I could see the spark in his eyes. I watched the way he circled the panther, the way his eyes gleamed with questions, the way his ears tilt this way and that. The way his head does the same. I could almost see the gears whirling in his brain as he processes it all. I could even almost hear the questions that he was asking himself before he would turn to me and ask me, but them my words seemed to have distracted him. Catching Ryss's eyes as our boy's eyes light up, makes my heart do weird flip flop things in my chest.
And then he is curling into me. Shock makes me pause but then my lips touch his back, nuzzling down his neck and across his spine even as his own brush against my shoulder. Too soon he is gone, but his warmth and smell still linger on my skin and in my nose, his eyes back upon his panther. How? Why? When? What? Who? Where? Words that always seemed to be a part of my son's vocabulary.
I smile at them, because I knew they were coming. "That is the basic concept. Yes. Yes. Him." I answer in one word answers to all his questions. And then the last one. "He has his own intelligence and can make decisions based on what he knows, which is quite a lot since I made him." A smug smile curls my lips.
Ryss is nudging him on the shoulder and I cannot help my quiet laugh. I love watching Ryss and Tycho interact, the typical boy faces that he makes as his mom interrupts him. "Love you too son." And then he is off. I tuck Ryss to my chest as we watch him walk away and then....
My wife is all over me. Okay, not really but she is insinuating all kinds of naughty things. Whoa...wait a minute? Wife? Where did that come? It fit, but huh, that was a little surprising. I do a mental shrug and continue on with my lips finding their own way across her skin. Her ideas make me smile, and I bite her back. No blood, no, none of that yet, but later if I have my way.
"I have a better idea." And I'm trailing bites and kisses across her face and then down her body, finding those really sensitive places that I know she likes.
---
Hours later, darkness has surrounded us. The moon was bright in the sky, high and full. I make the meadow glow once I can breath, once my breath isn't a ragged thing in my lungs and my legs can hold me again. Her little purple violets casting a soft purple-white light across the ground. I can see her and my lips touch her cheek. My heart stutter stops in my chest as I look at her. "You are beautiful Ryss." I say softly, oddly serious tonight as I take her in.
I step back after nudging her against the backdrop of our part of the meadow, looking at the way the white light of the moon falls on her mane and the way the violets add their own fairy lights in the background.
"Ryss, do you think....that....well.....can we handfast?" I duck my eyes in my nervousness, knowing she loves me but how much? Was she willing to make her more a part of my life with my past? With all the hate and the dark and the pain? Who the hell was I kidding? We both had darkness in our souls and our hearts, I don't know if I could ever be rid of mine. Sometimes it hung over me like a cloud. But Ryss, she was my light, my life, the only reason I felt anything.
"It's like marriage, only more us. We can make our own little ceremony, make our own symbols...make it all so us. Do you think that would be okay?" And here is where I finally make myself meet her eyes, because I am not a fucking coward, even if proposing to her scares the ever loving shit out of me.
And then he is curling into me. Shock makes me pause but then my lips touch his back, nuzzling down his neck and across his spine even as his own brush against my shoulder. Too soon he is gone, but his warmth and smell still linger on my skin and in my nose, his eyes back upon his panther. How? Why? When? What? Who? Where? Words that always seemed to be a part of my son's vocabulary.
I smile at them, because I knew they were coming. "That is the basic concept. Yes. Yes. Him." I answer in one word answers to all his questions. And then the last one. "He has his own intelligence and can make decisions based on what he knows, which is quite a lot since I made him." A smug smile curls my lips.
Ryss is nudging him on the shoulder and I cannot help my quiet laugh. I love watching Ryss and Tycho interact, the typical boy faces that he makes as his mom interrupts him. "Love you too son." And then he is off. I tuck Ryss to my chest as we watch him walk away and then....
My wife is all over me. Okay, not really but she is insinuating all kinds of naughty things. Whoa...wait a minute? Wife? Where did that come? It fit, but huh, that was a little surprising. I do a mental shrug and continue on with my lips finding their own way across her skin. Her ideas make me smile, and I bite her back. No blood, no, none of that yet, but later if I have my way.
"I have a better idea." And I'm trailing bites and kisses across her face and then down her body, finding those really sensitive places that I know she likes.
---
Hours later, darkness has surrounded us. The moon was bright in the sky, high and full. I make the meadow glow once I can breath, once my breath isn't a ragged thing in my lungs and my legs can hold me again. Her little purple violets casting a soft purple-white light across the ground. I can see her and my lips touch her cheek. My heart stutter stops in my chest as I look at her. "You are beautiful Ryss." I say softly, oddly serious tonight as I take her in.
I step back after nudging her against the backdrop of our part of the meadow, looking at the way the white light of the moon falls on her mane and the way the violets add their own fairy lights in the background.
"Ryss, do you think....that....well.....can we handfast?" I duck my eyes in my nervousness, knowing she loves me but how much? Was she willing to make her more a part of my life with my past? With all the hate and the dark and the pain? Who the hell was I kidding? We both had darkness in our souls and our hearts, I don't know if I could ever be rid of mine. Sometimes it hung over me like a cloud. But Ryss, she was my light, my life, the only reason I felt anything.
"It's like marriage, only more us. We can make our own little ceremony, make our own symbols...make it all so us. Do you think that would be okay?" And here is where I finally make myself meet her eyes, because I am not a fucking coward, even if proposing to her scares the ever loving shit out of me.