[ @margueritestjust continued from here ]
Marguerite did not lower the pistol. She’d had little time to grab for it from the cupboard, much less close her robe for modesty. She knew neither pistol nor manners would be of much use to her against a being that could appear in her bedroom without notice, but it was a display the way a dog might bare its fangs.
“Forgive me for harboring some doubts.” Marguerite said, trying to sound as powerful as she usually did around mortals. This was no mortal. Her damp hair from the bath felt cold and heavy; she was acutely aware of a trickle of water running down the side of her neck. “But when a man who is not my husband surprises me in the bath, I can hardly think it innocent.”
“Be that as it may,” he begins, the slightest upturn to the corners of his lips and an amused light to his eyes… that are focused on her face and, briefly, to the firearm so squarely fixed upon him. “I mean you no harm. Truly.”
So carefully raising his hands to his sides, palms facing her to show their currently empty state, he makes no move toward her, no move to reach for her. He remains as still as a statue.
“I come on behalf of your husband.”
And then the slightest shrug and a wicked smirk appears on his face, as though having a lethal weapon pointed at him has been the most entertaining part of his day to this point.
“Of course, if you’ve no care for him, feel free to put a bullet right into my blackened heart. Though I should warn, I’ve thus far proven a hard man to kill, and I allow one one attempt per person.”
