SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
She smirks.
A lethal thing under any other circumstance, certainly.
But he is one of the precious few who has ever exercised any power over her and she feels no impulse to sink her fanged teeth into his flesh. She is almost subordinate.
Almost.
If not for the way she tilts her head, narrows her gaze. She recalls the mare who’d told her that Clarissa had sent her, how she’d questioned Clarissa’s authority to tell anyone to seek her out. She does not think them equals, Gospel and Stave, but they are perhaps more alike than either of them realizes.
It is almost flirtation, their venomous exchange. The way he smiles at her, cold, insist that she answer his question. She can feel him still, toying with her pulse, making the heart chug something painful as she comes to rest close enough to invite him to sink his fingers into the meat of her heart like he meant it.
“You may not need to explain yourself to me,” she muses, head tilted just so, “but don’t forget that I don’t owe you anything either.”
There that same dark smirk as she considers him a long beat.
“I doubt you’re really all that interested in hearing about how dreadfully alive I’ve been.”