Rapture

Royalty

He doesn't eat from a plate. He kneels by the carcass of the great white stag, tearing meat from bone and fur with his bare hands. His fingers glow gold with heat around every piece he cuts out. Searing a crisp across the rawness before he gnaws it down.

I lean back against the tree and watch him eat the rest of Mulha. I'm unable to look away. He is a fascinating sight, simultaneously so brutal and childlike.

"Mulha sent you her regards." I say.

He looks over at me over his shoulder for a moment. The piece of meat in his hand smoking from heat. He opens his mouth, but just to take another bite of stag.

"She called you king."

"A guardian spirit should be wise enough to recognize that." He replies, and snaps a rib out of the stag's ribcage, and raises it to his mouth. He doesn't cook the meat, and it splatters his cheeks with red as his teeth clamp down on it.

"She said another thing..."

"I do not care for the blabber of some spirit." He bites with a turn of his chin, tearing tendons off the bone with his teeth.

"She called me queen." The words come out of me, too strong to be kept inside.

His gaze snaps to me. Eyebrows raised up towards his hairline, cheeks relaxed with shock.

Then he throws his head back and laughs. A melodic, painfully loud, sound that bounces between the forest trees and stirs the crows from their nests.

"My queen!" He cries out to the skies, his voice shattering with too much emotion for me to fathom.

"You?" His chin snaps down, his eyes open wide, golden glow burning with wrath. A lump hardens in my throat, my back pressing hard against the tree, fingernails digging in the bark.

"Do you even know what I am king of, that you desire to be queen, you petty, greedy little human?" All trace of laughter dies out of his voice as he stares at me.

Fast as light, he's in my face. My knees bend in instinct, slumping back against the tree as he towers before me. His lip twists in a sneer of contempt.

"You think you can be my queen? My other half? The only one able to stand my power and direct my wrath with truth? You see me only in my gentlest form. You cannot survive my true presence."

"Be done with me then!" I find myself screaming at him, jumping up to my feet. "I'm not your slave. I'm not your queen. If I am nothing to you, let me go."

"Impossible." He hardens as he said that, the anger faltering from his eyes. I feel the heat pulsing from him cooling from the air.

"Why?" My lip trembles. "What do you want from me?"

He breathes in deep, his features softening as he exhales. "Now's not the time. You must get stronger. Smarter. Mulha fooled you."

I lower my eyes from his. He turns away from me, returning to his meal.

I don't know if it's the hunter or the prey that fooled me.

But I know that I can't stay.