Mark my words, though. I guarantee you Michael won’t be sniffing around Moira anymore.

The drive home is short, and I follow Moira into her house. I brace myself, because I know that she’s going to have some harsh words for me. I hope she treads lightly, though, because I’m not in a mood to hear it. I gave Moira one concession already by putting my murderous rage aside for her plea. But she’s not going to get much more from me tonight.

After setting her purse down on the kitchen table, she walks into the living room and sits down on the couch with a sigh. The move causes her dress, which had been resting at mid-thigh, to creep up her legs, and my eyes can’t help but take in the long expanse of creamy flesh.

“Zach… we need to talk about what just happened at the nightclub,” Moira says tentatively, and my eyes move up her body to rest on her face. It’s grim, determined, and filled with censure.

“What’s to talk about? I let him go,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders as I lean up against the wall that borders her living room and back hallway.

Moira’s eyebrows furrow inward, completely dismayed over my disinterest in this conversation. She stands from the couch in one quick push and stalks up to me. Her face is angry, but there is still a bit of fear there. Not fear of me, but fear for me. I can tell the prospect of me getting in trouble over that incident has her rattled.

Pushing a finger into my chest, Moira says, “You cannot go around attacking people because they do something you don’t like. You most certainly can’t try to kill someone for putting his hands on me. Do you understand—?”

“I most certainly can kill someone for putting his hands on you,” I cut in over her tirade, one hand flying up to grab her by the back of the neck. I give her a slow shake, so she listens to me well. “I am my own man. Don’t ever forget that, Moira.”

“Zach… you can’t kill someone. There are consequences, not only in the law, but also on your own soul. Taking a life is something that is irrevocable. You’re a good man… I think that would shred you—forget about what that would mean for your future. Prison… being locked away… no freedom.”

Pulling Moira in, I bring her face in tighter to me, causing her to go up on her tiptoes just a bit. “I know what it means to kill someone. I’ve done it before and never had a moment’s regret, so hold the lecture, Dr. Reed.”

“What? You’ve killed someone?” she asks in disbelief, and far more fear in her voice than I want to hear. That dismays and pisses me off, all at the same time.

“Let’s just call it another cultural difference. My tribe warred with the Matica for years. We raided each other, and blood was shed. It was our own form of justice and when I return, I’ll do it again.”

Moira’s face pales over my admission, and my grip tightens on her. I wanted to shock her, to remind her that I am still more animal than human, at least when you compare our societies. But I don’t want to disgust her. I don’t want her to look at me with shame or disappointment.

“Let me tell you about the last man I killed,” I tell her softly.

“No… I don’t want to hear it,” she says, trying to pull from my hold.

“You’ll listen,” I command with another squeeze and pull her in to me just a little closer. Her br**sts lightly touch my chest, and a surge of longing courses through me. I put it aside though, at least until Moira understands my lack of civility. “About a month before you arrived in Caraica to collect me, the men in my tribe made a raid on the Matica. It was a rescue-revenge raid. One day when we were away on a hunt, ten of the Matica snuck into our village. They raped some of our women and stole three of our male children, killing the boys’ mother, who was trying to protect the young ones with her life.”

“I don’t want to hear this, Zach,” Moira says.

“Maybe not, but you need to hear it. We planned our revenge carefully. It wasn’t just to retrieve what they had stolen from us, but it was to punish them for their assault on our women and children. We went in with the idea of killing in return.”

“That’s wrong,” Moira says, her eyes wide.

“Maybe by your standards, but by ours, it was the right thing to do. In the end, we not only got our children back, but we paid them back tenfold for the lives they took from us. I watched with pride as my adoptive brother, Kaurlo, retrieved his stolen sons and killed the men that took them and killed his wife.”

Moira shudders in my arms, but I see a tiny bit of understanding now in her eyes.

Leaning forward to whisper in her ear, I ask, “Want to know who I killed?”

She gives a tiny shake of her head, but it doesn’t stop me.

“When I walked into the village, I found Tukaba staked out in the dirt by her hands and feet. She was na**d and had blood all over her thighs from the repeated rapes she had endured. She was stolen from her Paourno tribe where she had been raised. She was half dead when I cut her loose, but she was strong enough to let me carry her down the line of captured Matica. We had sat them in the dirt in front of a longhouse, their hands tied behind their backs. She identified the men that raped her. My tribe brothers and I unloaded all of our arrows into them until they were dead, and Tukaba was avenged as well.”

A tiny tear leaks out of one of Moira’s eyes, but I also see something new on her face. Compassion for what I told her about Tukaba which I hope means some acceptance of my deeds.