Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

Ren watched Sakura as she sharpened her daggers, the camp fire’s flames dancing in the reflection of her eyes as she stared intently at the whetstone against steel. She took great care with each blade, taking her time, holding them like a prize before tenderly slipping them back into their holster and choosing the next one to tend to.

It was a rare occurrence to see the demon in such a state of tranquility. When even her aura emanated the calmness of her soul onto everything around her. A state of mind and being that was fleeting and wouldn’t be witnessed again for quite some time.

The woman wasn’t the peaceful type. She was more like a tornado; unpredictable, destructive, and free. Doing whatever she may with little forethought or fear of consequence. When she made a decision, she dedicated her entire existence to it, gave everything in her to see it through and nothing could get in her way. She never backed down. Never stopped.

It was her best attribute. And her worst.

Her most recent endeavor was to endlessly pick at Zero in the hopes that he would finally retaliate against her endless antagonizing. She wanted a fight, and he was denying her of it. However, as relentless as the demon was, the devil’s calm demeanor was even more so. The boy had tolerated her for days as she went from whining, to begging, to tricking, to attacking with little more than a look of boredom on his face. The most he had done to go against her was to quickly retreat into the tent as they set up camp, completely drained from dealing with the woman’s antics while traveling all day. Ivy had followed shortly after, tired of nagging after the fox and just wanting a moment of peace.

Sakura wanted what she wanted.

But no one can make a devil do anything they don’t want.

And it drove her crazy.

Ren could feel himself going crazy as well. There was a time that Sakura never left him alone; always following, always prying, always forcing his eyes on her. Not a day went by when they were younger where the fox didn’t chase after his attention. A fact that he had been ignorant to as a boy and had only realized when it was much too late to do anything about it. But Ren was no longer a boy who was naive to the vixen’s unspoken truths. He saw through it now, through her, and didn’t need her to spell it out for him like he once did.

However, the years apart had changed both of them, and it wasn’t the same as it once was which was something he could accept. Whether he liked it or not, there was time lost and promises broken and consequences that couldn’t be avoided. It was all things he could deal with, but there was one thing he would never be able to tolerate.

Her attention being solely focused on another man.

It didn’t matter if it was Zero.

It made no difference that it was innocent.

He didn’t like it.

It was his.

And he’d go to any lengths, no matter how extreme, to get it back.

“Are you going to stare at me all night?” the woman asked. She wouldn’t be bothered to look up from her task, but she also could no longer ignore the waves from ocean eyes that had been washing over her.

“Yes.” A man of few words.

“It’s getting kind of creepy.”

“That’s alright. I don’t mind.”

She sighed and finally looked up at the angel. “What do you want, Ren?”

“You.” He grinned. “Your attention. All of it. Give it to me now.”

“Is this about Zero?”

“It is.”

The fox rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. “Your jealousy is so gross. It’s Zero. You think I’m gonna run off with him or something?”

“That’s the least of my worries. I’d actually like to see him try to handle your crazy ass on his own every day without Ivy and me there as a buffer.” Ren crawled over to the demon, rolling over and laying his head in her lap. “But you’re neglecting me, and I’m sad and lonely. Say nice things to me and make me feel better.”

Sakura looked down at the man using her as a pillow and arched her brow. “Seriously?”

“Yes, please.” He waited expectantly for the words of affirmation that he so desired.

“Fine.” The woman would give him what he wanted. “You’re needy.”

“I am.” He nodded. There was no denying that.

“And overbearing,” she grumbled, setting the dagger and whetstone down before running her fingers through his dark curls.

“Good. Go on.”

“And insane. Obnoxious. Obsessive.”

Ren smiled sweetly and sighed. “You always know just what to say.”

Sakura met his smile with a small one of her own. “Yeah, well, you’re not hard to please.”

The woman was like something out of a dream as the light of the flames flickered against her face in the darkness and she gazed down at the angel. She wasn’t a dream though. She was real. The warmth from her body, the sensation of her dancing fingers, the beating of her heart. She was there, and so was he. Together. The way it had once always been.

He had missed her so much, and even if her lips wouldn’t admit to feeling the same, the expressive emeralds of her eyes did. They always had.

Ren understood that now. “I’m sorry.”

Her head cocked to the side. “For what?” she asked, somewhat amused by the sudden apology.

“For not going with you back then,” the angel spoke gently, remorse flooding from his being. “I don’t regret it. It’s what I had to do at the time. But not a day has gone by that I wasn’t sorry for it. I know apologizing doesn’t change anything. I still broke my promises. I still left you. But it wasn’t what I wanted. And I’m sorry for that.”

The softness of the vixen’s face was driven away by a twisting of agony before quickly looking up into the star dabbled sky. She breathed deeply once… twice and looked back down at Ren, her eyes dry and calm. “I know you are. It’s fine. It was cruel of me to do that to you anyways. I knew you couldn’t leave, and I only made things harder on both of us. I was just being stupid and selfish. You don’t need to be sorry about it. It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“That’s not true. It does matter.” His hand reached out to brush against her cheek, only to let it rest there when she didn’t pull away. “I know you needed me. And I needed you. That’s why I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do, but I shouldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t have been able to leave with you, but I could have at least stayed long enough for us to figure something out. Make a new plan. Maybe if I had listened to what you tried to tell me then, things would have turned out different. It’s too late for that though. But you can still tell me now.”

Sakura’s brow furrowed as her mouth gaped open, the words sticking in her throat before she swallowed them down and turned away from him, his hand falling from her face. Grabbing the dagger and whetstone, she placed the whetstone on Ren’s chest while she holstered the dagger. “Would you put that away for me, please?”

Ren sighed and sat up. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

How could he say no?

How could he force her to confront something that she wasn’t ready for?

Even if it was what he wanted.

“We’ll make it to Wei Wen tomorrow, right?” the woman asked, trying to make her voice normal but the sorrow poked through.

“Yeah. It’s not much farther, and then another day to Astern.” He grabbed the bag, placing the whetstone inside and then began foraging within. “Do you still have that fruit?” the angel asked, digging around.

When in doubt, feed her.

He could practically hear her ears perk up.

“I think so,” she piped genuinely. “Somewhere in there.”

Ren dug further into the bag, searching for the treat that would certainly lift the demon’s spirits. His finger slipped into a small pocket near the bottom, the familiar feel of round stones rubbing against his skin. Pinching them, he pulled them free from their hiding place. The angel held the bracelet in front of his face, his heart dropping.

Raz.

He looked up at the fox, her eyes wide and terrified.

“Put it back,” she whispered hoarsely.

Blue eyes fell back onto the bracelet, the stones smooth and white as snow.

He didn’t return them to their spot.

He couldn’t.

“Put it back,” she repeated, louder.

“No.” A quiet refusal.

Sakura was on him instantly, grabbing frantically at the bracelet. “Put it back!” she begged. “Put it back!”

Ren wrapped his arms around the frenzied woman, crushing her to his chest, the bracelet digging into the palm of his hand. He stared into the fire, not really seeing it, as she fought meekly against him, too fractured to really try, her words repeating against his shirt. The angel squeezed the bracelet tighter.

It was just as much as the man who raised them as his skin or hair was. A part that belonged to him, and only him, never meant for anyone else to possess. Something that should have followed Raz into his grave and returned to the earth with him.

Raz hadn’t given it to Sakura the way he had the glaive.

She had taken it.

To keep a piece of him.

But it wasn’t him.

“Raz is dead,” Ren said, his voice distant in his own ears. The woman’s body stilled against his. “Avoiding the truth isn’t going to bring him back. Our guilt isn’t going to bring him back. Nothing we do is going to bring him back. He’s dead. We need to learn how to live with it.”

“You don’t understand...” Her voice and body trembling.

Ren waited, but nothing more came. “You remember how Raz would tell us that we all pay for our sins? Sooner or later, the time always comes.”

She nodded, a slight, barely there bob of her head.

“The Raz we knew wasn’t the Raz he had always been,” he told her, slowly loosening his hold and adjusting their bodies against each other. “He told me a lot of things before I left about his own time in The Guard. We loved him, but that doesn’t erase all that he did before we were even born. My guilt isn’t going to change that I left and wasn’t there for either of you.” Ren grabbed the woman’s face, forcing her to look up at him. “And you can’t keep trying to pay for his sins, Sakura. They’re not yours. Just talk to me. I’ll listen. I’ll understand. But you have to stop doing this to yourself. All this anger and blaming, it’s not what Raz would want from you. We can’t keep pretending it doesn’t exist. We have to start working our way through it.”

Her eyes stared back at him, hollow, same as when she had been the lost child that he had found and brought home. He wanted to take it away, put something, anything, back into them but she pushed away from his hold and stumbled to her feet. The woman took a few steps before stopping, her trembling hand extending behind her, calling for him louder than words ever could.

The angel went to the demon, standing in front of and looking at her as she refused to do the same. Leaning over, he encircled his arms around her waist as she clung around his shoulders, burying her face into his neck. He lifted her from the ground and carried her to bed, the way he had done time and time again when they were children.

Ren laid in the darkness with Sakura curled against him and listened to the quiet noises of his sleeping companions. Arms pulled the woman closer as he buried his face into her hair, breathing her in. The man didn’t have the same sensitive sense of smell that she did, but he didn’t need it to smell the despair that seeped from every pore of her body.

She reeked of it.

Ren closed his eyes, waiting for when she would inevitably break.