BLACK

(34) Storm

EDITED

Maybe a week passed. Maybe only a couple of days. All I knew for certain was that we couldn't stay here forever, regardless much longer. The already scarce cupboards grew thinner, the baskets from Cassandria dwindling numerously. After all, she had only wanted us to stay for a short time. And after Black's wish to keep us apart, she never returned. Not even a rogue sent to bring us another basket. The last sand in the hourglass had fallen. Our chance of survival was growing grimmer.

I slouched in the far corner of the couch, limbs huddled beneath a thin blanket to keep me warm as I flipped through the pages of the only book here repeatedly. The thicker, more promising blanket stood in the kitchen with his back arched and arms crossed, eyes always on me. The two dishes behind him had been cleansed and were now drying slowly in the sinks crevice.

Past him, the sky dimmed grey with navy clouds, but by the energy under my skin I knew it wasn't all that late yet. Lightning struck, far in the distance, thunder yet to be heard. Tiny pattering crashed down onto the shacks unsteady structure, wind howling under the door. Black stuffed its edge with pillows, going around the trailer, slamming and adjusting to make sure each window was closed.

A storm was just approaching to relinquish the past scorched days, but I was nose deep in splotched ink. The sky grumbled closer now, sparking a spook in me, and only then did I notice Black's proximity. He had lit three candles around me, encased in lanterns with wild flames. Their heat gave little satisfaction to my skin unlike the blazing asteroid with hellish orbs.

Just from his proximity... my skin warmed in more ways than one. What would his touch do? My knuckles turned a ghastly white over the last of the novels spine, tearing from my own distress. I saw him fully now... a lot more now. Thicker, wider. It seemed those weeks of super movement hadn't even phased him, for Oren's human body was beginning to bulk like a teen shifter again. His leg, though still casted, could withstand more and more pressure as the days went on. He rested more, either in the trailer with me or outside with me. He exerted himself to build muscle, then relaxed. His progress was strange to witness, yet evoked a surreal and strange sense of pride from me. His strength... my strength.

"Noire," His voice is too husky so close to my ear, just passing by as he leans away from lighting the third candle.

I gulped, hard. The weeks with him had been less terrorizing than I planned. As long as I stayed close, as long as I listened, there were no extra primal urges pushing and pulling us. In ways he reminded me of my mates, but only late at night in my dreams, when I missed them. Awake and aware, my mind had little time to wander to them. A boundary of white salt had been spilt around them, protecting them. Shielding me. Yet in most, he did not remind me of a single one of my mates. At all. Perhaps that was what kept my mind from straying too far into thought, that this was an entirely new experience.

His hands were always open, gentle. I hadn't once been struck by him, or felt the need to even so little as flinch. Anger seeped from him some days so strong it did scare me, but I knew enough about him that I wasn't afraid of him. His tongue never lashed me, not since that very first day. His sinister words kept hidden behind his tonsils, lodged in his throat. They waited. I waited. He would shed them soon, all beasts do. And then his eyes. His touch. His skin. He listened, very patiently. His fur had receded for a long time now, allowing the males pale skin to stitch back together firmly.

I no longer questioned who was in control, or for how long. Somehow, someway... from all the time spent side by side, unable to leave each other... I knew him like heads from tails. Putty in my palms, he had run out of tricks. To me, he was a lamb under a lions pelt.