Shepherd by KH LeMoyne

deep gouge of flesh along his thigh, she took too long to glance at his face. By the time she did, his jaw was rigid and his fists clenched. Yet he refused to turn and let her see his whole face.
    “Get a good enough look at the freak?” His one good eye glared at her over his shoulder. “Get out and give me some peace, Esme.”
    Her heart beat so fast, she couldn’t think, she turned on instinct at his command. By the time she reached the door, saner judgment kicked in. Decisively, she closed the door and turned back, walking slowly toward him. His lips tightened, but she didn’t pause. Not until she stood beside him, so close she could see the tremor in his cheek.
    “I don’t need your help.”
    “I’m not offering it.” She reached out her hand and touched his chest. His hand stopped her wrist from further movement. She looked from their connection to his face. He still angled it away from her, hiding his cyber eye.
    “Let me see your face.” He looked away completely, and she dug her fingers into his chest, trying to ignore the spider-webbed scar across his skin. “Let me see,” she shouted.
    He whipped back, giving her the full brunt of the view.
    Without releasing his chest, she reached her other hand to his jaw. “Don’t,” she snapped again as he moved to stop her. “I’m not a child, Clay. I wasn’t raised on fairytales. I don’t expect you to fabricate some illusion for me.”
    Both of his hands dropped, but the tight clench of his jaw remained as if he would let her look at him and be damned for the act.
    She tilted her head as she moved his face for a better look at his eye patch. The cybernetic eye opened. Circles within circles of metal retracted, leaving only the plasma eyeball embedded in the center visible. It followed her as she shifted, making it difficult to gauge the color and design in the low light.
    Her fingers released their grip on his chest, reflexively stroking him while she scrutinized his eye. Several layers of the plasma turned blue. As her touch became firmer, the color morphed to green. She leaned closer, both of her palms covering his pectoral muscles, and suddenly the eye flooded with gold. She laughed, and Clay instantly moved back.
    “No. I’m not laughing at you.” She grabbed him with both hands and stepped closer. “I like the colors. My reaction is because your eye is so remarkably integrated with your emotions.”
    At his confused look and dark scowl, she slid her hands down to hold his hips, not letting him back away farther. “Have you never had a chance to notice?”
    His normal eye scrutinized her face as if searching for some lie. Obviously, he had no knowledge of this facet of his technology. When I do this”—she rubbed her palm over his left nipple—the mesh of scars had left him only one—“the color of your eye turns the color of mine.”
    “My eye doesn’t have a color.”
    “You’re calling me a liar?”
    The frown said he was considering it. She pinched him in retaliation and fun. The rock of his muscle didn’t give beneath her fingers. He didn’t even wince. “Pay attention, Clay. I don’t need to make things up to amuse myself.” Her fingers turned her action into a caress to make her point, though she couldn’t maintain his gaze as she focused on the myriad scars.
    “Just spit it out.” Perhaps he had intended a harsh tone, but his delivery sounded almost pained, and his heart thundered beneath her fingertips. She didn’t look at him, not wanting him to have a chance to back out. This exercise, this horrible cold assessment of his body and what the Regents had done to him, was necessary. Each scar and change had created the man who brought her to his home as a captive. All the horror and past were intricate layers of the honor and strength she had witnessed in his compassionate treatment of her.
    He needed her to see him, to witness her reaction and know it didn’t make a difference to her what physical changes he bore. For