Sephtis

26. So he explains.

He takes my arm, stopping me in my tracks.

"I know you are guiltless," he says. "You missed the meaning of my words, wolf-woman. By the gods stop struggling and just listen!" He sighed in frustration as I finally stopped, he ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the golden brown strands. "I do not understand you, I offer you a fine thing... And you run away as if it is an insult. What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me," I mutter, for we are now alone. I am breathing hard, and my thoughts are scrambled like the mice when the wolves chased them. "This is to much to soon Eleutheros. I have not thought of this yet."

"How long must you have to think? A day? Two?"

"I do not know."

"What is there to think about?! Marriage releases you from your bondage to the kings house, and it releases me from my duties as pledge-son. It would suit us both well. I like you, your company pleases me, and your kisses are not too repulsive. Smile Sephtis, I only jest. I love your kisses, and I thought you loved mine, or have you lead me on?"

"I have not toyed or lead you on Eleutheros, remember you started this, by talking to me that night in the rain!"

"Which you lured me in because you looked so lovely and lost in the downpour, so unlike everything the village people had said."

"I-" I huff in frustration. "I only ask for time. My world has much changed since the last full moon, and I do not know where my heart is."

"It is because your life has changed that I ask you to be my wife. It is a way out of your trouble."

"I was not talking of my trouble with the village, when I said my world had changed. I was talking of my time with the wolves."

"The wolves?! By the blood of the gods, woman, are you saying they have changed your life? They are the reason you hesitate ? Would you rather be with them than myself?!"

He is shouting, and I cannot bare it. I walk on swiftly, leaving him ranting in the darkness. We are almost to the moat and only one canoe is left on this side. Getting in, I start paddling to the other side, leaving him stranded. But when he reaches the water and begins taking off his clothes to swim, I feel guilty. So I stay in the middle of the moat, waiting, watching him. I can tell by the way he flings his clothes onto the bank he is still angry. He jumps into the water, and swims towards me. The water is only waist high, he could have just walked across if he had wished. But he swims, then disappears under, and I no longer can see him. I paddle again, all the while looking for him. When he does not appear my alarm grows. Suddenly the canoe bumps against something, and before I can scream, I am capsized.