Acton had never been the kind of boy to listen to a warning. He’d pick up a snake after being informed it was poisonous just to see the bright bands of colors a little closer, just to feel its tongue flick against its skin and wonder what next?.
He’d called her a snake the first night he met her, and by the gods she’d bitten him, and here he was, still too close.
The feeling her lupine smile summoned in him was becoming far too familiar – a surge of nerves, anticipation and excitement and a memory of pain, like a shot of epinephrine straight to his shuddering heart. It was easy to look at her and remember fire, easier to meet her gaze and feel his heart mimic the cave-in, all tremble and crash.
He wondered if it was possible to go on like this forever.
Acton watched that grin grow and grow into an expression he’d never seen her wear before. It snared him as well and thoroughly as any of her others had, and the buckskin could not look away from that sharp-secret thing in her eyes. His mind could not quite settle on the meaning of it, but his body knew. Altitude and want made his blood feel like static racing through his veins, made his mind fuzzy-clear like trying to find just the right station.
“The hell is Una?” As for her comment on boredom, he answered with no voice, only a flash of teeth that was as good as a promise. Acton was always willing to be her distraction, so long as she would do the same.
She drew near and only then did his eyes flicker to the Solterrans around her, as if one of them would dare try and stop either of them. But he forgets them again from the first brush of her body, emanating a heat it had no right to on a mountain in autumn at the feet of the gods. Before he thought better of it he touched his muzzle to her hip as she passed, half expecting to be burnt by that molten gold. Almost he nipped at her glittering skin as her hair whispered over him, but for this he did manage to refrain: maybe there was something superstitious in him, after all, but suddenly he imaged the weight of gazes of gods and men heavy on him.
It did not, of course, stop him from turning to follow her.
“I guess I did,” he answered her, but he was still grinning, walking near enough to still feel the desert heat of her, “though if that were the case I’d be a lot more inventive.” When she batted her eyes at him, he again battled the impulse to press teeth to skin.
Instead he only huffed a breath, and arched a brow at her next comment. Acton settled his gaze on her, almost searching, like he was looking for the lie – but at her mention of Tempus he laughed.
“Terribly,” he said, and it was the truth. “But you think it’s you Tempus is after? Hate to bust your ego, but unless you’ve got sins you’re not sharing…” It began as a joke, but then Acton remembered that the last time he’d been here was to share information with Raum. Spying, attempted murder, beating a member of another court at their own party – he’d never been a choir boy, but now he thought more seriously about the word smite. All the bloody potential, lightning and wrath.
For the first time, he did feel a little chilly, and leaned in nearer to her.
“Unless you’re planning on committing further sins,” he said then, his voice low and smoke-rough. For an electric heartbeat his burning-ember gaze met hers before he stepped away, flicking his tail at her golden side. “Like tempting me up here so you can use me as a sacrifice. I’ll tell you now that won’t win you any favor.”
Acton was no first son, no unblemished oblation – and there were far more fun offerings for bodies to make.
AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SUFFER
WELL, THEN YOU'D BETTER RUN
@
