Checkmate

Crush

"You came." 

I ducked under a low hanging bough as I followed him through the trees, hearing the crunch of leaves beneath my feet and the lapping of the lake's waters to my right. 

He'd been waiting for me this time, sitting on the rocks looking out at the lake, rising with a smile when I entered the clearing before suggesting we walk around the lake while we talked. 

"You thought I wouldn't?" I replied, although I couldn't fault him for sounding a little surprised - I very nearly hadn't, after all.

"Well, you did run out on me once before." He glanced back at me with a smile. "So. What couldn't you resist? The lure of Vargas or me?"

"Are all you Vargans this direct?" I asked, deliberately not answering his question. 

"For the most part." He said, sounding amused. "We're also known for our patience." 

I glanced at him as I caught up. He smiled again, but it was a different smile, one that made my senses become still and watchful.

"We can wait to get what we want." 

I shook my head, smiling a little. It was disarming, this openness. It wasn't something I'd seen much of, not given my line of work, so this was refreshing, different.

"Now there's an enigmatic smile."

I glanced at him to find his ocean eyes on my face, his expression curious.

"Just adjusting to the.. surroundings." I said mildly, as we emerged into a small clearing, bushes all around it, all laden with some sort of small white berry that I hadn't seen before. "What are these?"

"Odinberries. Grown only in our Clanlands. Try one." He plucked a plump berry and popped it into his mouth, gesturing at me and then at the bushes. I picked a berry, rolling it between my fingers as I examined it, feeling its smooth surface and inhaling the faintly sweet aroma emanating from it, trying to recall what my Healer friend at home had taught me about poisonous and soporific plants.

"So suspicious." He said, and when I looked at him the amusement was back on his face. "If I wanted to incapacitate you, there are far more effective ways, I assure you."

"Force of habit." I said apologetically, putting the berry into my mouth and biting into it slowly. There was a burst of juice, sweet and refreshing, that I recognised immediately from the fruit wine earlier. 

"See? Perfectly harmless." He plucked another berry and tossed it in the air, catching it in his mouth before grinning at me. "And anyway. I'd rather have you fully functional." He regarded me steadily, popping another berry into his mouth.

Once again, my senses stilled, tensed. There was something in that tone of voice, in the way he was looking at me, that was primitive, predatory, yet it wasn't threatening. 

As with the directness, this was new for me. I was used to being the hunter - but I had the distinct sense here, that I was the hunted. It was...disorienting. Uncomfortable. And that was new too. There wasn't much these days that could discomfit me. I was in new territory with him. 

It was exhilarating.

I could sense his eyes on me as I wandered around the clearing, plucking berries randomly, eating them one by one and savouring their sweetness.

"So." He said, eventually, and I turned to look at him as he spoke. "Vargas?" He arched an eyebrow at me, a small smile on his face. "It is why you came. Isn't it?" 

"It is." I murmured, as I stared at his white-blonde hair, a little tousled from the windrush, his handsome face, looking more angular in the shadowed light of the clearing and those ocean eyes.