Brinly
He is infuriating in a way that she is not accustomed to, and that alone is enough to almost make her forget how irritated she is at having been taken. The way that he meets her fire with such a cool indifference only seems to stoke the flames hotter, and there is a part of her that so desperately wants to see what his icy stare would think of her heat. His dark calm feels like a challenge, as if he can read her and already knows her secret, and he is daring her to act on it.
She wants to—of course she wants to. But she is chained to the idea of not wanting to hurt him, stranger or not, and so instead she does nothing but simmer in silence.
He is watching her just as carefully as she is watching him, and it is such an unsettling thing to be studied so closely that she finds herself even more on edge than usual. She hadn’t thought that was possible, given she is never at ease in anyone's presence, but something about the way he keeps stepping closer, keeps those silver eyes fixed to her own, has her nerves nearly pouring over the top. “You don’t want me,” she tells him bluntly, though she offers no explanation, but she shifts away from him, maintaining a safe distance between him and her dangerous skin. “And I assure you, you don’t want to be mine.” She does nothing to disguise the bitterness to her tone, but does not tell him why such a thing is not even possible.
You are mine, or I am yours, he says, and even though those very words are like needles spearing her skin she chooses to ignore it, thinks that he will surely grow bored of her attitude and her games, and they will both go their separate ways when this evening is over. And if he doesn’t?
She is sure just one touch will be enough.
She says nothing when he says that he is the dark, though there is a glimmer of curiosity. It would not surprise her to learn that he is the night made living, given his appearance and the way he had so easily whisked her away. There must be other powers that he harbors, too, and if not for her own stubbornness she would have asked him, but she has already committed to the idea of making this evening as miserable as possible for him, and so she chooses to not give him the satisfaction of being intrigued.
He turns to her, then, his silver eyes reaching for her in the dark, and her heart seems to clench in her chest at what he tells her.
It seems I’ll be yours the entire night, he says, and for a moment her armor falls to hear him say that again—I am yours. Her face is blank of all the usual tension, the fire seeming to flicker and fade, and in its ashes it leaves only confusion. He says it so casually, as if it could be real. As if he could be hers—would be hers, even if just for tonight. She catches that hint of a smile on his mouth, at the stardust that is still suspended around him, and she wonders what it would be like if he were hers. If she could touch his skin, if she could press her mouth to his strong shoulder or feel what his body might be like tangled with hers. If she would be content living in the dark as long as she had his stardust and moon-silver eyes, and she thinks that yes, she could be, because for once in her life she would not be alone.
Reality intrudes on her fleeting fantasy, though.
She is assaulted with the image of her touch burning into his skin, of angry red marks scarring that beautiful night sky he wears like a cloak.
She is reminded, all too abruptly, of why what he says could never be true—not for them, not for her with anyone.
“You,” the word twists from her tongue, ragged and broken and infuriated, and she feels the heat once again crawling across her skin, pulling the lines of her face taut and sharp once more. “Are not mine,” and this time the fury and anxiety she had been fighting to keep contained at last spills over, only instead of pouring out like water they erupt as flames from beneath her skin.
The fire licks up her legs, seemingly eating away at the rich bay coat that has struggled to keep the heat in her veins captive all these years. The flames flicker across her shoulders and down her back, and when they at last burn away the raven-black mane and tail they leave behind what looks like glittering embers.
She is, finally, swallowed by what has lived inside of her for decades, but she cannot even find it in herself to feel afraid.
It is a blessing, she thinks.
A gift, to finally look just as dangerous on the outside as she is on the inside.
Her skin is finally, at long last, a living warning sign instead of a cruel trap.
When it is over, when she has burned away the darkness with the fire that has now consumed her she looks at him, breathless and tense. There is a hollowness to her dark eyes, a shadow that not even her flames can touch, and she says to him quietly, nearly defeated, “No one will ever be mine.”
— if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too —
@Illum