i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

She pulls away and he fights the urge to pull her right back. But Reave is hardly one to spoil such games. No, he finds himself rather enjoying the tension that has begun to build between them, coiling tighter and tighter until it feels as though it might snap altogether. He is greatly looking forward to the moment it does.

Her reply only causes the grin on his lips to grow and the gleam in his eyes to deepen. He rather enjoys surprises.

When she recalls a memory of their youth, the vision of them fluttering between them, he peers at it curiously. He remembers the moments, the wildness they had shared. He had been filled with grief he did not understand and she with rage that the world did not understand her. Together they had been flint and tinder.

He doesn’t answer her question immediately, instead expanding the vision, wrapping the trappings of the meadow around them. As their gazes meet, Reave’s lips quirk in faint recognition. “There are not very many that do understand,” he replies, stepping closer, replacing the vision of their youthful counterparts with the present. “Even now.”

He moves even closer, eliminating the distance she had put between them. There is a gleam in his eye that could be either dangerous or alluring, depending on how one cares to look at it. “But I would much rather look to the future,” he continues, mouth now inches from her cheek. “Wouldn’t you?”

reave

i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

There is a delight in watching the emotions play as memories surrounding her. Of knowing that this moment is wrapping itself around those particular sensations until every time she feels them, this memory would be carried along with them. Does it make him terrible, this desire to stir such things? This bone-deep longing to know he will always be remembered in at least one small way?

He doesn’t have the answers to that question, and he doubts she would either.

Reave is close enough to feel the heat of her. To see the fire in her eyes as she responds in kind. But then, in the space of a single heartbeat, it feels as though everything changes. Her brilliant violet eyes shutter as the wildness in her is banked abruptly. There is something more crafty about her now, something colder, more purposeful.

As she moves close, mouth against his skin, he can feel the shift in her soft whisper, in the flutter of her lashes against his nose. He doesn’t know quite what had caused this sudden change (a pity he could not read minds too), but her question brings him abruptly back to reality.

Withdrawing, he pulls back to peer at her, blue gaze sharp and fixed. He has never been quite so tempted by a woman before, but he understands now why it is that so many like to blame the heat of the moment. Unfortunately Reave is not nearly so skilled at reigning in his own emotions, so against the allure she had carefully crafted, his eyes burn with an intensity that would carve holes right through her if they could. In his anger, he finds that he does not care to be toyed with.

He doesn’t smile when he answers her questions, the words bitten off as they cross his tongue. “I can.” For a moment he simply stares at her. When he closes the distance he had put between them again, there is a dangerous sort of tension in his movements. A stark contrast to the heated teasing of only moments earlier. “There are many paths that bring us back together,” he affirms in a low drawl, his voice curiously hollow as he speaks. “Is that what you want?” He pauses, mouth so close to the hollow just above her mouth she could no doubt feel his exhale. “Or would you rather take one in which we don’t?”

reave

i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

It is her uncertainty that tugs at him first. He wants to ignore it, but he can’t. Not when he is so attuned to every shift in her now that he could nearly feel it vibrating between them. Reave has never been given to the emotion, never been given to second-guessing himself, so he is forced to wonder why she does now. It doesn’t occur to him she had only been trying to match him, to match the wickedness to which he so easily gives in while protecting herself from it at the same time.

He could have told her that would never work though. He has always given himself over to it so completely, allowing it to rage through him and wreak what havoc it would. There is no shielding oneself from these things. It is what had fueled his visceral response, the anger that she would not give herself over as wholly as he had.

But her uncertainty gentles him, even if he does not want it to. Or perhaps it is the way she breathes her response, telling him so plainly that she wants their paths to twine together. It settles the savage that lingers perpetually beneath the surface, poorly hidden beneath a fearsome mask of bone.

He does not respond immediately, but the corners of his lips twitch. He is pleased, even if he does not say it. He had not wanted her to choose the path in which they parted forever, even if he wouldn’t have said so. Reave, for all his feral emotions, is not so free as that. He knows that she could become someone who could hurt him, if he let her. And the bone-clad stallion is not a masochist.

But when she leans forward, he settles against her. The edges of his armor protrude sharply. They must be uncomfortable to lean on, but isn’t that who he is, both inside and out? He would never be a soft or comfortable companion. When he finally does speak, it is to offer her his name. “It’s Reave,” he replies softly. Thief. He had been born one and remains one to this day. After a moment, he touches her cheek. “Come home with me then. I want to show you something.”

reave