She gives me a slight glance and slowly stands, her legs trembling. "Here." She departs, only to return with a shirt and some shorts. "They might be big on you, but it's better than you exposed like this, prudish as you are."

I take the garments, snagging the knife off the floor to finish cutting the lycra away from my skin and pull the shirt over my head with a dull groan. My arms protest, hardly wanting to move from the rough treatment of the evening's events. Each movement causes a ringing in my ears, my body threatens to quit and the room swims from the effort. 

"About that. I lived among a lycan horde; nudity doesn't bother me. I was tired, and I so desperately wanted to get back. I haven't been my best self."

"To Verando." She concludes, but she doesn't frown this time as she snags the bottle of vodka and plops on the floor across from me, her voluptuous thighs keeping the shirt firmly between her legs as she wiggles to fold herself and get comfortable. "You look like shit. Too bad you can't drink with that head injury."

I smile back, tilting my head to rest it on the bar. "Thanks. You look fantastic, yourself." 

She exhales, watching the bottle and I know that she wants to talk, for the first time since I've met her, I feel like I possess the only thing she'd ever want to talk about. I know the look on her face too well because it mirrors my own, heart and soul. She loves him, she still loves him with her whole being. 

"You can talk about him if you want." I try. "If it will help. I'm supposed to stay awake, aren't I?"

Soli looks taken aback as she nervously runs her fingers through her hair, primping in a way, as if she's suddenly embarrassed by her appearance. "It's been a hard year." She admits, "I never in a million years thought that I would see him again, not here, not in these circumstances." 

She sighs, taking another swig. I watch her patiently, feeling my body tense and stiffen as if I might need to protect what was mine. She gets on her hands and knees, crawling over to a table to snag the gun she so carelessly tossed aside before returning to me. 

"Did you know I've known him since he was five years old?" 

I can't help but blink at her, even though I know that to be true, her age is not evident. Though, I suppose neither is his. So she's an old blood as well. She laughs sadly, rubbing her cheek with her palm. 

"He was so tiny, just a little whisp. Crying and holding his sister, Temptrest. Sherian was the focus of their father then, that helped." She eyes me, testing my knowledge and it almost seems to hurt her that I'm easily keeping pace with the names. 

Though, Sherian brings a revolting weight to the pit of my stomach. She pulls her lips into a thin line, "I see you're familiar."

"Shell-" I stop myself. It won't come out and she holds up her hand. My mind refuses to go any further, I feel my skin threaten to break into a sweat.

Her eyes are all too knowing. "He's disgusting."

"I killed him," I tell her point-blank.

Soli drinks again, scooting over to sit beside me now. "And you say you're just a man." 

I shrug.

"When properly motivated..." I trail off. I never want to be back in that place again. Four hundred years isn't far enough away from his corpse. 

She crosses her ankles, tilting her head back against the bar. Stealing a glance, I feel a pang of remorse. It doesn't seem fair; her loyalty shouldn't be punished. 

"For what it's worth- I know he still loves you."

It brings a laugh from her lips, a sick, sad sound. She coughs, gagging up the pollution from the city streets. "I know he does." But where I expect her to gloat and boast, she doesn't look proud of that fact. "He loves me just as one loves the rain or spring flowers. It's beautiful while it's convenient, it doesn't make it any less than love but it's conditional." 

I never imagined I'd sympathize with this woman for I had envisioned for so long what she'd be like. I imagined she'd be like any other woman who had fallen for the surface of what was Verando. They took the hits hard, they cut and dug, and wanted me to feel pain for what they felt was a missed opportunity when I didn't even understand myself what brings him back to me time and time again. 

Maybe Tonya had something about this imprinting business? "Does he cheat on you?" She must sense my protest. 

"No." It feels like I'm confessing. I watch my hands, pulling my lips thinly as my eyebrows come down. 

"The 'Doe' that I know, would never have laid down his life for anyone like he did tonight. Not for me, not for his own kids as you saw he put you before Tonic." 

I want to defend him, I give her a stern look and feel my pulse quicken. 

"Verando is incredibly selfless."

"It's news to me, honey." She takes another drink, she grabs my wrist and lifts my hand to show me the mob boss's ring. "Doe kills people."

 I jerk my hand away and sigh, slowly getting up as I feel the throb in my temple. 

"Thanks for telling me things I already know. What are you hoping to accomplish? He doesn't kill good people, and it kills 'him' to do it. Soli- Marisol? I think you understand as well as I do exactly who he is, I told you you could talk about him but trying to turn me against him is not going to happen. 

He can be an ass, difficult, hard-headed, completely obtuse, and downright rude, but he's also so much more than that." I pinch the bridge of my nose, and she stands, tilting her head at me.

She curses at herself as she limps off to get a rag and wet it, handing it to me as she returns and replaces herself at my side. "I shouldn't be pushing you so hard with a head injury. It's not right, sorry, I think I'm a little tipsy." The rag covers my eyes, offering some relief.

I lay my wrist over my eyes for the counter pressure. "It's not your fault, I'm frankly used to it. Verando tends to elicit anger in women." 

The cool rag stings the cut on my forehead, I feel the steady trickle of the cool water running down the side of my face and for a moment, I'm tempted to allow sleep to take me. It would be so easy to give in, my body was hovering on the edge, and I was entirely spent.

"I'm sorry." She finally says. "I was being just a bit bitter, I suppose. Can you blame me for trying?" I open my mouth, and she huffs. "Don't answer that."

I allow myself to like Soli, if nothing else, because she likes my warlord almost as much as I do. Few people share my infatuation, though the ones who do have proven to be incredibly annoying, he's an acquired taste that most are reluctant to acquire, which suits me just fine. 

"Tell me about your childhood until they get here. It'll help me stay awake."

Soli goes silent, and for a moment, I wonder if she has decided she doesn't want to talk about it anymore. Finally, she relaxes beside me. "I ran and he chased me but I don't think it was for what I hoped it was for. We were all the other had. He wanted so badly to live a better life, I was just happy to be.. alive. Doe would bring me home, Mama would take me in as if she didn't remember the last dozen times I had run and I'd braid Temptrest's hair and play with Marcus. He would watch me until he couldn't stay awake any longer, then I'd leave."

"Why? Why leave?" I demand. It seems so ridiculous, knowing him now, I knew how painful it would have been to him to know he'd awaken to her gone.

"I was afraid this would happen, and leaving felt like maybe I had a choice in how our story ended up. People didn't live long, we were so deep into the badlands, that I just wanted to have no connections for when the inevitable happened.  As I got older, I hoped that he'd give up the life that we'd been living.. but we were in so deep. We just kept trading debt, one favor for another. Building a life with him seemed.. impossible. He wanted more for us, for the children in the orphanage, whereas I felt going on our own was the only way to survive." 

Her voice sounded distant, as if she were reliving the memory. "I loved him in my own way. It was as if we took turns with our infatuation. How could I not love someone who was always there, by the time we became teenagers, I realized just how broken we both were. Watching his father... seeing who he, himself, could be, I was terrified of what that love would look like, but I wanted him to chase me. 

He was a man, as I'm sure you know, his desires couldn't wait when the body could be offered as currency. Kato wanted him to court women in high society to get their father's trade deals, it was easy for him to oblige. Protection details, shipping arrangements, under-the-table money exchanges, I didn't want any part of it. I think it made him feel like he had a say, that there was something he could influence, and the women came with that arrangement.

 Of course, he would seek me out for pleasure and our usual set of mischief, but I was not the only one in his bed. He would feel guilt, and then I would scold him, but what could either of us say when we refused to define what we had? I told him he could marry me, if he'd like... " 

The emotion holds heavy in her voice, she hugs her knees to her chest. I didn't realize that by asking about their childhood, I would get the history of their relationship, and I stayed as quiet as possible, soaking it in.

"I would find him with Rhea, with Adena, with Tonic's mother... each time, he would apologize, and I would reconcile that I wasn't giving him what he needed, though it was silly to think I was the cause. The reality was we didn't have a place to sleep, we didn't have food to eat, so finding the comforts of the flesh was easier than basking in misery. 

Returning home to Mama's, meant facing the reality of our situation. We worked to pay our debts and to keep the banditi out of our town.

In the end, he wasn't apologizing for sleeping with them, he was apologizing for me seeing it. I didn't own him, as I wished I did at times. I felt like if he was mine, solely mine, then maybe I could have helped him be happy. Gods.. there were times when he looked so damn miserable. But you see... we all did. 

Then Rhea got pregnant, then Tonic's mother... finally Adena, and for me, nothing. No babies, another realization that I couldn't even be a true woman for him." 

My heart sinks at the realization that we share the same pain. I reach over, taking her hand in mine and giving it a firm squeeze as I hear the gentle sniffle. 

"I never was able to." Her breath catches as she inhales sharply. "I wanted to so badly, I thought that if I could just- he would want me as badly as he did when we were kids." 

My subconscious aches with her, longing for a nonexistent child that would never come to be.

"Finally, before he was taken, I did fall pregnant, but it did not last. She was born sleeping, too early, I would assume, by her size. I doubt he even knew. I wasn't showing when he left, and I was so upset with him for-" She shakes her head, rubbing her eye with the back of her hand. 

"For everything. I wanted her to live without him, for him to come back and see her and feel the pain I had felt, but my behavior was deplorable, and the gods punished me for it. But, seeing the two of you together, for just those few moments, I think it has helped me finally forgive myself and maybe even him, too." 

Her pain is as real to me as if it were my own; while I never had to deal with him cheating on me, I was always concerned that he would run when he grew bored of me. 

"He couldn't love me, and he was trying to tell me all along if I could have listened, something was wrong with... us. Something in him needed something else, and he needed a man. The right man, I suppose. I'm sure you know that Doe's never been the most tolerant of men."

"He's not tolerant of anyone." I chuckle, flinching at my headache.

She laughs in response, smoothing out the cloth. "As much as this hurts me, I'm glad he has you. I don't even know you, but if Verando loves you, I know I will, too. I want him to be happy. I would just love to have my friend back-.. if you can accept something like that?"

 Flinching, my eyes meet hers. Is she asking my permission to be his friend? I scoot closer to her, taking her hand in mine. 

I'd gone from loathing this woman to admiring her grit to pitying her all in the span of two days.

I find that I'm beginning to understand why so many had described her as complicated. While part of me wants to retract, tell her to get lost, and ban her from my life for fear of his side of this, the other side of me sees a woman who's in pain and who desperately needs something to go right in her life. 

I nod, offering her a small smile. "I would never kick you out of his life; you know as well as I do nobody tells that man what to do." 

She smiles back at me, checking my eyes only to frown. "That's something I could never have done, I suppose you are better for him than me." 

As if on cue, the door opens, and she grabs the gun off her hip, pointing it towards the door only to have Verando and Tonic push it open. We both sigh in relief, and my warlord closes the space by jumping over the banister instead of using the stairs. 

I flinch at the weakness in his right leg and hold my hands up in defense as he comes quickly to my side. 

His eyes scan over me, taking me in, relieved to see that I'm alive, though I don't know why he's surprised. If I were dead, he would be as well. He looks afraid to touch me, and I'm thankful for his reluctance. Instead, I just put my hand in his, squeezing his fingers. 

"He has a concussion." Soli rats me out, and I decide all over again that it's alright to not quite like her so much. My look turns sour as I glare at her out of the side of my eye. 

"A what?" Verando demands, scanning me once more. 

Tonic walks over to us painfully slow, I can see they're both beaten up, battered, and bruised. "A head injury... he needs to get to Tonya."  

"There'll be no leaving today. Not with those cats looking for us and the city in pieces." Soli tells him shortly. 

Tonic taps his chin, watching me with the conflicted look of a man ready to be daring. I've had enough testosterone to last me the rest of my life and shoot him a warning look. 

"What if I bring Tonya here? "