The Beastkeeper's Bride

10: The Volatile Millie Adams

10: The Volatile Millie Adams

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Blayne wasn't sure how detrimental to a human's composure Kaede's sweetened wine was, but Millie certainly seemed to enjoy consuming it.

Well, enjoy wasn't the best fitting term to use in terms of what she was doing.

He considered her with a worried frown, dumping the menagerie of goods left at the property's border on a solid table used for dining, writing- anything really that suited the surface. At least, he conceded, she was awake and somewhat lucid.

She had not left the fur-lined cot for most of the day and when she did rise that afternoon, approximately an hour ago, she had considered her surroundings with an impassive, glassy-eyed stare before uncurling her legs, and locating his larder almost immediately. She helped herself to a bottle of wine, a questionable substance his more than idiotic friend Kaede brewed and insisted depositing him with a bottle upon each visit.

Blayne did not stray long from her side, concerned for her overall wellbeing, besieged with the urge to tend to her every need, but the pixies were getting on his nerves as they attempted various means to scamper inside the cottage, and the baras were running rampant through the fireplace outside, around the property in general, and if the smaller fae creatures were bold enough to venture close, then others would be too. He had checked his territorial wards and appeased his need to ensure the parameters were not disturbed, other than the growing mound of gifts that had begun to accumulate at the closest entrance to his holding.

He knew what they were and he had accepted them wordlessly- purses of hazelnuts, sprigs of herbs, punnets of mushrooms and strawberries, bouquets of wildflowers, a sheath of silken fabric he hadn't deciphered a purpose for yet, and other small items and artefacts brought to him for his new human bride.

Gifts from the fae- beseeching gestures of goodwill for the marked couple.

She noted his reappearance blearily from where she sat upon the furs, her legs curled under her delicately, and then she resumed her pensive observation of the hearth before her, the bottle of wine cradled in her lap. He noticed her change in attire since he had left her- she had removed the skirts and tight vest from the day before and only the loose, linen shirt covered her frame, tucked about her legs to afford her a modicum of modesty.

He didn't give a damn if she wanted to remain naked or clothed- such notions of propriety were foreign to his kind, therefore the sight of her flesh hardly mattered to him.

Truthfully, he'd more than welcome it... if she wasn't so intent to shoot sour looks about the place as if she didn't quite know what to do with it all.

Millie shook the wine bottle in her lap, deduced it was empty, and then pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. Long legs, graceful and lined with firm muscle, emerged from under the hem of that shirt and she padded heavily to the nook he had set out as part of the kitchen of the small cottage, disappearing within a tiny room that served as his larder.

The front door of the cottage burst open, the edge of the door catching Blayne's arm, and he cast his friend an irked look. "What are you doing here?" He would have been surprised at the other man's unannounced entry however the pixies had warned him of his presence long moments before he had even managed to enter the perimeters of Blayne's notice.

Rogane To'ran gave him an unrepentant grin as he swaggered in, then cast his gaze upon the rest of the interior with an assessing look. "I heard a rumour," he began in his deep baritone, setting his hands on his hips, "that you have a bride."