Dantalion is afraid

Before Dantalion had closed the door behind him – almost before he had opened and stepped through it – Eithne cried, “No! I don’t want you!”

He fell against the tall chest as if he had been shoved. It was the one phrase he could not bear to hear from her lips.

He was learning it was not enough to possess her. She was a frail little creature, and even a mortal man of sufficient strength could do that. What he wanted could not be taken from her. He only wanted her to want him.

Sweetdew dashed past his ankles, meowing, “Don’t just stand there feeling sorry for yourself! She’s about to faint!”

Dantalion pushed the door closed and dashed after her. Three steps, and Eithne was in his arms. He had not known how he would dare touch her, but that problem was already solved. Surely, he thought, the rest would follow.

But she did not relax against him and lay her head prettily upon his shoulder as he liked her to do. Her little body was as stiff as a reed, and her breath came in sharp puffs upon his neck, not one of them pronouncing his name.

Dantalion had held many other such stiff and gasping girls in his arms. There was a place in the depths of stronger women to which they retreated to escape their fear: a last hiding place for their souls when they saw they could do no more to save their bodies. He knew how to reach them there, too – there were greater terrors than mere rape – but he had never cared to learn how to calm and soothe them out again.

Now his wife’s panic was bleeding into him. He had held girls until they died of fright, and for the first time he felt a pang of what they might feel. If she was dying, he did not know how to stop her.

His arms tightened around her, desperately trying to stop at least her panting, and after a moment her body began to relax. He was relieved – until Sweetdew’s claws snagged through his leggings and ripped at the skin of his legs.

“Let go of her!” she snarled. “You’re suffocating her!”

Horrified, he released her, but he was only more horrified when she sobbed and swayed and fell heavily to the side. He caught her again and held her up, tangling his fingers in her hair, afraid to hold her and afraid to let her go.

“What should I do?” he pleaded.

Sweetdew shook her paws free of the knitting and leapt aside to get a better view.

“Don’t crush her!” she yowled. “My mother’s whiskers! And you want us to put a pair of babies in your arms!”

“I shan’t hurt them!” he whimpered.

“And stop playing with her hair! She can’t feel your hands in her hair. Simply hold her – safe, but not tight. I’m not letting you near her babies or mine until you get that right!” she warned.

Dantalion hurriedly slid his hands up beneath the slick curtain of Eithne’s hair as if he had meant to do so all the while.

He loved to find her still awake, after she had brushed it and before she had lain on it, while the locks and curls were still smoothed out into one rippling sheet like water retreating across the sand behind a wave. But it was just as silky flowing across the backs of his hands, and his palm found the warm nape of her neck and settled over it, nestling the top of her spine into its crease.

Eithne relaxed suddenly as if he had released a spring, but she only whispered, “Sweetdew!”

“That’s right, darling,” Sweetdew mewed. “I’m here. Now, you dumb ox, what she needs is a hug. That’s all she wanted all evening, but they locked me outside – ” She paused to give her shoulder a few furious licks. “Then they wouldn’t let her alone with her sister, and now when she finally is, you come barging in…”

The cat sneezed in outrage and hopped onto the couch. She began such a thorough grooming that Dantalion despaired of getting any more advice, but she kept one half-​​lidded eye stubbornly turned in his direction in case he were to earn a scolding.

Eithne’s body had relaxed at the touch of his hand on her neck, but though he had squeezed and stroked and pawed at her, she had given him no acknowledgement since her first, last moment of defiance. His wife was hidden away deep inside of herself, and he did not know how he would coax her out.

He had been dreading this night for weeks, but he had not been afraid until now.