Sleepy Fox Hollow [m] nomajoka

it was not what heda wanted.
she was not who anselm wanted.
when she and caracal had conceived their children, it had been in love, the first fumblings of a man and wife too young and hopeful to know the sundering that waited for them.
now it was barbarism, all of heda's conscious senses turned against it and resisting. yet these things were not what would control her for the next many days.
when anselm touched her, a breath raked the inside of her throat and she tensed, remembering the pain of his angered teeth. if this was a caress, it was its own sort.
heda let the last barriers crumple and crack, falling away into wormwood powder. their eyes met, and with her own she told him again that she would be good to him if he was good to her, if beneath his cruelty there was something else she could see.
the traditional side of heda didn't want to allow this without a firm commitment from anselm. the side of her religion mutilated by the silence of her lord asked why does it matter? 
she reached for him too, closing her gaze to trail her nose alongside the line of his neck, hesitantly; glancing up toward him from her still-seated place again to watch, to observe his response. and if it did not rebuke her, the widow would offer another.