* Author : R.S.A. Garcia * Narrator : Omega Francis * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Devil’s Ways anthology Content warning for domestic violence Rated R Fire In His Eyes, Blood On His Teeth By R.S.A. Garcia   He comes to me with fire in his eyes and blood on his teeth. Sometimes the blood is his enemies’. Sometimes it’s mine. Eventually, it’s mine. Always. He is different today, striding across the sandy soil toward my home with scuffed, much-mended boots. Often, he’s charming and beautiful, like the first time I met him. Smooth brown skin and white smiles, smelling of freshly scraped coconuts. Sometimes he is fierce and tall and smells of the salty sea, with a glorious shining beard braided around the fuses he hides beneath his battered hat. His teeth are longer, yellow, and his skin burned from the sun. They call him a pirate then, and men on land and sea tremble to speak his name. He has harsh words, but there are no teeth for me yet. They come later. They come with the fire and a shadow on the sun. He has seen much. Done much. He forgets, and then the hunger comes and the call to be free and he wrenches himself from me. Tears us apart with fists and teeth and hate for all my kind. What used to be my kind. ( . . . what is my kind? Women? Women like me? Human? I no longer know. I no longer care . . . ) He wears purple today. A royal colour. His colour. The waistcoat is battered, the once-gold buttons faded, the shirt beneath grimed as his patched pants. But the purple is bright: bright as he becomes when the shadow is on the sun. The daylight is beginning to shift; the time is drawing near. I had no real hope of staying hidden. I left our home, but not the islands. There are many of them here, scattered like broken pieces of jade across the Caribbean Sea. I found one with water, one with food, and I built my own place. Sometimes my hands bled from the work, but at least it was my blood shed for me. For her. Not him. A shadow falls on the village, but I can’t see the cause. There are clouds, but the sky is blue and clear above the forest clearing. I hear a strange wind, but feel no breeze. People run and scream. We feel fear, but we don’t know why. There is nothing to see. Then he lands, with a crash of wings and broken trees, and belches fire, and I drop my bucket of water from the river and run too. We all hide in the forest for days before we go back in small groups. When I do, he’s in my undamaged hut, alone and naked and smiling, smelling of faraway places. He holds out his arms and I go straight into them without a thought. He whispers honey in my ears and I’m lost and found, awake and aware. I see the world with new eyes and he is the beauty in it. We sneak out of the village that night. He’s dressed in the clothes I stole for him. I carry what food I have. I never go back. I have a new home now. His skin is black as night now. His head is tied with a faded red cloth and there are gold loops in his nose and ears. Rings crowd fingers and chains rest on a sweaty neck. His stomach is barrel-round beneath the purple waistcoat, his bare arms corded with muscle. He has a knife in his belt. It’s all he needs. He smiles. “Beloved,” he says, and though he is still to reach me, it’s as if his hands have grasped my shoulders.