8. Cinis

The human woman – because that is what she has told me she is – shudders slightly. By now, I realize that it means she is still cold.

I feel myself frowning.

Is this dwelling not warm enough? My inner voice is quiet and slightly frustrated.

Not at her but at my apparent inability to keep her warm.

I find myself placing my arm, which I know is warm, around her waist. I drag her close to me, and she does not object.

Instead, she huddles against me.

Eventually, the shuddering of her body subsides, and I watch as her skin, pale as the snow, becomes smooth again, her hair laying down flat.

When she seems to become more comfortable, she sits up and moves away from me.

There is a sudden emptiness in my chest that shakes me to my core. The feeling takes me back to before I met her, when I knew I was lacking something but didn't know what.

"What is it?" I ask her as she looks around her excitedly. Her back is slightly arched, and her lips, glistening and plump, are parted.

Her forehead is furrowed and her eyes are slitted as she seemingly examines the dwelling I made.

A streak of insecurity crashes briefly into me and passes just as quickly, like a lava column that rises from the pits to the ceiling and then subsides.

Is something wrong with what I created? I created it for her. At her insistence.

"What is it?" I ask her again.

She shakes her head before she answers. When she turns to look at me again, her face is flushed, her eyes wide and slightly glassy, dazed.

"It's… it's magnificent. How did you do this?" Her voice is a breathless gasp, and the wispiness of it, the silveriness of it, sends a burst of something dark and growling through my chest.

"I don't understand?" I ask her. Because while her voice, small and gasping like that, makes me want to rip things apart, I do not actually understand the question.

"This house. You just made it out of almost nothing. How is it even standing?" She stands up and then rubs her hands together.

When I look at her, her face looks almost feverish, as though something has set her on fire from inside.

Maybe contact with me has lit the flame inside her that everyone has.

She looks around wonderingly, and then paces around the dwelling. She examines every inch of the place.

A harsh wind whistles outside, and she shudders again, although this time I can tell that the movement is reflexive more than anything else.

"It's amazing." She mutters to herself and keeps muttering to herself as she paws lightly at the rocks and traces the lines of the dwelling, which is not much more than a cave. Albeit a cave with a door and windows.

I do not really know what is amazing about what I have created. I supposed someone like Serena needs shelter, and this would be adequate.

"So you've told me," I say. "Several times."

There are so many things I do not understand about this realm, about this plane of existence.

I cannot help but wonder if I'll ever understand.

The question bursts from me then. The question that has been nagging at me since I pulled Serena away from those dark elves who summoned me.

"Why did they keep you alive?"

I know that she understands what I mean by the way her shoulders stiffen. She hunches over slightly, and her full mouth becomes one thin, flat line.

Serena shakes her head, sighs, and then turns to me.

Her face is wan and tired, and her skin is stretched tight across the bones of her face.

"I had hoped you wouldn't ask," she says.

Still, I watch her expectantly.

"They kept me around because they might have bred with me." Her voice is emotionless.

"Or that's all I can figure. They said they only needed eight humans for the ritual, but there were undertones..."

"Bred with you?" I cock my head to the side. Yet another thing I do not understand.

She sees the confusion on my face and sighs again.

"They might have wanted to have sex with me. For pleasure. Or to make me pregnant so that I could produce more dark elves."

I understand then. Sort of.

And I go cold, for the first time in centuries, as horror descends on me.

"Do you want to… be bred by them?" I ask and my voice is hard even though I expected it to be shaky.

Serena bites down on her lower lip, and for a second I cannot look away from her wide, glossy eyes.

Serena turns then, her shoulders hunched uncomfortably, and I take that as an answer to my question.

My gaze drifts down as she strides away from me to marvel over the dwelling again.

Something unknown, something hot, tightens in my core at the sight of her. She is tall, her legs long and lithe, her body supple and soft.

I manage to swallow an involuntary groan before it slips out. And I know then that this woman, this creature from an entirely different plane of existence, this being made of flesh and blood and probably moonlight from the looks of her skin, makes me want.

I haven't wanted anything except fire and blood for as long as I can remember.

But her. Serena.

I want her.

Thoughts float into my head then. Thoughts that do not belong to me at all. Thoughts that are tight with worry and angst. And curiosity.

He can lift objects with his mind, and he doesn't find that strange? What must he think of me?

I figure out quickly enough that the thoughts belong to Serena. I look at her as she bends down and looks at the ground covering I created.

She does not seem to realize that we are both somehow communicating mentally. Maybe she is doing it without even noticing.

What are these thoughts inside my head? These aren't mine.

Her eyes widen as she turns to me in confusion.

I am used to communicating mentally with other creatures of my kind. But I have never communicated with a different species like this before.

But even though the experience is bizarre, more unbelievable warmth washes over me at the thought that Serena is as intrigued with me as I am with her.

A screaming, blinding, booming wind crashes into the cave-like dwelling then. Serena jumps and shrieks, and to my surprise, she runs at me.

She huddles against me, and I notice that she is shuddering again. Her snow-white skin isn't smooth any longer but is raised with bumps.

Is it a reaction to the cold?

"I don't know what's going on," she says. "But you'll keep me safe through it, won't you?"

"You will be safe," I tell her. I do not know if this settles her or not.

I sense some reservations as she looks at me with a caution that wasn't there before.

I find myself reaching out to her hair, long and soft and golden. I stroke it, the movement completely involuntary.

"How did you survive these blizzards before?" I ask after she does not push me away.

"We made do with what we could. We are refugees. Displaced in this world. And on Prazh, we might be… mostly safe from the dark elves. But our lives are worth very little on Protheka, and we only survive through trusting each other."

We talk for some time, until the wind from the blizzard drowns out our voices. I can sense a growing hesitation in her, but still, she clings to me for warmth.

Then Serena, her eyelids drifting shut every few seconds, sighs.

"Will you make me a bed?" she asks me. I need her to explain the concept to me.

After a while, I try, doing the best that I can.

Serena settles down on it, although I do not miss the look of discomfort on her face.

"Is it to your liking?" I ask her and prod her shoulder gently with my finger.

A smile twists across her face.

"It could be a bit… softer." She chuckles lightly. I look down at the pile of moss and stone I put together.

In one fluid motion, I lean down and lift her in one scoop. Then, as I focus on the bed, I remove the stone and add more moss and peat from outside, careful not to burn it.

She is warm in my arms, and I am reluctant to put her down. But when her head lulls to the side, I know she is asleep and will not be comfortable in my arms.

That looks interesting, I think. Might catch the moss on fire if I sleep next to her though.

Even so, I find myself strangely longing to sleep beside her. She quiets my hunger.

As I float in the air, hearing remnants of Serena's dreams in my mind, I find myself drifting off to sleep.