.Deadly Affections.

. S E V E N T E E N .

© Amber Kalkes 2014

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"Hole In The Earth" By Deftones

. S E V E N T E E N .

As the sun rises in the sky Iris sleeps but Xavier stays awake. He knows he should rest but his eyes refuse to close, especially now that they have seen the danger ahead. Marianne, the very name he has been avoiding over the past few centuries, comes uninvited into his mind. He really had thought she was dead. The shock of her return seems to not only have shaken the foundation he has been living his life on but also his belief that he can protect Iris.

Looking down at the creature in his lap he runs his hands through her hair. Never in his long existence has he known tenderness like this. Even in his human years he was known as a hard man to get under the skin of. She has done it in a time frame that would seem hardly any time at all.

Xavier could chalk it up to the years of singularity but he knows that would just be lying to himself. From the first moment he tasted Iris on his tongue and let himself drown in the scent of her he knew he would be lost. Iris has been an addiction for him since the moment he spotted her in that park nearly a month ago. Though, being the fool he is, it has taken him until now to see it.

It was never like this Marianne, he thinks, a woman he thought himself to be in love with at the time. She was so exotic, intoxicating and confident he thought he would never be able to look at another. She was a refuge from the life of duty he had been drowning in but now, looking back at it all he knows that was a lie.

Marianne was not what he needed. He needed and still needs the delicate flower placed before him now. Iris, the monster in his head rolls on its tongue. It craves the woman as much as he does and at the thought of losing her seems to lose all control. Thought, strategy and anticipation go out the window in an instant and just like any other time when faced with Marianne she takes advantage of it.

Sighing Xavier rolls his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. The council meeting is at sundown and if they do not include her in the coven they will have to leave. That idea doesn’t bother Xavier but with the sudden reappearance of Marianne he isn’t too sure she won’t have something up her sleeve.

He focuses his mind on the sound of Iris’s heartbeat and soon he gives into much needed sleep. He doesn’t worry about nightmares tonight. Not when his nightmare is apparently still walking the earth.

 . . . . . . . . . . .  

Iris puts in another bobby pin with a shaky hand as she looks at herself in the mirror. She isn’t one for dressing up but when Xavier told her how strict the council was she figures better safe than dead. The dress is beautiful and ironically blood red. She never would have picked it but when a man like Xavier pretty much orders you to put it on and especially considering the situation what can she do?

When Xavier came into the apartment with the black dress box she though he had lost his mind. It seems that formality isn’t just a way to behave but also how to dress.

The dress is an evening gown, red in color with a thin black overlay. The front of it is deeply cut and end just above her diaphragm and in the back just at her waistline. A black ribbon accentuates her waist and considering the reveling nature of the dress she can only thank heaven above for double sided tape.

Her makeup is dark with dark berry lips while her hair is in a peasant braid, hence all the bobby pins. Looking at herself in the mirror Iris swallows thickly, she is so out of her element. Luckily for her though Xavier has allowed her to wear her black converse this time, telling her cryptically: “You may need them later”.