Unbound

Everything

"Home?” She scoffed. “Hardly. I don’t even know where this is.”

She thrust herself abruptly from his arms, and brushed her hands along the smooth, slinky velvet. She proceeded to create a distance between them, her eyes fastened on spheres of circling gold.

The stranger omitted a dark chuckle. The same mysterious, mystical man who greeted her in the stables days ago. She paused in her scrutiny, raked her eyes over the thoroughly clothed angles of is body. His closely cropped curls mirrored the ebony on her dress, and wove into the silver crown atop his head. A violent crescent winked between valleys of ebony like a beacon calling her home. Her eyes flickered to his boots.

The same moons – the same boots.

A indelicate memory drifted through her mind like smoke. Her nerves seared to life with icy fervor. She felt his cool countenance as he cowered her against the stable; remembered the coils of lust toiling in her abdomen. Her breath fiddled in her throat. Caught, it seemed. Caught by the predator before her.

The marvelous, beautiful, mysterious predator.

“You are home,” the stranger said. He leaned close, a misty, woodsy scent wafted through her nostril. He smelled comforting – like flannel – and rustic, like times passed. The scents garbled in her mind. “In the place where you’ve always belonged. The place kept from you.”

The stranger grinned, plush lips withdrawing to reveal sharp, white incisors.

But no fangs, like the dream, she thought.

His etherealness shone through the dark. While most essences would smother, his shone. The marble pallor of his skin marveled; glowed. In fact…. Her eyes scanned the room. The majority of his accompaniments glowed, too.  

“Who are you?” she demanded, arms coming to cross her chest. “Or should I say, what are you?”

His eyes lashed against hers. Gold to yellow, they shown, until pausing a palpable honeyed brown. Calamity stirred within her like waves against the shore. Soft, cascading waves lulled in her mind, caused her arms to drop to her sides.

“Better,” he said. “I find women are far more amicable to resolution when their immediate sense of urgency of quelled. Trust me, little angel – no harm will befall you here. Your wings shall be freed soon enough. Come.” A white hand zoomed through the dark.

Analise eyebrows crinkled.

“You  can’t be serious.” She scoffed.

The strange growled – the sound like distant thunder.

A figure emerged at the stranger’s back. He possessed the same ethereal presence, but with a muted air. His features were brown, warm; though his irises shown with erratic tones of lilac.

“Princess, there are factors at play you’ve yet to understand,” the figure said. “Your presence here will change everything, especially in Alasia. Have you not wondered why your land shrivels to nothingness? Why your armies endure impenetrable loses?”

“Am I responsible for this destruction?” She leaped forward, eyebrows drawn tightly over her eyes. “I never meant to inflict pain. I never meant to –”  Her words were punctuated with a wisp of air, like that at the end of a deflating balloon. She drew her hands over her mouth, shook her head. “I can’t be responsible for this.”

The dark stranger stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around her wrists. He pried them from her face gently. His eyes were a shimmering, gold – liquid, warm – like the sun. Heat trickled through her limbs at his touch, prompted her eyes to rest on his.

“Never,” he whispered. The word was a feather-light whisper against her lips. “Never blame yourself for the actions of fools.”

“Let me show you the truth, fallen one,” he continued.

The figure at his back offered a solemn smile. As he did, sharp, tiny incisors winked between his lips. He inclined his head guiltily, chuckled at the irritated leer from the stranger holding her wrists.

The truth, she thought. How strange a thing.

She nodded once, then straightened her shoulders. He gaze drilled into his – proud, discerning.

“Tell me everything,” she said. “Starting with an explanation of just what and who you are.”

The stranger grinned.

“Allow me.”

He placed his hand before hers; a peace offering, an opportunity. She reached toward it tentatively.

As she touched her fingertips to his, the stranger leaned forward. A icy breathe tingled in her ear, weaving a misty trail. His lips lightened on her ear, moved against the hallow of her ear with a delicious slowness as he spoke: “The truth, fallen one, will cost you everything. Is this a price you’re willing to pay?”

How glorious would it feel to be free?

“Yes,” she said. Her hand folded over his. “Free me.”