BEXLEY BRIAR
She hears the change in his breath - the grittiness of each inhale, the way his lungs suck in oxygen like a vortex - and smiles to herself. A vicious slice of white teeth, self-satisfied in the difficulties she’s brought him. Ah, what a stroke of luck: to have found this stupid boy on the almost-frosty roads of nighttime Denocte, another one of her conquests handed to her on a silver platter, another bite of sweet sugar dissolving on the tongue, a satisfying ending to a tumultuous episode.
The night is gold and burnt orange, the torchlight, the turning leaves, their bodies always switching spots. Bexley hums under her breath, feeling it roil through each muscle and bone. She is all electric. All adrenaline. Heat simmers in the lowest pit of her stomach.
It would be so easy for Acton to catch her, to take her, to keep her. For her to be found in a couple days bodied at the river, gory and quiet. Yet somehow she knows he doesn’t have the guts to be so bold, to exercise what little power he does hold over her, contained in lines of muscle and rough-hewn bone. He won’t. Not man enough, not strong enough. Bexley huffs a snort under her breath, derisive.
He’s not my type, anyway. She shrugs. The one Reich went head-over-hooves for…
Her mind turns to Florentine - to the scent of jasmine and bubbling alcohol - the bag of tinctures Bex still keeps at her bedside - hundreds of veiny, delicate petals wound through silky threads of hair and drifting to the sand. And for a moment Bexley’s jaw grits, her flat teeth grinding, pulse blooming in her cheek - but she says nothing, and, turned away from Acton, retains her image of stoicism, of flirtatious ambivalence. Solis damn it.
The soil has suddenly turned gritty under her feet, to sand, almost. It’s somewhat startling to realize. With a glance down at the golden grains that have started to surface under her hooves, Bex blinks, a strange kind of disappointed, and then turns over her shoulder - Get lost, honey! - and with a brilliant smile disappears over the border, descending into the pit of the mountains.
@acton <3
