Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter LIII - Brenna

Now that the moon had shed his veil of clouds, Brenna was caught beneath both his silvery glare and that of the compelling man before her. She watched as Renic's eyes dropped to her mouth, and she thought she detected something ... sensual glimmer in those fathomless depths. She felt her body hum with the preeminence of this stirring moment, and she flattered herself that he could feel it to.

Predominantly, though, his features were as unforthcoming as they had always been. She could not read him. Not even that slight frown hovering at his brow communicated a hint of the thoughts that lay behind it.

"Tell me," she said, "has a Greyback woman managed to conquer your heart whilst you were abroad?" Easily had she comprehended the need that had kept him isolated far away, but the defection of his loyalty to a clan other than that of his birth was something that Brenna felt was unlike Renic. Or perhaps she didn't know him nearly as well as she thought she did. "Is that why you have adopted a new clan?"

"No." An impalpable twitch pressed at one corner of his mouth, only an inkling of a smile. But it vanished so swiftly that she bethought herself she'd imagined it into existence, for he was instantly solemn again. "I want no wife," said he, "to condemn to this life."

She was intrigued by the wry snort that had shortly followed his asseveration. "You find that ironic?" she asked.

"Tis nothing. Only, I have been in Odin's company far too long; and he is quite fond of versifying."

He pulled her fingers gently away from his face. She, however, relented only in dropping her hand to his bared forearm to maintain the contact, the flesh there as hot as his cheek had been, as if that would somehow inspire him to confide in her all that lay heavy in his heart.

"Yes, your mother touched upon that too — your alliance with ... the Allfather." But it was not of the eccentricities of gods and goddesses she wished to speak of just now. "Help me understand your need to leave us." It appeared that he had been wrong after all, words were certainly required between them.

"I cannot stay here any longer, Brenna. I am too much changed; and so is Roth. There is much I understand about myself now, and about him, that I failed to see when I lived within his shadow."

It was true, Roth had always been the more unrestrained of the two. Despite that he could at times be taciturn, Roth had always been a social creature, for the most part, whereas his brother was — or had been — eremitic and quiescent by nature.

"I see for myself that he has become a chieftain worthy of his mother's legacy," Renic went on, "and I am proud of him. But whilst I lived amongst you all, we, both my brother and I, had less identity than we have now. We relied too much on each other; I realize that now. And, in sooth, I have every belief that had I not stayed away, one of us would be dead now."

"What do you mean?" She felt her bones become chilled with dread. "He would have killed you?!"

"Or I might have killed him. Not purposefully, mind; yet who but the Nornir are able to see what could have been had circumstances transpired differently. The repercussions were such that not even Loki had prevised them — the world is too small for monsters such as we, and neither Roth nor myself are submissive by nature.

"Our valdyrer, whether we accept the truth of it or not, are merely echoes of our inner selves. Ironically — despite that I sometimes felt we were two halves of the same beast — we, neither of us, were born to follow the other."

"I see." Even in nature, she admitted, there was no place for two dominant wolves in one pack. In every scenario, one would always be forced to seek out its own clan. "As much as your family and I will bewail the fact, I admit that I see no other recourse but that which you have chosen for yourself. You are no longer Blackmane, for good and all."