One
1524 Words
Lotus felt a muscular arm wrap around her waist as a hot breath fanned her neck. His heady scent and warmth made her lean back on taut, muscled chest and sigh.
"Hey," his husky voice slithered into her ears and pooled like hot liquid in her stomach.
For that moment she closed her eyes, sinking into him, relishing the solid feel of him against her back, the warmth from him draping over her like a blanket. He was everything she would ever—
"Excuse me?"
Lotus opened her eyes in alarm. She had been daydreaming again. Her glasses had slipped down her nose. She bumped it up with her finger and straightened from her slouching position on the stool before smiling at the customer.
"Sorry, what can I do for you?"
The woman standing on the other side of the wooden counter gave her a dirty look.
"How hard can a librarian's job be that you're sleeping during the day?"
Lotus' smile wavered slightly. "I wasn't—What can I do for you ma'am?"
The woman raised her chin and threw down a children's book. "I'm here to return this. Give me another," she demanded.
Somewhere inside Lotus, annoyance was beginning to crawl out. Her voice still maintained the curt politeness she used during working hours. "Ma'am, the children's section are right through your left. You can pick one and I'll package it to go for you."
The woman reared her head back dramatically like Lotus had spat on her. "No, that's not how this works. My son said you gave him the book, so go get me another like this one."
A brief recollection of the sweet little boy that came into the library days ago, flicked through Lotus' mind. She failed to see how such a well mannered boy could have such a mother, then again her mother had been worse.
"Ma'am, I can't know what your son likes. I didn't give him the book, I merely helped him to pick one. If you want I can show you the shelves and you pick."
The woman's eyes immediately shadowed with anger. She picked up the book and flung it away.
"Ma'am!"
The book sailed across the library and landed a few feet from the door.
"I'm going to ask you to leave, ma'am." Lotus had lost the smile. There was an edge to her curt voice.
"You can't kick me out of the library. You're going to get me a book if you still want to keep your job." The woman now red from anger, glared at Lotus in a way that said she was looking down on the librarian. Her pearls that Lotus was just noticing shimmered in daylight, dangling from her neck and ears. Rings glittered on her fingers and her green silk gown seemed like falling water.
Lotus walked around the counter, arms at her sides. Her gray gown looking more like rags in comparison. She picked up the book that now had a loose spine.
Great.
When she turned the woman was in front of her. Lotus was around 5'10 and the woman seemed around 5'5, but it didn't stop her from getting right up in the librarian's face in an act of intimidation.
Lotus knew it was better not to let the altercation go any further and stepped back. She felt a bit saddened the little boy wouldn't be reading anything.
The woman pointed a sharp finger at her that looked more like a claw.
"How dare you disrespect me? Do you know who I am?"
Keeping her face from revealing her annoyance, Lotus moved to the door and held it open for the woman.
"Please leave ma'am. You can come back another day with your son, I'm sure he'll be happy to pick a book he likes."
Once or twice a week, Lotus would be subjected to degrading comments and customers itching for a fight. It was so stupid. Why come to a library to fight a librarian?
Why couldn't they go to the wrestling grounds and fight off their pent up frustration?
She bumped up her glasses with a finger and stared expectantly at the woman.
The woman huffed. "This isn't over, you disrespectful swine."
Lotus almost rolled her eyes. If she counted how many times she'd heard that and felt threatened by it, she would've packed up and left the village months ago.
"I'll have your job, wherever filthy hole you're staying in," the woman was yelling now, "and make it so you leave this village with nothing but the rags on your back!"
All for a children's book? Was this woman so unhappy with life?
"Ma'am, this is a library. Please leave quietly."
In the quiet nook, on one side of the library, a few children and teenagers lounged on cushions that were previously reading had now become an audience to the woman's rant.
Lotus was annoyed now and didn't try to hide it in her voice. "Ma'am if you don't leave, I'll be forced to remove you."
If eyes could kill, the woman would've killed her ten times over. But something happened, the woman went somber suddenly and began making her way to the door.
Maybe the audience had embarrassed her.
Lotus held the door wider. As the woman passed her, she struck out lightning fast and gave her a hard slap. Her glasses skittered out and landed with an audible crack on the floor.
There was a collective sound of gasps and murmurs from the nook. The air seemed charged with energy like it was a wrestling ground and two foes were seconds away from ripping each other apart.
With half her face burning, Lotus slowly righted her head and looked at the witch. She was sneering like a cocky child, her arched eyebrow asking the question 'what are you going to do?'
Lotus could feel the anger rattling her bones. Somewhere within her, something stirred, rousing from its slumber.
She needed to be calm.
She needed the anger gone.
But her hands were shaking at her sides and she could feel the tips of her claws edging their way out from between her knuckles.
Calm. Calm. Think happy thoughts.
Don't rip her to pieces.
The thing stirring in her sent a cold spell through her body, making her shiver.
The woman scoffed, incorrectly assuming she shivered from fear.
Lotus cast her gaze to the floor, jaw clenched with focus.
Calm. Calm.
Her anger was ebbing away and the thing, ancient and cold stirred for a last time and went back to sleep.
Little threads of anger still danced in Lotus but it wasn't enough to do anything but make her wish she could return the favour and slap the ever living—
"This is what makes us different. You are all talk and lousy bravado. I am not," the woman hissed. "I'll be seeing you swine."
The bell above the door jingled as it opened and the woman stormed out, leaving the faint smell of her toxic perfume in her wake.
Lotus let out a deep breath. She lifted her head and found him standing by the door. The star of all her daydreams. All her anger melted on the spot.
He had been watching her with sharp silver eyes like that of a fox. When she met his gaze, he looked away.
This man had never said a word to her. Towering as he was, with long raven hair that spilled down his shoulders, sharp facial features that made every girl he came across look twice and a tanned skin always hidden under black leather breeches, long sleeved and high necked shirts. He struck Lotus like the kind of man to carry knives but his belt was empty.
She cleared her throat and turned to the nook and gave the audience a forced smile.
"Sorry about that."
Then she ambled back behind the wooden counter, picking her glasses as she went.
The man, for she didn't know his name, only that he had this air of mystery and strangeness around him, walked up to the counter. He set down a book he had taken two days ago.
Three hundred and twelve pages in two days?
Impressive.
She almost smiled as she took the book and placed it with the children's book she would have to mend.
"Serpentine," she read the name of the book, "a good one. Did you enjoy it?"
He glanced at her with a flat expression and stepped back. In a few steps, he was out of the library, the jingling bell the only proof he had just been there.
For someone as towering and imposing as he was, he moved quietly. Though she shouldn't be surprised, he was silent.
Lotus figured he was mute.
He would come back the next day and pick a book and just stare at her, forcing her to understand and conclude he was borrowing it.
Not one word left his beautiful lips. Not even a reaction that wasn't flat and lifeless.
Letting out a deep breath, she gazed down at her hand. Her glasses had cracked.
Great.
- Writer
