— I'll break you a hundred different ways —
It confuses him when she steps closer. He watches her with those eyes that are too quiet, like the stillest of dark waters, but he does not move from her. He still refuses to let himself think too much on why she has captured his attention in such a way. It is more than just the blood-bordered bones that grow outside of her skin, even though they were the first thing to pique his interest. The armor of bone, the sharp and twisted antlers, and the raw and bleeding skin completely betrayed how utterly soft she was. It was that softness that he wanted to capture; wanted to figure out a way to harness it for himself, to only let those muted teal eyes look at him the way she is looking at him right now. He wanted to keep her here, for as long as he could – or until night fell, and he would have to leave.
He recognized the possessive monster that was slowly stirring in its cage, having lain dormant for so many years. He never would have thought the doe-eyed girl before him could have roused it awake so quickly.
Her breath is warm as it fans across his skin, her lips so close to touching that all he would have had to do was minutely shift into her. He angles his head, until his own lips are hovering just above her withers, and for the first time the wings he had kept clenched to his sides lower to a more relaxed stance. The salted breeze stirs at the silken feathers, and he doesn’t seem to notice how the bones and muscles ache from being clamped. The tension he had been holding is released on a slow exhale across her skin and bones, and followed then by a quiet, but definitive, “No.” He could have told her of the things that live in the shadows, creatures that live so deep in the forest they have never seen light; things that should have been left to nightmares and morbid imagination, but somehow they exist. But she is young, and delicate, and even though he hardly knows her there is something about her that he knows he wants to – has to – protect.
“The world is already terrible enough,” He begins in that low rumble of a voice, and finally, his head drops. His lips find a place at the front of her shoulder that is skin, and he lingers there for a moment. She feels as soft as she had looked, and she tastes of dried blood and the sea; just as he had thought she would. Slowly, almost achingly, he draws a path from her skin and across the plate of bone, mindful of where the skin was open and bleeding but making no effort to avoid it, either. He withdraws his touch from her then, though his muzzle skims the tangled strands of her mane as he does so. He wants to keep touching her; a hunger that he so rarely feels, and even less often actually acts upon. Something holds him back; something uncertain and clawing, but he obeys nonetheless. “Why would you want to hear stories to confirm it?” He peers at her with an angle of his head, seeking out her pale blue-green eyes, unable to look away from her.
— and I'll make you remember my face —
