THANA.

(as black as your soul)

  There is a tendril of frustration within the wild thrumming of her heart, coaxed to the surface just as her release slipped away, lost to the ether of the endless darkness that enveloped the woodland. Glistening beneath the pale, bleak light peeking through the density of the canopy overhead, her indigo skin lay draped in a sheen of sweat, with a trickle of blood along her shoulders and spine, where he had so fervently, so ardently gripped her closer moments before. Ire writhes and spumes within her chest, growing tighter with glowering impatience.

  Her lithe, agile body presses against the paleness of her King, dark lips brushing along the column of tension within his neck – yearning to ease his strain; to rid him of the rigidity within his coiled muscle and the stillness of his bones. Her hip is tucked within the crease of his own, while the dark abyss of one eye and the dismal gray of the other bore into the voyeur too foolish to remain unseen; too unwise to leave the two to their carnal pleasure – at least until completion.

  She does not protest when Gryffen presses past her, nor when his shoulder collides with that of Aditi, the heat of his breath along her neck and the stiffened need of his discontent only invigorated by the way her body flinches to his touch – by the sheer adrenaline and trepidation filling the stagnant air. She is torn, sociopathic in her glee at her failure, at the thought of what wreckage he might make of her, and her roiling rage at her closeness to the incensed, wrathful King. She watches with envy as his teeth and lips caress the slope of her spine, to the pulse of her throat, where his teeth pause to feel her blood thrum under his lips.

  Where her desire is to cut her, to spill her blood onto the dry soil and brittle foliage below – gasping, bleeding – with a deadened look in her eye; the stench of her death a reminder of how failure must fall.

  Slowly, her own lips caress Gryffen and the shadow of his jaw – a silent, unwavering assertion that he is hers. All the while, her single, empty black eye studies Aditi, never letting her break away – holding her, while the heat of their bodies and the rising ire of their agitation changes the atmosphere. Her mind is rampant, milling over how she might end her, how she might delight in her carnage, how she might bathe in her blood.

  ”There is no saving her, Gryffen,” she coos to him, her lips against his ear. ”she has failed you; failed us all - dead weight.” She murmurs, a wicked gleam in her eye. ”Let us make an example out of her. Let me.”