The Highlander's Charm

Five

"Shhh, Pup... Just breathe... I've got you..." Baigh, for all of his stubbornness, has never been a cruel man... In fact he oftentimes goes out of his way silently to try and help where he can, though I do say I always have to question his motives when it comes to moments like this... 

It had been happening more and more lately... Baigh finding himself curled around me in my bed while I cry... His hand rubbing my back while he tries to soothe away what he thinks is just another night terror, the hard dose of heartache I had just forced us all to swallow the true culprit. 

It had first happened over a year ago... I had been too spooked to go to bed, the tales I had heard around the hearth from some of the other men of what they had seen on the battlefield when they had checked in on the state of the war swirling on around us so endlessly, thoughts of broken bodies littering the ground of all races enough to have frightened me too much to even think about heading to my room all alone with how the imagined eyes had haunted me... And he had found me sitting in the dining hall in front of the fire long after everyone else had turned in. 

At that point, I hadnae known of his affections and had accepted the comfort... and somehow it had become our normal, for me to seek him out when my mind won't rest, though it hadn't taken long for word that he had gone to Papa to ask for me not long after it had started, a choice that Papa had placed on me and had been leaning on me to answer for what feels like ages now... I had stopped when I had happened upon my vampire, my heart bitter just as I know Baigh's would be if he were to ever find out that he's wiping tears from my cheeks caused by the breaking of my heart over another man... But I cannae pull away, the heat from the careful embrace that he's tangled us in so tender for the brute that it shatters me all the more causing an even greater need for his arms to anchor me to the reality we're currently sharing. 

How I wish that these tears would give way and release me to an afternoon of exhausted sleep, for then maybe I shall finally find peace with my decision.  

"Tell me, Pup... Tell me and I shall banish the monsters from yer mind..." Such careful fingertips stroke away some of the tears still streaming down my cheeks as Baigh gathers me closer to him, not knowing that my answer will only cause him pain. 

...

Emory

...

The exhaustion that had been held at bay only by the excitement I had found in my heart over discovering that I had survived long enough to meet my precious Flinn had washed over me with a vengeance the moment my arse had touched the straw, my decision to lay in it so that I might cling to the scent of my- the pup that had just torn my still-beating heart out of my chest an unconscious one, a handful of the hay that had nestled his fragrant curls clutched in my fist and held to my face so that they might soak up the tears surely tinted pink from my recent feed as they fall from my shuttered eyes, my other arm wrapped firmly around my waist to try and contain some of the pain trying to escape me from being left so alone once again...

So much could have been avoided if I had never enlisted... My villagers would still be alive or at least I would have died with them... And I would have never known about the slender red-headed runt that has his fist currently wrapped around my heart as it struggles to find a reason to keep beating... There would have been less pain... Less torment... 

I would not have to try and figure out where I might be accepted after I leave here or who might be close enough to here to give me shelter so that I might not be faced with the mate who does not want me... So that I might not seem like I am trying to push my presence on to him... 

Nae, soon enough his kin would notice the tension surely to be found between us if our paths accidentally cross after this, and they would surely be none too kind to the fact that I have not yet made myself scarce... But that can come after this moment of grief... It can come when I am finally able to manage to breathe without wanting to scream with how much my chest aches at the injustice that seems to be so content following me from what once was a family to one that will apparently never be... 

...

Flinn

...

"Please, Baigh... I'm fine-" Just as I try once again to tell Baigh that he should leave me be he silences me by pressing one of the fingers that had been so patiently stroking my cheeks to my mouth, the look on his face stern as he gazes down at me with the compassion I do not feel as though I deserve.

"I'll not be leaving until you've stopped crying, Flinn, and you'll not be telling me otherwise." I know he won't ever actually leave if he thinks I need him... He's never walked away from me before though I know he would if I told him the real reason for my distress... He'd probably rip me to pieces and then go after the stranger that had seemed so kind... So genuine in his happiness over finding me... A stranger I had left without sparing another look... He at least deserved a parting look to hang on to... 

"I-I'm fine... Now go, you silly ma-" It takes effort to steal my voice, but my bottom lip still trembles against the finger still pressed against it, a finger that is swiftly replaced by a set of lips that shock me.