but recently, the flames are getting out of control; any

[weed]

I've never told a lie and that makes me a liar I've never made a bet, but we gamble with desire I've never lit a match with intent to start a fire The arrogance in her draws forth a vicious, cutting smile from him, and the thorns around him begin to twist in pleasure. “What would you say if I hadn’t missed you?” almost a lie, but not quite. He had missed her in the empty, quiet moments when his mind had stilled and the lust for power had become an after thought instead of the only one. He had missed her in the way you miss a beautiful sunrise you had seen once, although Weed had never been one to be particularly sentimental about anything. Perhaps he missed her because she was both the same and yet unattainable; powerful in the way few things are—wearing it like a second skin. There were few things in life he had found more attractive. But, much like her, he kept those cards close to his chest, instead laughing lightly under his breath and reaching over to lip at her jawline. “Because I didn’t.” The touch is casual and yet he feels the heat simmer beneath his skin, like a promise just waiting to be fulfilled. He breaks the contact easily before angling his sculpted head so that he can meet her gaze. “So what have you been up to, Raven?” Tic for tac. One annoying, simplistic nickname for another. There is something in him waiting for her to admit that she had taken the reins of a kingdom; something hungry and ready to follow her like a wolf might trail a dying deer. Not that he necessarily smelled the blood of the weak on her, but rather the promise of another meal. She could give him what the other kingdoms had lacked; she could give him a kingdom with a purpose. Monsters woke from their slumber and roared in his belly, but he said nothing—instead watching her with disinterested, flat eyes, belying the anticipation of her cutting his ties and flinging him forward to his next kill. { W  E  E  D } carnage and glenna’s plant manipulating monster