I am forcing myself to breathe slow. Measuring the inhales, measuring the exhales, because I know if I’m not careful I’ll gasp or choke and drown in the hard gray-blue of Andras’ eyes, in the way his smile curves like Solterran steel made into a scythe.
The world is still. I am the only moving thing left in it, and only moving because my blood refuses to stop. Leaves rustle overhead. Breeze rushes through the trees. I am inside a snowglobe without snow, in a glass bubble, and what little noise filters through is dull, muffled and bubbly like I am at the bottom of a pool, like someone trying to scrape out of their grave, Alternatingly my skin is bruise-hot and bone-cold. Living, dying, fainting: I am measuring every breath, every blink, every heartbeat, because I know if I don’t I will do something I will regret. Kiss him. Punch him. Die, explode—
I grit my teeth, but I am grinning, a sharp, feverish thing. It hurts my cheeks to smile so tight. Like all the rest of me, I know it looks handsome but not kind.
When I touch him, he shudders, spits out flickers of blue lightning. His whole body is wracked with the movement. The dark thing in my stomach coils tighter with satisfaction, and for the moment my teeth are pressed against his throat and I can hear and feel his heartbeat, rattling into my mouth—panicked like a prey animal, fast and faint as the fluttering wings of a hummingbird—
I feel like a god. I feel like he is the vessel for his power, but I have with one well-placed kiss become the master of it. I am the master of him.
My head pounds. I like the feeling. I like the feeling so much I think I would do anything for it.
I like it so much I almost think I would kill him to keep it. My mouth is dry; I am becoming desperate. I smell something, oak rings and deep dirt and the hard iron of blood, all at once. My vision is black, but it could be lack of oxygen or just the fact that I am so close I can see nothing but him and him and him.
Especially when he leans in to kiss me.
I am startled for less than a breath, less than a millisecond. Then I am satisfied; darkly, cruelly so, smiling even as our lips touch, even as I lean delicately back and meet his eyes. My smirk has become dangerously crooked.
For a moment I am silent. Far too serious. A beat passes.
“Have a good one,” I purr, rough and far too casual, and then I am pushing past him and into the next aisle, swatting my tail against his chest as I pass.
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