YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
Aela allows herself to linger near him as Obscene presses his dark lips against the curve of her golden cheek. It had always been a pleasant feeling - not one that she ever had create or alter - and there is no difficulty on her part to let the Prince greet her so warmly. The memories in his mind start to fade but the Empath clings to them, making a point to store them away because she has questions of her own.
What had he been doing in Hyaline?
Reave had told her a little of his discussion with Obscene, but Aela found herself wanting the Prince's interpretation as well.
And Cheri, well, Aela imagined his soul must be still be soaring from their meeting, always eager to take whatever he could get from the Loessian woman.
But for now, they start with her and Aela moves her pale lips to lightly trace his muscled neck.
"Any that you'd like." The slender mare tells him when she finally pulls away. "The Ischian that I brought seems to need some convincing that the Pampas is far more beautiful than his island." Aela says with a lilting voice and a coy smile, "but the Islandres leader I've brought you seems to be settling in quietly." That had been a particular point of pride with Aela. Not only was the Pampas filling with the gifted and beautiful, but they were also capable of holding the powerful. "I kept hoping that Tephra would do something," she continues to her leader, "but they've been as quiet as Taiga of late."
Comfortable in the presence of Obscene, Aela doesn't mind revealing her disappointment as they both gaze out across the fields of wildflowers.
She means to question him next about Gale, but the onyx-and-gold stallion is grazing her skin as he traces the glowing constellation on her skin. It had made her think of Skandar when it first appeared, and it had made her appreciate the marking thinking it had come from the Goddess. Aela's always known that she was marked for greatness but to see it shining so brilliantly on her skin had been a wonderful realization.
Until she remembered Skandar and how it had been months since she had last seen the demigod.
"I thought it was a dream," Aela reveals quietly, as she notices the same mark on his dark chest. "A strange place with all kinds of monsters." Her mind fills his with the beach and the battle, with Carnicus and the Kraken, with dark-maned lion and the sound of its breaking bones as Aela managed to crush them beneath stone. She reaches for the stars on his skin and follows the trail against the broad front of his dark body. "She marked you as well."
@Obscene
