She sees the couple the instant they enter the room. She doesn't care who sees her staring. Apolonia is taller than the last time they met. Sleeker. More dangerous. Less a girl and more a woman, particularly at the side of that infuriatingly perfect specimen. Jealousy hits her so hard it makes her vision swim. It makes her want to vomit. She hates green eyes that aren't her own.
Even more than that, she hates anyone touching what's hers.
Anandi wants to bite something. Someone. She wants blood and bone and gore and life, coming to its quiet end between her teeth.
Girls will be girls. But, that’s not the full of it.
Girls will be monsters. Girls will look you in the eye, sink their teeth into your heart,
smile,
pull.
Apolonia looks over her shoulder and the kelpie’s skin shivers in taut anticipation. Game on.
Anandi steps quickly across the room to a young man who had been giving her the side eye all evening. A tall chestnut with a crooked snip, handsome but not fully aware of it. Leggy, like he hadn’t quite yet grown into his body. Something about him was quite endearing, to be honest… but that's not why she chose him.
She knew boys like him. They were so eager to burn themselves up. It made them easy to use.
As she draws closer she can see his heart beating faster in his neck. It grows hard to resist the urge to lick her lips-- She can almost taste him already. “Dance with me.” She had quite rudely interrupted a strained conversation about the weather in the mornings on the Prastaiga Cliffs. One party is thrilled by the interruption, the other is outraged. As she guides the chestnut to the dance floor, she turns and mouths “sorry!” to his shocked young lady friend. And then she smiles, and presses her slender shoulder into the stallion as though she’s had too much to drink.
Anandi is by no means patient, but she is tactful. She takes her time moving to her blue-eyed destination, chatting and laughing merrily with her partner as they dance across the floor. He is a confident dancer, considerably more skilled than Anandi, and on numerous occasions she gratefully (excessively) leans into him for guidance. His touch lacks the heat of Apolonia’s, and his confidence is not as attractive as Apolonia’s naivete, but Anandi finds herself oddly charmed by the handsome chestnut.
Perhaps she had played pretend so fiercely, it became real.
Regardless, the dance has taken them across the floor and close enough to their destination that as the song ends, Blue and green eyes meet. Anandi’s heart fights its way into her throat.
She swallows. “Apolonia! How lovely to see you.” Her voice is all dusky want and crushed moth wings. She reaches out to brush her muzzle across the girl’s cheek, a quick peck before withdrawing to a more formal distance. “Welcome to Dusk Court.” She turns her gaze to the pretty woman with the scarf. “Who’s your stunning friend?” Of course she already knows the woman’s name: Aghavni Hajakha, Emissary of Solterra, Anandi’s political equal. She blithely plays the fool. Below those long fluttering lashes hides the violent urge to take that green scarf in her teeth, wrap it around its owner’s neck, twist,
smile,
pull.
She’s on edge, blood buzzing, emotion moving like a current in her belly. The whole night had been smiles and pleasantries so far, but none of it meant anything until now. This was different. This game had stakes. “What are you drinking? Austin here will get us some refreshments.” She leans in close to his ear to murmur her request (“dandelion wine, love”) and then playfully bumps her hip against the leggy stallion, at once a dismissal and a beckoning to come back quickly.
A N A N D I
@Aghavni @
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
