"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Yes, indeed there was, and Reagan was beginning to figure out that Alek knew his fair share of what that kind of power was. She sighed and brought herself a step closer to him. He moved with a confidence and swagger that showed he knew what he wanted, that predatory gaze that longed to devour something. She gulped a little when she realized that something was her.
She felt herself shifting into another place, and in another time. She closed her green eyes and pulled her head into her chest, saying a prayer for her family, her husband—her very soul. A decision was to be made—but it would not be made tonight. If Ruan wanted her, he would have to fight for her. She was done putting everyone else before herself. This man who stood in front of her—he wanted nothing more than the dark grey mare who stood before him. “What you say is true. But when you give that kind of power away, you also give them the power to hurt you.” She looked down for a beat, before looking back to him again. “I am done hurting.”
He came near her, his nose resting above her shoulder as she caught in the whiff of cold sweat and adrenaline. He seemed to be testing her boundaries, pushing her to see how far she was willing to go. How badly did she want this? How badly did she want him?
How badly does he want her?
She blinks, and looks at the man before her, lifting her lips to gingerly touch the line of his cheek, catching the liquid heat that matched the emerald of hers. She gently tugged into his mind to find the shape that ran wild inside his mind. She tilted her head, a small smile playing on her mouth as she transformed herself once again, stepping away from him with a sense of knowing.
In a blaze of white moon light, she stepped out in the form of a black panther, sliding her body from the center of the void she created, and closer to him. Her blue black pelt reflected the white of the moon, and her elongated body was all curves and muscle. She exhales, and approaches Alek, circling his body, hugging his legs as she wrapped herself around him, her tail caressing him gently at the withers, sensuous like the cat she had mentioned previously—bathing him in the scent he seemed so intent on gathering. Her voice is silky as she makes a heavy purr between words, daring him to make good on his threat. Dared him to say it aloud. “What do you think will make me happy, then? And for how long? Immortality lasts forever.”
well, I'm a lion in the haze and the lamb in the lightning oh, these spears and chains of flames around my neck are tightening
“So hold onto your power, love,” he grinned, ears flicking forward beneath the thicket of his forelock, energy charging through him as he considered her. “No one is asking for you to give up anything tonight that you don’t want to.” She was beautiful, he thought, but hurt; that was often a dangerous combination. Still, he was intrigued. Intrigued enough that he didn’t back away, even at the obvious shards of glass in his palm, even at the obvious way she broke around him, dark and tempting and potentially lethal.
His voice dropped even lower. “And no one is going to hurt you.”
That was never his intention—not here. He was a vagabond, an entirely self-composed, selfish man. He lived within the orbit of his own universe, his gravity grabbing and pulling in planets as he needed them. His heart was the sun of his world, his passions his moons. But still, he wasn’t entirely cruel. Apathetic at times, cutting at others, but not needlessly callous. He took easily, took what he wanted, when he wanted it, but he also gave (what he gave and how he gave it was subject to his own whims, but still, he gave).
When she reached out and bridged the gap between them, lips touching his cheek, he growled deep in his throat, a pleased noise as he considered her. She shifted fluidly, and his eyes turned fever bright as he watched her move from equine to panther, her form smaller than his own but the same velvet, the same shape. He remained still as she moved around him, curling sensuously around his legs. He curved his heavy neck to bring his head down, mouth hovering over her back—still not touching, not crossing that border. Just a purr of satisfaction as he watched her pull on this confidence, begin to own her own heart.
What do you think will make me happy, then?
“I will,” he growled, the answer confident—a statement and not a question. “And for long enough,” his eyes sparked. “I am no stranger to immortality, Reagan.” It wasn’t just the panther that ran wild within him, but also that wicked deathlessness. “But we don’t need to plan that right now.” He didn’t know her—not anything more than the way he hungered for her, the way the light reflected off her, the way sadness both formed and then shattered in her eyes—but if he had to guess, he’d guess she hadn't done something truly selfish, truly spontaneous in a long time. And maybe that’s just what she needed. A devilish smile, mouth lingering just above her, “Let me make you happy tonight.” A low growl. “You deserve that.”
No plans. The idea of living with no plan, no promise—it seemed like a release from everything she has ever known. The promise of a heart not broken, a balm for the shattered soul that threatened to drown her in the ocean of her own tears. Alek seemed to be the escape, the restart—and it was one that Reagan intended to take.
To dive in deep to get to know the man who was willing to take her head on, on nothing more than a heady attraction. Something. It was intangible, and Reagan could not place her thoughts on what exactly it was about him. Maybe it was his eyes, or the way he was not afraid to wrap her up inside himself. She didn’t have to be the powerful one. In him, she could hide. She could be something she’d never been before—just a woman.
The thought was so intoxicating, she found her face and posture softening and melting into him as he brought down his neck to lean into her caress. When she had finally brought herself around to meet his gaze again, it was with a serious, assured gaze. Let me make you happy tonight he’d growled into her ear. You deserve that.
She could not help herself. With one last push of Ruan upon her heavy heart, she mentally kissed him goodbye, and cleared her thoughts to settle on the dark stranger in front of her. She was ready for something different—a new story. A new chance. In a breath, she was back to the grey mare that he had encountered earlier in the woods, her green eyes flashing the wildly tangled woman who was daring to be unleashed. The wolf that wanted to run… To sweat. To revel in the adrenaline rush. She takes a breath, and drops her hackles and rolls her shoulders back. Her long hair pulls back from her face, and for the moment, she is serious. She takes one step, and then two…
“Please be tender with my bruised heart…because I need you tonight.”
There was a soul in him, a glowing ember that belonged not to him but his wife, traded in an unexpected clash of magic so long ago. He could glimpse a little of her as she could glimpse a little of him.
And he was a fool to think that it was fear that made it pulse and dance in that familiar, erotic way.
He'd felt it writhe and move within him, so hungry and eager and not afraid -not afraid- as it guided him. So distracted, so consumed in herself, in her potent prospect, he went forgotten and unnoticed. So slowly, so gradually, she dimmed it more and more, piece by piece pushed him out of mind, out of heart, until she shut it off entirely. But he was there by then.
He watched with stoic coldness his mate brush her lips across a handsome stranger's face, shift into a sleek panther to tease and rub against this feline man that must house the same beast within him for her to pull this likeness out of herself and become what he would want most. As was her way. She had done the same for him, after all. How little it meant now, seeing her this way, doing the very same for a stranger. It was nothing to her. A blink of magic. He was nothing to her. A blip in time.
The man promised her happiness, whispered sweetly into her ear, and she was so easily caught, so easily won as she shifted back into herself and stepped so purposefully to him. "Please be tender with my bruised heart... because I need you tonight." And it was more than enough.
He slipped from the shadows on his wolf-earned silence, a solid stare meeting the eyes of the strange male evenly. He said nothing, he didn't have to, and approached the couple. There was an exchange, a greeting between predators, and out of respect neither would lay claim to the other's feast. And this feast belonged to the panther. He could very well have it.
His gaze shifted to the woman of gray, and a knob of ice tucked under her chin to gently lift and turn it to him as he peered across to her. When their eyes met, a vibrant clash of emerald fire and ice blue, he spoke, carved it in stone to withstand the test of time and survive the highest storms.
Do not return to my home.
He dissolved the ice, dissolved her shackles to this marriage she must have hated so much. And now she could be happy, take that faithless joy she asked of this stranger free of guilt. His eyes slid to the man as he passed by, silent still, then faced forward as he left.
He was a fool.
But so was she if she thought he'd fight for disloyalty.
well, I'm a lion in the haze and the lamb in the lightning oh, these spears and chains of flames around my neck are tightening
His eyes flared dangerously as he watched her navigate through the complicated paths of her own mind, as he watched her come to her own conclusions. He remained still, strange eyes flashing in thought, giving her that space she needed to make her final decision. When she shifted back, body transforming into that small gray mare he saw when he had first arrived, he knew what she had decided upon, and he felt his chest tighten with anticipation. He just nodded as she stepped forward, not moving from where he stood. “I will be careful,” he growled, beckoning her forward. “Come here, Reagan.”
But it wasn’t to be—
Not now at least.
His sharp eyes shifted as the purple-spotted stallion approached, and a growl built low and deep in his throat, a frustration at the interruption. He had never been more furious at his lack of ability, at an internal beast that roared in his chest but could not be manifested. So he stood still, growling low but refusing to move, meeting and holding the other’s gaze evenly as realization began to dawn in his mind.
So this is the ‘we’ she had let it slip, the casual word that she had corrected. Was this all the husband she had spoken of? He had suspected that she was the magician, suspected that there was more to her and her story than met the eye, and the longer he stood there, observing the exchange, the more his suspicions began to cement. He didn’t interrupt though; he didn’t bother to interject himself between the two.
Instead he stood to the side, frustration clear in the heavy lines of his body, in the sharpness of his eyes. It was only when Ruan had said his piece that he turned to look toward the mare, a frown building between his brows, waiting to see how she would react, how she would handle the turning of the tides.
you're waiting for someone to put you together, you're waiting for someone to push you away
Her body pounded. Reverberation sounded in her ears when she heard him approach. How could she not? Her body was as attuned to his as it had ever been. But rolling around in her gut—the acid… the guilt—was the feeling that she should not be where she was, and before he even spoke… she took two steps back from Alek. Her ears rotated backwards and pinned to her skull. Her eyes closed in pain. She shook. And when she opened her eyes to look at Alek, she whispered her apologies, and pulled away from his face, using the power of Ruan’s magic, leveled her green gaze with his own… and the bile rose in the back of her throat, that sick feeling returning…. As tears stung the corners of her eyes. And she gasped back her tears.
Do not return to my home.
And like that, the ice melted, and the black wolf slunk back into the shadows, the wind blowing behind him as if he’d never been there at all.
And yet, the world that Reagan had known had come crashing down around her feet, and she lowered her face to the ground—vomiting the full contents of her stomach as she began sobbing again. Her chest heaved, the heat of embarrassment coloring her entire body a dull red, and she sobbed. Angry cries that dripped on the ground as she let loose her fear, her jealousy, her love.
She had loved Ruan; and he had let her down. Jealousy seethed in her belly, and anger. He had not had faith in her in quite some time. But the loss of a love that had had the potential to race among the stars had turned out instead to be as a comet; Bright and beautiful for a short time, before burning out and going up in a blaze of glory.
She had never expected to see the days with him end—indeed, if he had come to fetch her home, rather than remove her from her home… she would have gone with him. But she had had a feeling he did not love her anymore.
The coldness in his eyes had proved that.
She continues to cry, blindly groping about for the strong black pillar—her silent guardian. She bleeds herself into Alek’s broad chest, clinging to him for life, wanting….something.
Needing everything.
“Alek…I” she sobs, needing the strength of this dark shadow. “I am so sorry.”
