Lair of Beasts [Book I in the Curse Of Blood Saga]

Chapter XIII - Labyrinth

Lucian's golden eyes were fixed on me much the same way Godwin's falcon might watch her prey. He would not allow me to pass until he was satisfied with my answer, but I could not very well tell him where I'd just been; moreover, he was like to swoop in for the kill if I did so.

I lifted my basket indicatively so that he might peruse the contents for himself, which had survived my hasty return, and then, meeting those steady orbs, I disclosed what little truth there was in my tale; although, carefully omitting my infractions.

"I've been collecting herbs and whatnot." My voice managed not to waiver. Much. However, the gumption I next displayed came from some bizarre recess within where I, quite frankly, seemed to harbor a death wish. I know not why I thought to deflect his question back at him, and I did not care either way, but I certainly took Lucian aback with my impudent question.

"Where have you been?"

He arched his brow askew, as Godwin was wont to do on occasion, and studied me with renewed interest. Howbeit, I had not misdirected him as I had hoped to do for he rallied himself instantly.

"Why, Aria," he drawled, with a dangerous glint of citrine, "you'll be pleased to know that I've searched the entire castle for you. Imagine my surprise, then, to find you had up and vanished...without so much as trace." I flinched at the heavy derision in his resonant voice.

He stepped a little closer and I, thereupon, backed away nervously as the bravado of earlier seeped from my spine, having now been thoroughly expunged by his sneer the while I gaped at his awful canines — appearing once again as his lips curled sardonically.

"Where indeed?" said he. "Shall I tell you where you've been collecting those herbs and whatnot? Or can I assume you might actually have the gall tell me yourself?"

He was challenging me and I was not so naive as to think I could best him at his own game of cat and mouse. This was no mouse who stood before me, with a cunning, yellow glare. As if daring me to lie.

"I left the grounds...to gather fruit and nuts for the table." I bit my lip sharply, but forced my gaze to stay its course and angled it directly up to his; straight into an amber maelstrom. "I was in the forest," I relented with a heavy sigh, but divulged only that for I was yet unwilling to reveal it all, though he intimated he knew as much.

Please ask me no more, I pleaded silently.

"Very well, Aria." He then remained silent a long moment.

Very well what?

He still stood barring my advancement, as impenetrably as if he were a stone wall. I made to walk around him, but he grabbed my wrist, his fingers brandishing my skin with their iron heat.

"Take a company of guards with you the next time." Instead of closing the space betwixt us by moving forward, he stood where he was and pulled me inexorably closer by way of my wrist that he yet held in his firm grip. "I insist," he added, a decidedly threatening implication in his whispered command.

I unwittingly inhaled his distinctive scent, now that he had drawn me in. With explicit certitude, I identified the essence of the forest in his nearness: spruce, cedar bark, sage and...dusk! That was it exactly! If darkness had a flavor, it would savor exactly of Lucian's redolence — an earthy, nocturnal spice.

I had never been so near a man; or rather, within so indecent a propinquity to one. Not even Thomas, and especially not Lucian, who's proximity was veritably shocking. Unbelievably, he reduced the gap by another scandalous inch so that I now had to tilt my head further back, thereby exposing my throat to him. He watched the pulse at my neck, as if transfixed, and became strangely quiet for so interminable an age that I felt a tremor ripple through me when he finally did speak again.