The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords
“You killed a man,” Niccolette said. She did not shy away from the words, although there was something - almost a gentleness - to her voice. “If you had not, he would have killed you or me, if he could have.” There was the faintest edge of a smirk to those words. Niccolette shrugged. “He chose to come to that island, to try and lay a trap for me. If he did not know the risks, it is because he was a fool. This is conquest. There is no other way.”
Niccolette was watching Demkaih; the older galdor had given up the pretense of looking away from her. His teeth tangled in his lower lip, and she felt him freeze when her hands lifted to the tie of her robe, even his breath hitching in his throat.
Niccolette held still and patient when Demkaih reached for her; there was a little smile on her face. She shivered as the backs of his fingers traced down her bare arm. She did not lean closer to him, but she was turned, facing him, on the chair and she did not move away either. His finger crept back up, slowly, winding its way around the bruise he had left behind on her skin, tracing the contours of it. It did not quite hurt, but Niccolette felt it, very keenly, all the same.
Niccolette had been award of the surge of some taut emotion in his field; she welcomed it deeper into hers, and let it dissipate in the mona-thick air between them. She felt no such; not sadness, not anger, not hesitation or embarrassment. Not guilt and not shame, either. Demkaih’s throat moved, and he looked up at her, and the curve of Niccolette’s smile widened, ever so slightly.
He pulled his hand back as if he might have hurt her; there was something rough beneath the surface of his usually controlled voice. “Do not apologize,” Niccolette murmured, with a faint shake of her head.
The Bastian’s eyebrows lifted at the mention of her husband. She did not move to cover herself again, to tug the robe back up where Demkaih had slipped it down. It held still on her other shoulder, although only just, loose and open, the tie still undone.
“Uzoji is not here,” Niccolette said, gently. She had not flinched when Demkaih spoke his name; she did not flinch when she herself did. There was no guilt or shame from her in the air around them, only a further softening of her field. They were mingled deep together now; Niccolette had let him in, although she wondered if Demkaih knew how quickly she could force him back out - if she chose.
“I am,” Niccolette continued, firelight glittering in her eyes. Demkaih was breathing shallowly, every movement of his bare chest visible in the gleam of the stove’s light. He looked at her once more, and confessed that he was not a good man. Niccolette smiled a little broader, and did not look away. He leaned in, closer.
The Bastian reached up, and cupped the Mugrobi’s cheek in her hand, as best as she could. Against it, her hand was small and slight; her fingers, fully spread, would barely have covered him. Her thumb stroked, gently, back and forth over skin of his cheek; she traced it down, slowly, to brush over the corner of his lips.
Niccolette came closer, then, close enough that her leg brushed his through two layers of silk and the heavy cotton of his towel; Niccolette could feel the contact fully, the hard muscle solid against her.
Niccolette had never been one to wait, to hesitate, to delay; she had no interest in pretense, wine and battle hot in her veins. The Bastian did not wait for Demkaih to make up his mind, to decide what the value of her husband’s memory was worth to him, to worry about what being a good man entailed. Instead, she eased her hand back away, still soft against his cheek, and kissed him.