“You don’t know that.”
“As Chief of the Obsidians, I do.”
Her hypnotic eyes flicked back and forth between mine once she understood exactly who she was dealing with. “I thought you might be in charge, but the leader usually sends others to do his bidding.”
“We have too few people for that.”
“What were you doing?—”
“It’s been many days since I slept.” I didn’t feel like explaining a lifetime of war and conflict to a stranger. “Rations are served twice a day. Earn your keep here, and the others will accept you.”
“That means I can stay?” The hardness in her eyes faded, and now she looked scared again, abandoned to a fate that was worse than death, in my opinion.
There were no guarantees. I wouldn’t put the one before the many—even if I did pity her. “Only time will tell.”
I bathed then had dinner alone in my cabin, the fire burning low to warm the home after it’d gone cold in my absence. Dead tired and ready for bed, I sat in the chair in front of the fire and reflected on everything that had happened.
I needed food for my people, and I’d failed.
It was hard to hunt game in the dark. Traps worked sometimes. There were fish in the lake, but they were so few and far between, it wasn’t a reliable meal. We couldn’t grow our food without theapricum, so we were slowly starving.
And it was up to me to fix it.
A knock sounded on the door, and then it cracked open.
She helped herself inside without waiting for my invitation, her long, dark hair past her tits, her eyes hungry for my flesh. She came to me where I sat in the armchair and immediately straddled my hips and dropped her bottom onto my lap. “I missed you.” She cupped my cheek, and then she kissed me hard like she wanted me to take her to bed.
Overwhelmed with responsibility that was about to crack my spine in two, I pushed her off. “I’m not in the mood, Allegra.” I rose from the chair and walked to the opposite side of the room, in the comfortable trousers I wore whenever I was home, which was almost never. “And I don’t think you are either.”
She stood with her back to the fire, her eyes slowly cracking at the accusation. “You know what is expected of us, Morco.”
To conceive the next generation, to repopulate as quickly as possible, to replace the people we’d lost, as if they were replaceable in the first place. “I don’t want to do it.”
She stepped closer to me, moving slowly like I was an animal that might scurry off at her proximity. “You need an heir.”
“Why would I have a child and burden them with responsibility that no person should have to bear? All we do is survive, and Idon’t want to have a child, just to watch him have the same life that I’ve suffered. He deserves more.”
“Morco, I understand?—”
“You don’t understand at all, Allegra. You’ve only chosen me because I’m the chief, because of the royal blood in my veins, because I’m the strongest and the fittest here.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “Yes, that’s exactly why I’ve chosen you.”
“I don’t want children. And if I did, it would be under different circumstances, and it would be with a woman I’ve committed my life to, a woman I love. None of those circumstances applies here, Allegra. Choose another partner.”
“But the Elders, including your mother?—”
“I don’t care.” I wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t take on the additional responsibility of a child when I carried the responsibility of our entire tribe. “And I don’t love you, Allegra. If you want to fuck for pleasure, you know where to find me. But I will not fuck to conceive.”
I saw a subtle flinch across her face, like something I said got under her skin. Her eyes even flicked away. “Morco, I don’t want to choose someone else. You’re the man I want to father my children.”
“How many times do I have to say it?”
“I want to give my son the best chance to survive?—”
“Do you think we’re going to survive?” I asked incredulously. “Some of us will starve to death. Some of us will succumb to disease. And the children who are born of these horriblecircumstances will be forced to fend for themselves. We continue to tread water like a ship is coming—but there is no ship.”
Her eyes watered, and she started to step back. “You don’t mean that. You tell us to keep going.”
