Long into the night he sat before the fireplace, watching as the flames died away to mere embers glowing in the dark. The woman had at some point, drifted off in his arms. Leaving him to contemplate in silence all of the events that had transpired the day before. Had he pushed too hard? Demanded too much? And why should that matter anyway? Was she not a mere slave? Barbaric and of inferior genetic stock?

Late at night sometimes he muddled and brooded over things. And she never knew this of him. For the boundaries of her world didn't exist far beyond her own nose. And as far as she was concerned, it seemed, not only did the sun rise and set only upon her, but the entire universe revolved around the woman as well.

Ok. He had to chuckle to himself in spite of that. Perhaps oneday he would simply beat those errant notions out of her. Then again......... perhaps it was what he found most endearing about her. What he skipped right over, however, was the possibilty that the entire universe did revolve around his Tamaya, and he just might have to put her down. Kill her off.

Frankly, killing her would have been the easy thing to do. But not just because revolving universes were involved. No....... mostly because she complicated his life. She never obeyed without a struggle. Which usually involved some sort of pain, either mental or physical, ( sometimes both ) just to make the wench comply. Ahh, but the more he thought and thought about it, the more he realized that killing her was a very realistic possibility.

Selling her was out of the question. Releasing her back into the wilderness, that too was simply out of the question. Both would have been unsually cruel. And what the wench had failed to understand in all this time, was that irregardless of any brand or collar, the child growing in her belly was of barbaric stock. Inferior in every way. Just like it's mother. The spawn of a natural-born slave. Vermin.

So why did he hold her this close in his arms while she slept? Why did the very thought of strangling her quickly, mercifully in her sleep feel like a heavy brick in the pit of his stomach? Several times throughout the night he would shift her in his lap, mostly just to satisfy himself that she was still there in the pitch black darkness. And several times more in the dark, his lips would find her brow. Almost forgivingly, for her stubborn feeblemindedness.

And this too smacked of irony. As her intelligence was quite extraordinary for a mere beast. Which meant she was deliberately ignorant. Recalcitrant. Repugnant. And ever so slowly, on more than one occasion throughout the duration of that bleak black night, his calloused hands wrapped around her throat. Only to fall away again, just moments before the desire to choke the very life out of her would overwhelm him.

Instead, he held her that much closer.