BEXLEY BRIAR
my carnivore heart comes out after dark -
Fickle light swarms the market, and bodies glow in the near-dark. Bexley is little more than a cloud of gilt and curve, of moving parts, of anger so intense it sets her to vibrating. Her eyes are two moons in unwavering blackness, a hot and radioactive blue. Something feral and cruel lives and dies in that blueness Not a moment has passed, since waking up under Seraphina’s cool, almost-caring gaze, that Bexley has not thought of him. Has not, if unwittingly, turned her mind to the fragility of his bones. What it might feel like to set him on fire - skin and hair smoking, the scent of it utterly, satisfyingly familiar. Not a second completely untouched by the idea of revenge.
And then he looks back at her, over his shoulder, their eyes finally meeting, and she feels like a god: all lacy rage, all ichor instead of blood, and victorious, for a fraction of a second, sated simply by the widening of his eyes, the look of surprise that crosses his stupid, stupid face.
My friend, ladies and gents, Bexley Briar.
She blows a slow breath from between bloody lips. Friend. How cute of him, to use that word, to say her name, as if he has any right to it. It would be so much easier - this whole masterpiece of a fucked-up situation - if Bexley were the kind of girl to sit back and take it, to get tired of fighting, to give up, ever. So much easier if she were willing to stomach Acton grabbing her by that delicate little necklace and pulling until bruises form on fair skin, until the whites of her eyes blur with crimson thread, until it’s impossible to know whether the rapid beating of her heart has accelerated from fear or desire, as off-putting as both ideas are. Wouldn’t it be easy to give in. To look into those orange eyes and swoon instead of fume, let the night take over her, as it is wont to do.
But then she wouldn’t be a Briar, would she.
She bites into a harsher smile, ignoring Acton’s little quip. Oh, he thinks he’s funny, so good at everything, a real magician. But his illusions are transparent at best. She sees the flicker in his expression. The twitch at the corner of his mouth, as if his smile might falter at any moment. Above all, the way he stares at her, dark-eyed, and intense, and hard to read, except for the glimmer of shock that still fizzles in the air between them. Heat races in her blue veins, across so many inches of bruising skin, into muscles still aching from havoc, a glaze across bright blue eyes that burn and smolder and cool again.
The crowd behind them has thinned, but the few left watch in earnest, desiring wreckage. And wreckage they’ll see, in minutes if not seconds. If not in this life, then in the next.
There is desire here, black at its worst, unthinkable otherwise, but desire in one form or another, and Bexley tastes blood as her mind turns to it, swoons at the iron stinging under her tongue. The distance between them immediately seems surmountable. Her lashes flutter, then, and she sways toward him with a tiny step. It is a motion of want, in some frightening, atypical way.
Aw, Acton, she laughs, voice almost nauseatingly sweet. Her head tilts - curls shift and fall, her gaze glimmers - people watch, but this is more of an encouragement than a deterrent. The world is dim, and quiet, and it begs for excitement. Second time around. You’ve never heard the saying?
A switch is flipped. The smile on her face drops to an ugly, sickening snarl. Hair bristles on the back of her neck. Her ears flatten to meet her neck, pressing dents into that mass of hair, and a low, guttural snarl, predatory, almost, in its desire for blood, escapes the curve of her throat. The anger that floods her is caustic, now, and completely uncontrollable. “If injury need be done, it should be so severe that vengeance need not be feared”, she snaps. Music swells in her ears, fire blazes, blood pounds inside her head. One time might not have been enough for you to get it right, but I promise, it will be for me.
Simultaneously, two lanterns explode out of nearby stalls, hit the cobblestone, and erupt in a titanic exhalation of carbon and smog. Bexley trembles with effort and fury. Flames crawl over the oil-slick pavement, enveloping the space between them in interrupted heat; screams erupt somewhere near, but she does not hear them, entranced by the fire that is building up around her, the smell of smoke, the tantalizing lack of space between Acton and the inferno, by the heat that both singes and comforts her. The crowd dissipates. Hoofsteps clatter on the road and disappear. Come here, honey, Bex snarls. The air is choked now with flame and cloud. On the street, shards of broken glass reflect the sudden apocalypse, the way Bexley’s necklace glints in the growing yellow light, the heave of her chest as she weaves toward him, cut and bruised, a girl consumed by revenge, no longer a person, but a collection of moving parts all screaming do it, do it, kill him. Fight me like a big boy for once, won’t you? A manic smiles flashes all her teeth, and she bats her eyelashes at him from across the insubstantial wall of flame. Or do you need some encouragement? How about this - she raises her chin at him, so the chain around her neck glows like a living thing, enticingly tight around the curve of her neck, and tightened by the width of her smirk. If we’re both still alive by the end of the night, you can grab me by this pretty little necklace and do whatever you want to me. I know that’s what you’re thinking about.
The flames are starting to die down, in want of fuel. Bexley snatches up an arrow being sold at an abandoned arms stall, mostly unfinished, still in need of sanding, and snaps it in between her teeth before she tosses it into the wavering fire. No matter how much you hate me, you still want to fuck me. Curse of the beautiful, I guess.
She smiles, the gash on her face splitting again, and the statement is only partially ironic.
@acton <3
