Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter X - Aila

He brushed his fingers seductively along hers as he relinquished one half of the pomegranate to Aila's open and waiting palm. She sucked in an audible breath as a charge of static stirred her flesh the way a storm might pull at the fine hairs on her body. The momentary shock of contact was such that she dropped her share of the fruit as she yanked her hand from his, watching in dismay as the seeds fell atop the sand before being quickly washed away by the foamy brine.

"Forgive me!" she gasped, kneeling down to salvage what she could. Why did he make her so nervous? She was not normally so restless and oddly aware of herself.

"Leave it," he murmured insouciantly. "They are gone now, let the ocean have her portion." Loki had jumped instantly from the rock and was now crouched down beside her, pulling her hands from the sand. "I said leave it." His lips were quirked in obvious mirth.

His pale hands, now that the initial shock had grounded her, were warm and soothing despite the strange pulsing between their skin. The whole experience was at once calming, yet exhilarating withal. She allowed him to pull her up and thereafter stood studying him as he unabashedly did the same.

How dazzling were his eyes; she had never seen their like. The irises were as pale as glaciers and no less formidable in their otherworldly beauty. Only a faint tinge of blue stained their depths and she found herself staring into them for an inordinate length of time, barely blinking lest the effect be muted. But when his hands tightened perceptively on hers, she glanced away and, curling her hands into tight balls, pulled her fingers free of him as the blood rapidly suffused her frowning visage.

"I must go." She bit her lip as she moved back a pace. "I am sorry." For what she was apologizing, she knew not; perhaps the shameless way she had stared, or the wasted half of a rare fruit. The silence had been far too stifling and she had needed to fill it somehow, even with a banal platitude.

"Verily, do not agitate yourself over it...there is more where that came from," he assured her.

Aila nodded and managed a tentative smile ere she bade him farewell and turned to leave. The pressure of his eyes along her back was both disturbing and thrilling. She could not remember feeling so alive in a man's presence, and it unsettled her despite that it was exciting. When would he pass through these lands again? The palpable energy that had thrummed and arced betwixt their bodies, she realized suddenly, had been a stimulating force that she was now achingly bereft of. When will I see him again?

Aila twisted back around to look over her shoulder at him and offer one last wave goodbye. "When will you be..." But her question attenuated rapidly and died off unfinished, for he was gone.

❅

Alia, ever since meeting Loki that day, began to look for him each day thereafter. Even after a fortnight, she could not refrain from searching out his pet wolves in the shadows or scanning the rocks for his distinctive silhouette.

"He's not there," Epona drawled, rolling her eyes facetiously.

"Who?" Aila's cheeks flushed instantly with perturbation.

"Harald." The slave girl frowned curiously, stretching out her back to ease the tension induced by her swollen belly. "Who did you think I meant?"

"I was merely distracted." Aila averted her eyes guiltily and forced herself to think of Harald who had barely uttered two words to her in passing and always seemed to find something to occupy him all day so that he never saw her till the evenings; and even then he was taciturn and distrait.