Gwendolyn,Get Your Gun🚬

Chapter 14 - Carlisle

     Gusts of cold wind penetrated her subconscious slowly and awakened her senses. She could not open her eyes, though. Beneath closed eyelids, she was drowning in an abyss. A dark moor of monumental grief. She was lost in a labyrinth, searching for Asunción.

Asunción.

The drowning became real and roaring. Large turgid unseen hands dragged her downwards and downwards into the black portent hole. Her breathing became short sharp chopped breaths.

"Gwendolyn."

She gasped back to life instantly, her eyes shooting open at once, brightness flooding her system.

There was a man in front of her.

No, she frowned. Above her.

She realized she was lying on her back, her arms spread out, her face skyward. Literally skyward, for she could see the outstretched sky above the man's head.

The man.

She gasped once again on sighting him and retreated backwards on her elbows . Her upper back hit something hard. Her breath caught in her throat. She turned slowly to look behind her.

She was at the edge of the roof. The rooftop of a fifty storey building, plunging towards unsightly depths.

She screamed in horror and lunged forward.

The man caught her in his arms.

She released herself with lightning speed and took many steps backwards. She assumed a defensive stance immediately, though her mind, body and soul were greatly disturbed by the plunging downfall behind her and the stranger in front of her.

Her hands bunched into fists. She bounced  on her heels. Her face and hair were streaked with grey stains, gotten from the floor she'd been lain on.

Not floor, rooftop.

"Who are you?" she asked tautly. Her heart was thundering, her stomach in knots, her breathing laboured.

The man, on the other hand, looked as calm as a cloudless day. Gwendolyn studied him as he studied her.

The first she noticed strongly was the cold aura he exuded. It was as though there was no warmth in him at all. He looked pale and colourless. But, she also noticed, he was dastardly handsome. Disarmingly so. Tall and blonde, with lips the colour of the Camellia flower and eyes the colour of lapis lazuli.

A dangerous balance of beauty and balefulness.

He cocked his mouth slightly in a lifeless smile and Gwendolyn felt a shiver sigh down her spine. This man, though lustrous and dashing in his slick boots and burnished coat, had something darkly about him. A dark light.

"Gwendolyn," he said again.

The gusts of wind passed once more, bringing with them various scents. It carried the man's essence towards her nostrils and her breath caught in her throat.

Ice.

"Who. Are. You? " she asked again, this time raising her fists.

"Funny. I was of the opinion that you lacked the ability to speak, " he said, cocking his head ever so slightly to the side.

She frowned, her defensive demeanour wavering reflexively.

"How.. how did you know that? "

He was silent, studying her.

"I said how did you know that! Who are you!" her voice shook, as did her hands.

"Hmm. I was also of the opinion that you were demure, " he said, indifferent to her shaken and panicked demeanour.