Poisoned With Love

4.

"Marry me!"

The words passed past my ear, but with a characteristic tenderness in his voice that involuntarily brought a smile on my lips, by which time I stepped at the same pace on the floor. It was one of those evenings when even a step on the cool wooden surface managed to attract attention. I would not for a moment have wished to disturb the silence thrown over the strikingly noisy mansion on ordinary evenings. But I felt the urge to cover my naked body with the sheet thrown across the room and slip into the kitchen for a cup of tea and one of the oranges that had survived that evening's supper.

"I'm too young to die."

I uttered seemingly disinterested, with a hint of amusement, as my attention was centred on the same piece of material, which I still wondered how it had gotten there. His question didn't take me by surprise, on the contrary, I had probably been waiting for it for ages. But he was too busy tearing my clothes into dozens of pieces, destroying the wooden lattice of my bed or the pillows I replaced every month, to go straight to formalities. We had been together for a year, more or less, but if he'd uttered that question in the first couple of weeks, I would have said yes without thinking. What happened after those weeks only complicated things, hence my deliberate hesitation that evening.

He quickly frowned at me, but that sly smile at the corner of his lips immediately put his annoyed attitude to shame. So did his gesture of hugging me, just as he caught up with me a few moments later. I had never anticipated that attempt to cross the room in mere seconds, from one end to the other, so he managed to surprise me every time. Meanwhile, it was taking me forever to get out of bed and stand on my own two feet, even longer to explore the lamp-lit room by the window in record time. But he was always there to lift me in his arms and remove any attempt at exertion.

I prevented him from kissing me, for I was about to please him and give him the answer he longed for. I wasn't going to be proposed to dozens of times and a categorical YES would satisfy him completely. However, my chance was shattered in a matter of moments, as the front door suddenly burst out of the wall because of the noise downstairs, leaving me with my mouth ajar and a look of complete terror.

"Adam!"

I gave him a menacing look, but not enough to convince him to stay with me. He gave me one last look instead, then gently placed his shirt over my shoulders, as if we were still in the centre of his bedroom, ready to spend the whole night together and not in a house full of werewolves in the middle of an attack. The screams from the same level of the building and the smell of blood from the wounds they inflicted, however, tended to contradict this brief fantasy. I was one decision away from leaping to their aid, helpless as I was, but Adam postponed his rescue mission to make sure I didn't have to go out that door. So I slammed my shoulder against the window and lost myself, amid the broken glass and the foul-smelling flowers in the yard, in the woods nearby, leaving behind the screams of the pack that had been my family for the past year and those who were out to kill them.

I ran for hours through the woods behind the manor house, against my will to turn back, but also unaware that I was about to see him for the last time. The image of Mason now entering the manor's kitchen reminded me of those last moments in the bedroom a few rooms away. They had never looked alike unless you knew them both well enough to recognise those subtle gestures like the way they ran almost identical hands through their hair in the morning or the smile they used to try to get out of a difficult situation.

He displayed it now as he hurriedly stepped in, panting from the transformation he'd probably just made in the backyard and the morning run through the woods. He was always careless, absolutely harmless, so that often even a rabbit would knock him to the ground and ruin his impeccable attire. That morning, he looked more tidy than ever, so much like his brother that he almost made me lose my concentration for a few moments.