He didn’t have to add that the stones were the same shade as my own human eyes. I ducked my head, feeling the weight of the knife and its history in my hands.
“The scabbard,” he said, “is velvet-covered wood, jade-mounted, nineteenth century, with a carved jade chape and lock. A certain wily salesman suggested that the blade is charged with a spell of life force, to give the wielder the ability to block any opponent’s death cut. Pure balderdash, but it makes a nice tale.”
Silence fell between us, and I sheathed the blade, sliding it into the scabbard that had been shaped and carved just for it. The chape of the scabbard and the quillons met, the carved lotus flowers snapping together perfectly, with a small tap of jade on jade. “Why?” I asked, gesturing to the table with the dagger and scabbard, and then to the knife with my free hand. “Why this combination of . . . stuff?” Why flowers and catnip? But I didn’t ask that part.
Bruiser reached forward and took the blade, placing it in the nest of scarlet velvet. He took my hand. His palm was heated, the skin callused, and his fingers closed over mine. Deep inside me, something that was raw and ugly and bleeding stopped aching. Just . . . stopped.
“I thought for a long time about how to approach you. I thought about jewelry, or a Harley. I have a beautiful, fully restored Indian I thought you might like. I thought about a piece of Cherokee pottery I have somewhere, packed away. But each of those things touches on only a part of you.”
I tilted my head, watching our hands, not his face. His hands were well formed, fingers slender and strong.
Not reacting to my silence, Bruiser went on. “I chose these things because they seemed to speak to the heart of you. To the deep darkness that is part of you. That still, lightless, solemn place where, I think, no one has ever gone.”
My hand tightened, ever so slightly, when he described me, the hidden me, the soul home where all that I was, and all that I am, and all that I might someday become, lived. My soul home, in the tribal fashion, was a cave, an empty cave, with water-smoothed rock walls, and a fire pit in the center.
“You have honor,” Bruiser said. “That is a rare quality in this world.” He lifted my hand and pressed my knuckles to his mouth. His lips were hot and firm on my icy flesh.
I was now breathing too fast and shallow and I felt the cold prickles of hyperventilation.
“Men don’t think to give you flowers,” he murmured, his lips moving on my skin before he let our hands drop, still clasped, “because you have the heart of a warrior. The soul of a priestess. The heat of a long-burning fire. But we should give you flowers, all of us, if for nothing but to share their wonderful fragrance and beauty.” He smiled slightly, his lips moving in my peripheral vision. His thumb stroked the skin on the back of my hand, once, twice, slowly. “That is why the flowers. The catnip, that quiet, delightful scent, is for your beast, the cat I saw you become, one night.”
I pulled in a slow, nearly painful breath. Smelling the catnip. Inside, Beast rolled over, paws in the air, and purred.
“The dagger? Because you are a weapon, from the soul out. And because I have been such a weapon, and shall be one again, if you agree. The china and crystal, the linen napkin and silver spoons,” Bruiser said, “are more for me than for you. Because I have been all those things, once, long ago, and I would share that world with you, if you will let me. If you will let me stay with you.”
I pulled in another breath, feeling light-headed again. The scents of catnip, tea, and steel filled me like a mist fills the night.
“For a reason or a season,” he said. “For a year or a lifetime. For a poem or a song. For a victorious battle or a bloody death. For honor. I would stand by you for as long as I might live.”
Questions filled my head, bouncing like balls in a box. I looked up from our clasped hands, into his brown eyes, afraid of what he might be asking me. His eyes had golden flecks. Had I noticed that before? And his nose. I found his nose so captivating. It was bony and commanding all at once. His hair, the color sable in this light, fell over half of his forehead and down into one eye, tangling with his lashes. Through the falling strands of hair, I could see, barely, his widow’s peak and the tiny mole that rarely showed at his hairline.
As if he knew my questions before I thought them, he said, “If we survive this coming war, you and I, we may live three or four human lifetimes, far longer than any human has lived since the flood, since Methuselah walked the Earth. Jane Yellowrock, I want you to be part of that life, in whatever form or capacity you may choose. I won’t push; I won’t demand. But I wish to be with you, if you will allow me to do so.”
“And if Rick comes back?” I hadn’t expected to say the words. Had no idea where they had come from.