Oh, but Acton did love her. That was exactly what he was afraid of.
Something in him loosened at the sound of her words; he hadn’t realized he’d been braced for a different answer until he was relieved to hear the one she gave. “Lucky me, then,” he said in response, and grinned his crooked, carefree grin. Any ghosts fled in the moment Acton crossed to her, scrubbed clean by the coarse desert wind.
He pressed his muzzle to her girl-slim shoulder, inhaled the scent of her, sun and spice and something warm-sharp that reminded him of Bexley. For a moment he closed his eyes and pictured her small, wobbling on thin legs, her hair like wisps of cloud. No illusion could be so perfect.
When he opened them his citrine gaze found the weapon tucked to her hip, its gleaming edges marking it the brightest thing in the desert tonight. What other token might a girl keep there? A shawl, a basket of lovely, tender things?
But not their daughter. Acton is both proud and a little ashamed, and the two mix poorly, mingled wine and gall. The buckskin did not know how he ought to feel, never having had a parent himself, but somehow from every angle he looked at it he didn’t measure up.
Maybe it had something to do with why he didn’t think much on it. Why he tried not to look north, tried not to think of the sun full and hot on his skin, or a girl that made him spark like flint.
“What are you up to out here, anyway?” he said, and his voice echoed out across the cool and waiting sands, as if to reiterate his question - for there was nothing, nothing, nothing but trouble in the dark expanse of the desert.
Not that Acton knew a thing about that. Not that he was surprised to find his daughter out in the middle of it, either.
@
these violent delights have violent ends
