"Time to wake up, my love." Kahlala's soft whisper was marked by the tender touch of her lips to the edge of his ear, rousing him from his twilight.
Groaning, Hutch turned over and wrapped his arm around her back, pulling her closer, until her chest was pressed tight against his.
"Awake doesn't mean out of bed," he muttered, gently sweeping the tip of his nose against hers.
Her giggle, sweet and faint, was the best sound in the world that early in the morning. The dew was thick on the chilly summer breeze, as the sun peaked through the curtains of their bedroom.
"I suppose we can spare a few minutes," she replied, pushing him onto his back as she crawled her way on top of him, straddling his waist.
"Oh, does this mean you aren't mad at me anymore?" he wondered as she walked her hands up his chest.
"Not mad, upset. And yes, I'm still upset when I think about what it would be like for you to not be here," she replied, drifting her hand up to his cheek. "To not feel you beneath me. To not look into your eyes and have them looking back at me. To think, what am I to do in this place without you? How am I to live here, in this place where you would rest? Am I to leave you alone while father takes me back to Qur'loam?"
"Yes," he said, grabbing her hands and pulling them down to his chest. "Yes, Lala. If anything, ever happens to me, you go wherever your father takes you. Even if it means back to Qur'loam. And you do whatever it takes to make certain Salvador knows that I am dead. Once I'm gone, you won't have to worry about him or his people anymore, and you can live free and enjoy the rest of your days however you wish."
"I wish them to be with you. I curse that man. I curse his name. I curse his mind. I curse his being. He has taken too much," she huffed, casting her eyes away. "I am glad we are rid of him here. No one should be capable of lying with such ease as he. He came into our home. I treated him like family, and then he slaughtered ours." Turning back, she gazed down into his eyes, her own filled with contempt. "When next I see him, I want it to be at the end of your blade, bound in chains inside a cage, destined for the gallows. Retribution for our tribe. For our family. And you have to be alive to do this for me. This is what I ask of you, as your xalgar, because I cannot face him alone."
"You aren't alone."
"No, I suppose I am not. But," she whispered as she leaned closer to him, "I do not think I can work for Sar'Basirak as Shail does." She smiled, devilishly. "I do not think his bed will be as comfortable as yours. Or as warm. Or welcoming."
Hutch chuckled as she shifted forward and placed a line of playful kisses along the bottom of his jaw, her hair tickling his skin as it fell from her shoulders onto his. Reaching up, he swept back her hair and gazed into her eyes when she lifted her head.
"Would you work with me instead?" he questioned, wondering how far she was willing to go to see her dream realized.
"Are you asking me to follow you into this life?"
"I am. And Ensaso is the best chance of that happening. Working for him, sporadically as I have, that isn't going to be enough. I want Salvador to pay, just as much as you, but that means leaving here. It means moving to The Ship Port and working for him fulltime. But I won't do it without you. This isn't going to be like Qor'ropi, where you go back to the tribe when I'm away on longer assignments. It will mean that you are there with me, and you will be involved. I will shield you from as much as I possibly can, but…"
"No but," she remarked, pressing her hand over his lips. "I will follow you, my xalgon. My place is at your side, no matter where you wander. I will be to you; what Shail is to Ensaso. And I may even learn a thing or two from her."
Wrapping his hand around hers, he kissed her fingers, before pulling it away.
"You know you're beautiful, right?" he said as he looked up at her.
"To you, yes. And that is all that matters."
Hutch shook his head. "Not just to me."
"Perhaps not," she replied, crinkling her nose at him as she sat up. "You're still all that matters to me though." Reaching down she grabbed the edge of her night dress and lifted it up over her head, tossing it to the floor.
"Oh yeah?" he whispered, as she leaned back down, pressing her hands against the sides of his ribs.
"Yeah."
"You're fucking gorgeous," he whispered, sinking his fingers into her hair, pulling her forward as he stretched out his neck and kissed her.
"Yeah," she giggled, as their lips parted, and he sunk back down into his pillow. "And I think I've waited long enough. Your ribs have healed, your cast is three days gone, and you owe me for all the days you made me worry about you."
"Now that's a debt, I'll willingly pay."
There was nothing he could have done to make up for all the pain, worry, and heartache he'd caused her. Those delight filled mornings, passion filled evenings, and the hours spent holding her, felt like the bare minimum of what he could do. He felt more indebted to her than Ensaso, and every time he had left their house to work a job, he knew he'd incurred more. He knew he'd spend the rest of his life trying to pay her back, long after Ensaso was nothing but dust and bone. Ultimately, though, he wanted to give her the retribution she desired. He wanted to make Salvador pay for the lives he took, and as Ensaso so elegantly put it, he had to compromise to see that done.
It started when he and Kahlala spoke to Ghan'dono, and left their mountain home near Blue Rock, in his care. Ghan'dono had no love for the city and wanted to give them both a soft place to land, and a quiet place to retreat, if things didn't work out or got to be too much for them.
Hutch gave up their solitude and simple life, to become a more prevalent member of Ensaso's crew, and even though Kahlala had willingly agreed, he always felt as if he'd put her into a position where she was going to have to compromise too. That his decision had led her to make ones she'd come to regret, only adding to the weight of the debt, he'd have to one day, repay.
They would make the near 250-mile journey across the country of Cheph to The Ship Port, a four-day journey thanks to Spikey and their wagon, after the winter had passed and the ice in the mountains had begun to melt. By then, Hutch had managed to recover most of his strength, although he would suffer from near crippling fear of heights and would never regain the full motion of his left shoulder, finding it impossible to lift his arm directly up over his head.
When they arrived in The Ship Port, Ensaso welcomed them with open arms, and set them up in one of the two story homes he owned in the north of the city that had an unobstructed view of the ocean from the second floor, as that was the one and only request Kahlala had made.
Ensaso found it an easy compromise to make, an ocean view was a ridiculously small concession to have both her and Hutch now in the city, working fulltime as members of his outlaw faction. And to Hutch, agreeing to Ensaso's terms to get her that view, wasn't something he even needed to think about.
After that, however, it seemed to Hutch like the compromises came near daily. They whittled away at his integrity, his conscience, and any bit of self-respect he had left. The small things, collecting taxes, trading in secrets, standing in the way of the other factions, turned into larger things, like weeding out traitors, robbing, raiding, and guarding slave ships, their merchandise, and caravans. And that eventually lead to him crossing a line, he had sworn to the gods he never would, participating directly in the trade. By then he'd begun to find ways of justifying his choices, leaning on the excuse that it was to pay back the debt he owed along the road he had to travel to get to Salvador. The ends justified the means, after all, despite the debt having been long since paid, and the road having no end in sight.