This scene has been in my brain for too long, and now it’s actually on a page.
Y’all. I am a sucker for romance. I’m a sucker for chemistry and scenes that are one foot away from boarding the train into smutville.
This scene is about two feet away from that train, which is about as close as I’m comfortable to getting on a WIP that isn’t bound for AO3. It’s going to be a long one, so I’m putting it under the cut. If romance isn’t your cup of tea, I understand. This is still in first-ish draft mode, very little editing has been done here. >.> Just wanted to share while I’m riding the “It’s out of my head!!” high.
Abram took in the outburst with the same calm, but there was a slight tension along his arms, his shoulders. Something building just under the surface of that cool exterior he wore so easily.
"So you’re looking for a bit of ‘Normal’? If that’s what you’re looking for, what would you do now? Without Auberhaven in the mix?"
He asked the question so seriously, it actually made her pause. Without Auberhaven? Without Fellowin and Derrick’s marks on her mind and body? There would be a host of things she’d do.
But, right now...
They'd been walking down the forest path for a few minutes, and Rheia let her pace slow to a stop, reaching out a hand to pull at his arm to stop him as well.
He stopped, turning so he was facing her more fully.
Normally, Rheia wouldn't hesitate. Wouldn't resist the urges that made her fingers itch or her heart to yearn.
Still, she paused for just a heartbeat under the watchful gaze of those ash-grey eyes.
Then the moment was over, and Rheia stepped forward, rising on her toes, arms going around his neck so she could tip his face down to hers. Crushing her lips to his in a kiss that couldn't afford to be gentle.
Just one bite. She'd be satisfied with just one bite of forbidden fruit, wouldn't she?
The scruff of beard scratched at her chin, but the taste of his lips was better than the aura had ever made her feel.
She had to step back, or she'd happily drown herself in that taste.
Pulling herself away, Rheia felt her lips tingle with the want for more.
"That's what I'd normally do. If Auberhaven weren't in the mix. If I pretended that we weren't Chaperone and Employer."
He stayed still, staring at the space she had just left. Rheia feared for a moment that she had misjudged the hints of interest she’d seen shine through every now and then during their journey. Or even earlier than that in Wheldrake.
Then his gaze flicked to hers with a look that reminded her what it felt like to have her toes curl in pleasure and to enjoy the company of a lover in her bed.
“Well, so long as we’re pretending.” He said, before he stepped forward to continue the kiss, pulling her up to him so he could wrap an arm around her waist. The kiss tasted like the buzz of power. Like thunder and lightning had liquefied and distilled into the finest of wines.
And Rheia just discovered an undeniable thirst.
Caught up in the kiss, in the intoxicating thrill of lust, Rheia lost all sense of the world around them until she felt her back bump into the trunk of a tree. Pressed between it and the man who was kissing her senseless, Rheia gladly used its support to pour more passion into the kiss. Catching his lower lip between her teeth in a nip that was darkly playful.
Abram made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a laugh, as he hitched her up higher against the tree, letting her legs wrap around his hips. Her arms twined around his neck once more, letting her fingers run through his ink-black hair.
A low alarm tried to sound in Rheia’s mind, that this was far more than the one bite she’d intended. If she weren’t careful, she’d devour the forbidden fruit, stone and all.
Damn her romantic heart, and all the love stories she’d learned at her mother’s knee. She had paid for his protection. It would be entirely unethical to act as anything more than an employer. It had to be the aura that made her consider crossing that line.
Somehow she managed to keep at least half of her wits. Enough to query, “What boon would that be?”
Abram let go of her hand, and it dropped back to her side to fist in her skirts. If she didn’t keep tight hold of herself, she would try to cross a line. One that her body might not let her cross, and the attempt would humiliate her nearly as much as Derrick’s twisted gaze and vile intentions.
Abram glanced down at her hands, still gripped tight in her skirts.
“Fighting off another battle?” He asked, looking back up to her eyes to see the truth. Rheia shook her head.
“Not exactly. You haven’t told me what your boon would be.”
Abram took a half-step back, and she relaxed her grip as the aura’s pull lessened with the distance. It was like standing on the edge of a river current. One step forward, and you could be swept away. Keep standing on the bank or in the shallows, and it was only pretty scenery.
Rheia gave a wry smile.
“Well, I woke up under a wagon instead of in one, so I’d say that’s regrettable enough. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one sleeping on the ground, or I would have felt right foolish.”
Posting a day late, because I got distracted by anime late last night and forgot to post. Whoops!
~//~
Distracted from the subsiding pain, Rheia looked up at the girl. The mouse-brown hair tied back in a soft braid jogged her memory. The same girl that had guided her to her performance for Lord Fellowin and his guests months ago.
The girl gestured to Rheia’s arm, then her legs, making various signs with her hands. While Rheia had no idea what the signs meant, she understood the look of concern on the girl’s face well enough.
“I’m fine.” She said, and hoped that she didn’t sound like an idiot. “Just trying to get my feet under me again.”
The girl gestured again, but Rheia couldn’t understand anything more than the growing frustration on the girl’s face.
Appearing to give up, the girl threw her hands in the air. This was by far the most emotion Rheia had ever seen from a maid in the Manor. All that she had seen before, they had been shrinking, demure. Terrified of the Lord Fellowin and at least a few of his guards.
Watching in fascination as the Maid went to the trunk at the foot of the left side’s center bed, she clicked open the lid and rummaged through it.
Finally emerging with a sheaf of parchment and a charcoal stick.
Returning to where Rheia had managed to sit up on the floor, She wasn’t going to try standing again anytime soon, the maid laid the parchment on the floor and began to write.
The words were hastily written, but Rheia could make them out well enough when the girl turned the paper for her to see.
‘Is the Lord Nicholas really dead?’
Rheia nodded. “Saw it with my own eyes.” Again the pang of furious disappointment stabbed at her heart. It distracted her enough that she didn’t see the maid write another message to her until the parchment was turned again for her to read.
‘Did you kill him?’
“No.” Rheia spat out bitterly. “But it should have been.”
This time she caught the movement as the maid retrieved the parchment to write another message.
‘For what he did? In the lower study?’
Seeing the title for the torture room, Rheia had to bite back a snort of derision. Of course that’s what he had called it. The lower study. It sounded so innocuous, so cultured. Entirely counter to the vile experiments the Lord had enacted there.
“For everything.” Rheia growled out. “For what he did there, yes. But also for the children, and the nightmares, his son. Everything that he allowed to thrive for his own sick experiments.”
The last came out in a hiss of fury. She could feel the light beginnings of her magic starting to awaken. It was weak, only a fraction of what she would normally have at her disposal.
Still, the girl must have seen the gleam of potential in her eyes, as she scooted backwards a few inches. Putting a little extra distance between her and Rheia.
The sentiment behind it added a sting of regret to the simmering fury. She wouldn’t let it consume her as she had before. At least, she would try not to.
“I didn’t know you were married.” His shoulders were stiff, and he refused to meet Rheia’s gaze. It occurred to her that even though he hadn’t been Noble for more than a decade now, he had been raised that married ladies were not to be trifled with.
Which many might consider ‘snuggling’ stepping over that line into ‘trifling’.
Abram kept his gaze on his plate, seeming to glower at the remains of his eggs.
Rheia looked between the two men, then caught Asami’s eye. The Fistas’Rawet was still giving her cat-and-the-cream smile and now Rheia was in on the joke.
Kai thought that Rheia was married. Married. At this time in her life? When she had only started her traveling? Even if the thought of marriage as Centralers arranged it wasn’t ridiculous, she had decades before tradition dictated she even look for a road-mate.
The thought was nearly as ridiculous as a singing snake.
A giggle was bubbling up from her chest, fighting against her attempts to keep a straight face.
“You think…” Rheia said, her voice straining to keep the laughter at bay, “that I’m married?”
Asami’s grin spread wider, the black stripes from the inner corners of her eyes seemed to gleam with tears of mirth.
Kai shrugged, “It’s fine. I just hadn’t expected…”
The waves of guilt coming from Kai’s iron-stiff back were nearly tangible. It was too much for Rheia’s humor.
The giggles burst forth, like the frothy bubbles of a flooded stream bed.
“You think…” She giggled again. “That I am married?” Asami couldn’t help but join the laughter as Rheia gasped for breath.
Kai’s head jerked up, as Rheia nearly fell over with laughter.
The fact that he didn’t move away from her, lightened her heart a little. The animosity from Kai after her loss of control stung, and made the slippery threads of composure all the harder to keep in her grasp.
“Have you seen these?” She asked him, gesturing with the papers.
“No, I haven’t. What are they?”
Rheia turned to the next page, and the next, until she reached the end of “Log 63”, and checked the next one.
“Notes,” Then she skimmed the next log. “These aren’t in order, though. It goes from Sixty-three. That was me. I was Sixty-third in a string of his atrocities. Next it goes to… Fifty-seven. That doesn’t sound right, unless.”
Rheia skimmed through the notes. So much like hers, except number Fifty-seven never died during their ordeal. Reading the short description of the ‘tests’ underwent, Rheia knew from experience that they probably wanted to. Probably begged every God they could name to send them on to the Silver Streams.
