The pale moonlight drapes over the finely preened feathers of her winged appendages, drawing his gaze away from the endless intensity of her golden flecked eyes, tracing the gentle slope of her spine and the rounded curve of her hip. His gaze is settled somewhere between where the subtle protrusion of her hip becomes the arc of her hindquarters, and the simmering flame flickering inside of him becomes a blistering inferno, burning hotly within the scalding hearth of his chest. Her dark tresses entangle with his own, where his teeth delicately untangle a twisted knot that lay close to the base of her arched neck. The temptation is heavy and difficult to stifle, but as his eyes become transfixed once more upon her own, he can feel the very same tangible heat burning from the surface of her russet skin.

  It had been so long since he had felt anything beyond lust. Certainly, he desired her – he is carved out of pure testosterone, bone and muscle, and even the weight of time had yet to sate his sensuality – but there is something more within the darkness of her stare, boring into his own, tempting him closer while keeping him at a distance. He can feel in the marrow of his age-old bones that she is aching and longing as he is, but she, too, is scarred from a lifetime of heartache and loss, and so it douses their flame just so to keep him from drawing her closer, from tempting the flickering fire from within her soul.

  It is more than carnal desire – her secrecy, her fiercely guarded heart and mind only draws him closer to her, perhaps in part because he carried the very same desire to keep his own close to his heart. He had given himself so completely to another not so long ago, and she had spurned him, fearful of his potential, wary of the experience that had wrought the ice away from him and instead etched fire into the very fiber of his being. She had pushed him away, and he had done so as well, keeping her safe from the dark and tightly kept secret of his anguish and agony, when in truth he had done nothing more than wound her by creating such a grave and deep chasm she could not possibly hope to cross.

  He was unreachable; he had lived too many lifetimes and he had not trusted her to share the burden with him.

  He cannot keep these heavy thoughts away from his mind, while the warmth of her breath intermingles with his own (he is yearning to close the gap, to draw her near and to feel the softness of her dark lips against his own, but apart he remains). The sheer intensity of the attraction that urges him closer to her is nearly unbearable, but again, it is laced with so much more – interwoven is the promise of potential, of something more tangible and whole - but each of them were wounded, carrying the weight of their own burden, longing for someone to carry it with but wary of what it could mean.

  When he finally does feel her brush her own lips ever so gently across his jawline, he is drawn back to the moment, where his heart is thrumming and his veins are heavily laden with desire and uncertainty. He never shied away from sexuality – desire was easily sated with a fervent touch and a breathy gasp, but he had barred himself so long ago from truly feeling anything else that there is a small flicker of something so unfamiliar to him, so foreign and forgotten - fear.

  Tell me, she says softly to him, with an edge of the ferocity that had brought him to her as if he were a fluttering moth to her irresistible flame. What do you see?

  ”I see that you have been hurt,” he murmurs huskily across her skin, reaching out to brush his whiskered mouth over her cheek, pressing his own against it to feel her heartbeat through her skin. ”I see that you are afraid of letting someone in, of being hurt, just as I am,” and more quietly, ”I see you.”

  The desire is undeniable – and the attraction is reciprocated, while her own heart hammers raggedly against the confinement of her own breast (so rapidly he can very nearly feel it, vibrating with adrenaline surging through her veins). There is no longer any shadow of a doubt that the chemistry building is not imagined by him – time has all but ceased, capturing each of them in a moment of breathlessness and unspoken longing, but he can feel the air thicken as it is rife with hesitance, shifting as if the wind itself were changing direction. 

   She presses closer to him, her chest nearly flush against the broadness of his own as his teeth and lips brush ever so lightly across the quivering surface of her auburn skin – he does not yet seek to covet her, nor to cover her; only to know her and taste her – but how could she know his intention? How could she know that, with so many years spent withdrawn into himself, he longed for the intimacy of her presence more than the sensuality of her body?

  That is not to say that he does not want her – he does, and the entirety of the fire-lit canvas of his body is vibrating with the need, but he is more than the carnal desire simmering beneath the surface of his marred flesh. He was a sinful creature – he had given into lust many times when what he sought was so much more than to sate a sexual urge. Doing so had even cost him a great love of his life – but the love had been lost long before that, and he had become lonely, dejected, and he sought affection elsewhere. Flawed. He had many a mistake over the course of his lifetime.

  Yet, the intimacy of the moment is shattered so suddenly. Before he can utter a word, she is whirling away from him, her teeth bared and snapping at him with instinctual wariness – with anger, resentment, and fear lighting the rim of her golden gaze, searing into him. A mere, idle shift of his bone structure had stirred something primal and fearful, and he is entirely still, his watchful scarlet stare wide-eyed – stunned, startled, and speechless. It brought back a memory he thought he had long since forgotten, of his mother cowering beneath the weight of his father – her own teeth bared, lashing out toward his neck, toward his sneering muzzle – before he inevitably tired her out, pinned her down, and took what he wanted. He had seen it time and time again in his youth; he had been forced to watch more than a time or two – and he had seen the very same quivering, frightened gleam in her eye, as she pleaded for him to leave her be.

  He can still taste his blood, even years after he had taken his life – even years after he had raped his mother for the last and final time, before being left in a pool of his own blood.

  He does not shy away, nor does he recoil – he is steady and unmoving, hesitance in place of where desire had laced the crimson pupil of each eye. The moment is fleeting, gone and over with, but she is left trembling, wracked with a memory she would sooner forget. She is apologetic, but he merely gives a shake of his thick cranium, to and fro, slow and methodical – understanding why, but she owed him no apology – not if she had once suffered as his mother had (a terrible, spiteful woman – for who with a heart could name her son Offspring? – but she was his mother, nonetheless).

  The anguish contorting the beautiful, vivid line of her feminine features is haunting, and when she does finally find the words, she is wrought with tension and the word ready may as well weigh more than the blinding moon itself. Ready.

  ”No explanation needed,” he murmurs softly, watchful of her and reaching out to her – seeking to comfort her, to give her solace and a mind at ease. ”I will never do anything against your will,” ah, but she does not know his intent and he does not know her secret, but he can feel it – the terseness of her body language, the trembling fear that had quivered in her shakily whispered words. ”I apologize if ..” I crossed the line, he doesn’t say. ”I misread your body language,” he says instead, his tone apologetic, and his gaze heavy upon her own. ”I only came to seek your company; I am so sorry.”

 Her voice is soft, yet rough around the edges - I will not have your pity, she mumbles, but he does not pity her at all. His quiet contemplation permeates the heavy silence that ensues. She is uncomfortable, and uneasy in her own skin, and he cannot even begin to imagine the immense suffering she has endured – he tried not to think of his mother, of her anguish and despair, weeping pitifully with dried blood staining her ivory skin. He had never known such distress, and he could never understand the depth in which it has hurt her, stirring grief and apprehension within her restless self. He could only be a pillar of strength; a quiet presence to offer solace and consolation.

  No, you didn’t. I enjoy your company.

  ”And I, yours.”

  When her breath once more intermingles with his own, he brushes the dark shadow of his lips across her cheek again, but more deliberately than before. The broad plane of his forehead is pressed beneath her jawline, before his gentle caress is tucked against her neck and trailed up into the entanglement of her dark, wavy tresses, draping his neck over her own to draw her closer to him. The urgent heat of his touch has dwindled into a tender warmth, seeking to chase away the shadow tucked away beneath her tired eyes. His heart is pounding still, steady and strong, as the moonlight illuminates their entangled bodies in its pale glow.

  Her explanation only touches the surface of her experience, but he does not need her to explicitly tell him what had torn her spirit apart so maliciously. He can fill in the spaces where a void is left, and there is a spark of anger festering inside of him – a shred of rage, encapsulated in the growing ember fluttering within his chest. He had never sought to take another against their will – he could not imagine the mentality, even out of spite, out of anger. He was heavily flawed – he had made many a mistake, he had caused strife, he had been unfaithful and unkind – but he had never taken what was not his.

  The thought of it is enough to roil his anger.

  But it is not his pain. It is not his burden, though he yearns to bear it for her.

  When her gaze is finally settled upon him after he has withdrawn from giving her what little comfort he can, the tempestuous fury of her heartache and painful memories has faded, and in its place, a softly spoken confession is made. I like you, Offspring, her whispered words say to him – so innocent, in a way – so rich with promise, potential and possibility, and far more dangerous than he had anticipated.

  ”I am glad that you’ve told me,” he murmurs softly, earnestly, while the darkness of his stare searches hers. ”and I am sorry for all that you’ve been through. I like you, too, Liz,” he admits, his words quietly mumbled against the corner of her mouth, lingering there just so.

  She is withdrawn, pulling deeper into herself as her raw vulnerability is tucked away where his prying eyes cannot see, leaving little else but the shadow of darkness hidden in her amber gaze. A suppressed sigh slowly emerges from his tired and weary lungs as she lurches away from him, recoiling from his gentle touch and light caress. There is a pang of dejection tugging at his hammering heart, thrusting roughly against the rigid boundary of his broad chest, but it does not last – she had suffered much in her time, as he had in his, and he can feel it within the marrow of his fortified bone that it is not him she is fearful of, but the potential that lay beneath the fervent heat of his skin and the softness of his mouth pressed along the crook of her neck. She had been hurt – so had he. Patience.

  It had been so long since he had felt any kindling of desire, and even longer since he had felt the long-forgotten adrenaline that now courses through his veins with ferocity. He does not want to let it go so soon. There is a part of him that wondered if he would ever find another connection – that wondered if he would feel drawn to another; that wondered if he would ever find a love strong enough to withstand his flawed, heavily scarred presence, strong enough to love him as he is – for who he is. She had not – she never had, or so he tells himself when the dark and quiet had settled, stifling and suffocating in the loneliness of nightfall.

  After his flesh had been boiled from the inside defending Grumblesnakes, leaving him breathless, covered in blistering welts, and dying while melted tissue oozed from every orifice, none of it had been the same. He was angry, resentful, filled with raw power and rage like he had never felt before and she – she had tried to kiss the pain and anguish away, but it had been too little, too late. When the darkness of his power began to befall his furrowed brow, she recoiled, keeping far from his blistering, scalding touch, try as he might to draw her nearer to him. He felt alone, isolated, and betrayed by the one his heart longed for most –

   Even now, as his crimson gaze traces the somber line of her angular, but feminine features, he can feel the sting of rejection stirring sediment within his blood. A knot began to form within the pit of his belly, as his stare is averted elsewhere, boring into the dry clay beneath his weight. His heart – though racing for her, ignited by the chemistry burning like a flickering ember between them – is a coiled and shriveled thing, thundering still but aching with the knowledge that he was not worth loving and she would only be as disappointed in him as all the rest had been.

  His voice has failed him, with words that were so weakly tethered to one another dying quickly upon his dark and slightly parted lips – when he is met by the warmth of her kiss, soft and feather-light, deepening with each passing moment. His whiskered mouth moves with her own, stirring a heat once more within his chest (stoking the fire; provoking the flame), only searching the plane of her mahogany skin and the gleam of her honeyed eyes once she has pulled away, her eyes peering so intently into his own. There is a shadow of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and the silence that lay between them is deafening -  with the moonlight touching her cheek and illuminating the beauty that lay beneath what was still broken.

  ”I shouldn’t have come,” he murmurs quietly, the confession heavy and unsteady. ”but I wanted to see you. I am just so tired of feeling like a walking corpse, and you - you remind me that I am alive.”

  Quietly, softly – “The truth is that I haven’t felt anything like I’ve felt with you in a long, long time, and a part of me thought –“ he pauses, breath held for a moment. ”- that maybe I never would again. But I do. With you.”

  Fire.

  It so often consumed him – he can hardly remember a time when he had been without it; the flickering ember felt as much a part of him as the tender tissue and thick muscle beneath his marred, charcoal skin. He could not breathe without being reminded of the blistering fire as it envelopes the delicate tissue of his lungs, just as he could no longer remember the solace that had once come with the frigidity of ice and the way the glacial frost had felt along the broad slope of his spine. Yet, the heat stirred by her gentle kiss and sweet breath brushing across his cheek rouses a different flame entirely – a white-hot flicker, hotter than he had known before.

  There is talk of fire upon the darkness of her lips, and he is captivated, tracing the supple lines and listening to her with fierce intensity. He is gathering a small piece of her with every thought shared, bit by bit, exposing the tenderness that lay beneath her hardened resolve and feminine ferocity. She closes the space left between them yet again, brushing her muzzle across his own, and he relishes it.

  He is invigorated by her; energized and strengthened with each caress and soft murmur – he can feel the temperature of his blood rising, roiling through his veins and through the length of his broad and towering body as her sultry voice coos to him, tempting him, but he does not betray the way the fire burns so brightly within him. Instead, he merely smiles, with a low and husky chuckle bubbling up from the column of his throat.

  ”You haven’t lost it,” he muses softly, amusement lacing its way through each throaty word. ”you just need someone to remind you that it is still there.”

  He is quiet for a moment, with the warmth of his cerise gaze boring into her own, but the pale light of dawn is already peeking up over the line of the distant horizon, urging the once vibrant moon to fall away into the sky, as the starlit sky is bathed in the splendor of morning. Her lips brush against his yet again, drawing his attention to her, but he does not hesitant to press them to her own – stealing the kiss held before him so tantalizingly, as a shadow of a crooked smile once more tugs at the corner of his mouth.

  ”You know where to find me.”