not like them.

"I'm scared I'll break the curse and you won't want me. I'm-- I'm just a slave, a whore. You're--" One upturned palm swept a circle around the sumptuous room, then her eyes fell and she began to wring her hands. "I wasn't born to this, but . . . you're my family, and when the curse is broken . . .."

Arvid noted how confidently she used the word. When. When the curse is broken.

"I was almost fourteen when the soldiers came," she said. "My parents and my older brother died outside, trying to protect us." She glanced around as though it was the room itself which scared her, but Argus knew her mind was dwelling far away, in a gray felt yurt, not these gilded stone walls.

Her voice quiet, she went on with her tale. "I hid the two littlest ones under some baskets and bedding and pushed Näžibä and the others behind me. I had a knife, but . . .."

The fingers of her left hand went to her other wrist, where Argus saw a faint white line: a scar, three inches showing before it disappeared beneath her sleeve. Under the padding of numbness, a splinter of fury worked its way toward the surface of the brothers' skin.

"There were too many of them. They killed the younger girls and took me and Näžibä." Tears fell in rivers down her cheeks, but when Troi lifted her gaze to Nivid, her voice was unwavering. "I prayed to all my gods, I prayed so hard, that my two little brothers would be quiet, would stay hidden beneath the blankets until the rest of our clan could rescue them."

She stopped to gulp air. "The soldiers-- they pushed us down and cut our-- Näžibä wasn't even old enough to have a dress yet, just trousers and her tunic. I held her hand and tried to sing to her while-- it--"

She struggled to explain her broken memories, settling for the reason some were missing. "One of them punched me."

"I didn't know . . . we left--" After another deep, shaky breath, Troi went on, "Näžibä said they set fire to the yurt."

In her airy, quiet voice, they heard the flames of her family burning.

"Näžibä-- she was only ten. There were seven soldiers, and I held her hand. I held her so hard." Troi clenched one hand in the other at shoulder level, gritting her teeth as she demonstrated. "I sang the holy songs for her, tried to call on our gods for help as I'd seen others do, but she was only ten, and there were seven of them."

Troi stopped to swallow, and the silence of her grief was deafening.

"She died before sunset on the second day."

Her clenched hands fell away from one another, dropping to her sides where they lay useless, Näžibä gone. With that gesture, she bared everything to them.

"I didn't die." Her voice was still now, emptied of emotion. "After a week, they sold me to some other men, who cleaned me up, named me, and sold me as a concubine."

She shook her head, her eyes on a long-gone landscape. "I only cried a few times after that, when he-- when--"

She shook her head again, more sharply this time.

"--but I never cried for my family again."

Troi blinked and refocused, her eyes going beyond Argus to his brother, who was more attentive than he'd been in days. "You made me safe, Nivid," she said. "You and Argus and Talgut made me safe. You are my family.

"I love you. You are nothing like those men, the ones who killed my family. None of you are like the men who hurt Näžibä. None of you are cruel or unkind or even thoughtless. I am sorry I said such things. I'm sorry I was weak and let myself think those things. You are not like them. I really-- I don't know why. I just hadn't cried for my family, and . . . somehow . . .."

She shrugged.

"Please come home, Nivid. I don't want to be without you. I never want to be without you." She paused, and her cheeks pinkened.

Argus felt his cock stirring.

Khristos. Half-dead, and I have to cope with this.

None of Nivid's mind slept now. He'd grown ever more present as Troi told her story, and now he was sitting upright in his limestone hollow, eyes open but unseeing as he listened through his brother's ears. He was wet, he noticed, picking leaf litter from his dark, tangled fur. Away across the taiga, Argus smoothed a hand down his sleeve, testing the dampness.

Troi stepped forward and Argus froze. His nostrils flared. He didn't have any animal abilities, but he could smell the soap she bathed with, and shared memory relayed the smell of Troi's arousal. She took another step, and Argus' cock came to full attention.

Nivid stood. Sensing a new sharpness in the beast's primal, predatory drive, the pack rose with him.

Troi put her hand on his chest, and in Argus' mind, he began to swear, a repetitive refrain of every curse he knew, in combinations by the dozen.

Nivid! In his mind, he shouted the plea.

Troi lifted her eyes to his. "Argus, are you sure?"

Mentally, he groaned, but he jerked his chin down in swift assent. If this doesn't get him here . . ..

"I want to be with you, Nivid, but Argus says you can sense whatever he senses, and Argus is here." Troi shimmied out of her chickmen coat and lay both hands on her friend's hard, lean chest.

"I know you like to watch, Nivid, and Argus said he doesn't mind." Standing close enough for Argus' breath to stir the tiny curls at her hairline, she began unbuttoning her dress.

"Dehrmo!" Argus cursed aloud, his mind screaming. VELI!

His brother hadn't moved in days, but he was running now.

What the hell was he thinking? Veli was on his way; he should stop her now. But Argus couldn't open his mouth or lift a single finger to push her away. Maybe she was a witch.

Astonishingly, he felt Nivid's humor stir.

Troi's breasts brushed against him. Even through two layers of cotton, Argus felt the tight buds of her nipples teasing his chest.

Kristos, Veli. I want her so bad.

Nivid was sprinting as fast as he ever had, starting to huff a little, which Argus had never experienced.

Veli, she smells so good.

Nivid wasn't even angry, Argus realized. He was desperate.

And Awake, Veli growled in his head.

Argus' mind was beginning to go soft and out of focus. Veli . . . can I . . .?

Troi finished unfastening her dress and let it slip from her shoulders. The blue silk landed in a puddle around her feet. She was still wearing the trousers, but her short, lightweight summer shift wasn't opaque. Dark peaks poked at the cotton cloth as she moved.

Argus stared. This far worse than the first time, when he'd been lying on the floor staring up as Nivid took her ass. This time Troi was voluntarily brushing against him, touching him, inviting him.

Dress gone, Troi reached under the hem of her shift and untied the bow holding-- Khristos.

His mind stopped functioning, even with Veli's presence and power assisting it.

Her wide-legged silk trousers made a smaller circle on the puddle of her dress, and she lifted her feet to free them, one at a time. Of course, they saw none of that, because the summer-weight shift-- with gargantuan effort, Argus inhaled-- Troi was almost a foot away, plenty of room for him to peer down into the space between them and see the shadowy triangle revealed by her filmy shift. Beastly nose or not, he could smell her now.

Troi was talking again, her hands on his chest, and he lifted his eyes.

"Nivid?"

Veli!

"Argus, will you--?"

The string of internal curses ended on the hard, hollow booming of his heart, as his hands settled helplessly on Troi's waist.

She slid her hands up over his shoulders and around to the back of his neck.

Dear God, Veli.

With a push of will he wasn't aware he had, Argus closed his eyes and jerked his chin higher before their lips could meet.

"No," he gasped, "not like this, Troi."

And somehow . . . somehow . . . he managed to step back. When his desperate and uneven gasping made him light-headed, he propped his hip against a side-table. Not wanting to further alarm Nivid with a clearer view of his woman, Argus pushed his brother away before lifting his eyes.

"Veli's on his way, Troi. It worked. You did it."

She was standing in the middle of his bedchamber, half-nude, staring. Troi wasn't as naïve or selfish as Argus sometimes thought: she knew what he felt for her and she knew that what they'd been doing-- calling Nivid in that manner-- must have been incredibly difficult for Argus. She shook her head and plucked her trousers from the pile. "No, we did it."

In half a minute, the tantalizing scent of her body's call had been muffled, and Argus could breathe more easily. In a minute and a half, she was fully dressed, and Argus opened his mind to Nivid again.

It was too late. The door burst open, crashing into the wall and dislodging a painting, which seconded the sound. Troi screeched in alarm, a noise both men found amusing, and launched herself across the room. Nivid caught her and pulled her hard against his chest, where she burst into loud, rib-wrenching sobs.

Khristo, Argus thought wryly, the woman can cry.

Nivid offered a tiny, woeful smile over Troi's bowed head, with an emotion-filled codicil. "Five years, six siblings, and two parents' worth of tears, unshed 'til now." In the privacy of his own mind, Nivid added innumerable beatings, rapes, and God knew what else.

As he departed, he glanced back at his brother, gratitude perfusing every pore of the leathery skin around his black eyes. Thank you, Vesa.

Argus smiled.

As Nivid climbed the tower steps with much more deliberation than he'd ascended the slope to Zamok Denova, Troi's tears slowed. Soon, she was sniffling and wiping wet cheeks with her sleeve. In his chamber, Nivid located a handkerchief, and Troi blew her nose as he lowered himself into the tawny leather chair with his woman in his lap. Sideways, she curled against his torso and went immediately to sleep, leaving Nivid wet, hungry, and hard.

And chuckling. He pushed the image to Vesa, who'd politely withdrawn. Argus found it amusing, too, but half an hour later, he brought Nivid the unappetizing snack he'd scavenged, tiptoeing in so as not to wake Troi.

She woke herself a while later trying to breathe with her mouth closed when her nose was still stuffed shut.

Nivid gave her another handkerchief. She blew her nose half a dozen times and collapsed against his chest with a sigh. Then she squealed and flew sideways off his lap, screeching an accusation. "You smell HORRIBLE!"

Of course he smelled bad, Nivid thought fractiously. He'd slept under a pile of wet wolves for six days. He looked up from his spiky, damp thighs with a wrinkled, angry brow. Troi had both hands clamped across her mouth and nose, and she was staring at him in horror, her eyes wide and round-- wider than they'd been the first time she saw his face in the firelight.