Winter Prey

Chapter 36

"You mean, eats people? Tears their flesh from their bones, maybe while they're still alive, and consumes it amidst the blood pouring out of them? Don't try to hide that you're psychoanalyzing me and my reactions, Kymbria. I'm well aware of what probably happened to Mona and Skippy. I'm not ignoring that."

"That might be the problem," she repeated, carefully studying his reaction. He shuddered, his face crumbling in pain before he caught himself. "Can we sit down and talk this out? Anger clouds things."

"Anger? Hell, yes, I'm angry! What do you expect? This thing - or one like it - killed my wife and son. It took an elderly woman I'd befriended - a wonderful woman filled with knowledge and caring - while I slept after drinking too much of her booze. It had the deliberate gall to leave proof positive that it had been there. Now you're standing here hinting that you're going to place yourself in danger from it. Another woman I'm starting to care a hell of a lot for!"

She couldn't suppress the smile that grew with his words, and she walked over to him. Hands at her sides, she paused close enough to touch him if she wanted. "Ditto, Caleb McCoy. At first, I just admired you. It doesn't hurt that you're a good-looking man. I've always been drawn to men who take pride in their bodies. You're also a determined man, a courageous one, a man who cares deeply. Not only about your own quests, but for the people you encounter."

Did she dare admit how deep her feelings were running? How she'd started believing that this man might just be someone she could love? Build a new life with? No, neither he nor she were ready for that. Instead....

"And I like your kisses, Caleb McCoy." She stretched up and kissed him, lingering, allowing the feelings she had begun to acknowledge for him to flow between them. When he growled low and reached for her, she stepped back. "There will be time to follow up on whatever's growing between us later."

"Not if you get yourself killed," he snarled in a somewhat tempered tone, then moved a few steps over to the sofa and collapsed. He rubbed his hands down his face and stared back at her. "I don't know how much more I can take. If I could just face this thing, at least try to kill it. After the wreck, it left before I could regroup enough to do anything."

She settled on the sofa beside him, out of reach, as much to keep her own focus on what they needed to discuss as anything else. Scarlet, who hadn't left her side since they arrived, climbed up beside her and laid her head on Kymbria's knee. She smoothed the silky head as she said, "That's another thing I'm trying to figure out. People hunt the windigo because it's what people do."

"And that means...?"

"We're hunters. Have been since time began. It's part of the life cycle. Hunt, eat what we kill so we can survive from the deaths of lesser beings. The survivors hunt some more, continue the cycle. We also kill our enemies. Our total focus is on destroying them however we can. We don't let emotions interfere. We don't think of the other people as having the same feelings we do. Having families, loving them. We don't face the fact that the people we kill in war have families that grieve for them."

He visibly shook himself, then leaned back on the sofa with a sigh. "I see where you're going. Look at how the slaves were treated when they were brought over here. Tracked down and captured because they could be used to provide physical labor to make life easier on the white people. No regard for what they were being taken away from, families they loved, lives they had built. Once here, they were treated like animals, beasts of burden without human emotions. Children torn from their mothers' breasts without regard, like litters taken from dogs or cats. Because they were only animals, they didn't have the same feelings for each other that white people did."

"And my people, who occupied this land long before the whites came," Kymbria added. "They were treated the same way, as though they were incapable of having emotions - love, caring, family tenderness - like the white encroachers had. But we look back now and realize that life did go on, life worked out. People survived, albeit in different ways than perhaps they'd envisioned."

He nodded in agreement. "The Universe didn't implode. Lives carried on."

"In my opinion," she continued, "and, understand, I'm not saying it's right, but nothing else has worked...."

"Go on."

"Well, it's still rather murky to me, but I'm beginning to believe that you and I were both brought here for a purpose in this."

"A path foretold, one written by the Universe." It wasn't a question.

She hesitated, unsure how he would react to her next comment. Still, it needed to be said.

"We need to get inside the windigo's mind." As she expected, anger flashed in his eyes, but to his credit, he withheld his urge to dispute her.

Instead, he said, "Does this have something to do with what Niona told you?"

"Yes." She took a deep breath. But try as she might, she couldn't tell him the deepest, darkest part of what her mother had revealed. She would have to make do with a portion for now, since she'd already started the reveal.

"I know we've argued about whether this thing has emotions or is just a...well, an animal," she began. When he opened his mouth to interrupt, she held out a hand. "No, you need to listen for now. Then we can discuss this more."

At his reluctant nod of agreement, she clasped her hands in her lap and told him the story. Told him about what had happened to the war party and how one warrior had survived.