Like birds’ wings mangled and tangled in a web of wires - each lie she used to free herself. The more the story continues, the tighter it becomes - like the arms of prison shackling her form without warmth. Like a catch between fangs of the beast. Or talons pierced deep into her form. Is it fear of a prey to not fight free and flee but to submit to an inevitable death, or is it determination to keep the play going? What was there to be feared, if she truly was who she claimed to be?
As long as one behaved like a prey, a prey they’d be in the eyes of a predator, trigger a chase by attempts of escape- true hunter would know its equal, approach without fear. Which one, would she choose to be.
But was it even fear… this all lingered between edges of danger and pure curiosity. Adrenaline rush she could become addicted to. What would he do.
Her hand, running over the chest she pressed her form more and more against, reaching up towards the covered frame of his face - small and delicate compared to the hands much larger - yet, her touch could be just as firm as the fingers digging into the layers of a town man’s attire.
❝ — Don’t you feel anything but the thrill of kill? It is but a passing joy, while… you could have my very everything. ❞
How is it that between the two of them, it is her gaze that is confident and his that is shaken?
Despite how light she is, he feels a ten-ton weight pressing against him. Her hand spreads across his chest like a flame spreading throughout a home, leaving blazes and sparks with every motion. That flame now threatens to set alight his mind, his eyes, his lips.
His hands are ungloved, bare, raw, simply because he wished to clean his equipment. Now he has been ambushed without his armor, and his hands - massive, thick, ready to tear and snap and crush at a moment’s notice - hover around her, fingers twitching with uncertainty.
“Do you know what you are saying? Has the delirium taken you? You know nothing of me, not even my name, and you would give me your everything? Me, who does not even know your name?”
This is a different interrogation. He seeks not beasthood or infection but something far more sinister and formless. His hands slowly clasp around her shoulders, before they move up, up. They trail across her collar, and they crawl every so slowly up her neck, fingers pressing every so slightly like teeth around the neck of a captured animal - yet, he does not feel as if she is the captured one.
His fingers press against her skin and trail up to her face, which he now cups between his palms. They both know it would be so easy to snap her neck right there, for a single motion to end her everything, and indeed, how possible it was that he might do just that. He lowers himself to look more throughly into her eyes, and from this close, she can see the inferno flickering within them - and she can see her own reflection filling all that he sees. In this moment, he is looking at nothing but her, and only her, with his complete attention.
Does he seek betrayal? Yes, that is what he searches her face for. Certainly, she will show fear, or she will show disgust, yes, there will be the telltale twitch of her eyes, a sneer on her lips, yes, this is what he searches her face for. He must confirm that this is not real, that she is simply deceitful or mad, for he knows everything there is to know on how to handle traitors.
But what if she isn’t? What of the alternative? What is the possibility that makes his own gaze waver?
“You speak of your everything, but you do not fool me. What could you possibly desire from me? I could destroy you at a moment’s notice, and you know it. What game are you playing?”
His thumb slides over her cheek and rests on her lips.
“This is all an act, I know it is. How far would you take it, hm?”
His thumb presses against her lips, tugs at the lower one, and his hand moves under her chin to tilt her face up at his command. His eyes - the only part of his face that she can see, the rest hidden away like the secrets she worked her life to uncover - burn into her.
“You have something up your sleeve, I know it.”
His hands slide away from his face, dragging across her skin, her neck, in all the right and wrong ways. They rest upon the collar of her shirt.
“Surely, you do not desire this? Surely, this is temporary madness, or you seek to trick me? Confess, and it shall cease. Do you not see reason? What could you possibly want?”
He tears it open and buttons fly like a flame’s sparks and he can see how her chest goes up and down and up and down with every single breath, he is one step closer to her heart and lungs and her life, and she can see himself in his hands, she can see his eyes burning through her, daring her, provoking her, fighting her, asking her - what will you do?
