Clutched

3

Four days later......

I hold Alexander's gaze. He shows himself as steel but I know that steel only melts by fire. Our First Leader posted him on our remotest domain because Leader does not want Alexander near us. But Leader knows my feelings for Alexander, so he gave me his exact location. Thank God. Hachiro, our First Leader, understands how much I need him. Partly because of what that bastard Saber did to me.

"How can you say that?" I ask him.

"I'm an Apollon. I'm not as emotional as you're," Alexander replies curtly.

"But you already have feelings for me."

"It's just a mild temptation mixed with curiosity."

"Honestly, did you ask to leave the Cavern?"

"Yes. Because I've some works to do."

"And you can do those from here?"

"It's a far more convenient place than the Cavern."

Stunned incomprehension wiped away the red flush of my temper. What can such a work be that he has to be so far away from me? Far away from all the people with whom he was with for such a long time. It cannot be anything good at least. Maybe Hachiro knows something. So, he let him be here. But I am sure of one thing. He is incapable of hurting me.

Small flakes of snow fell on his hair and the wind burned across his unprotected face, but he barely noticed, his mind still in the cabin. He cannot bear to be with me but he wants to be nowhere else. He disappears in the snow and I do not stop him. I thought only lions look beautiful in snow, but seeing the dark male who is an Apollon against the stark white, he is way more beautiful.

I continued to feel the texture of his skin under my fingertips - warm, hard, touchable. He is not cold and chalky as he appears to be. I do not know what got into me that I cupped his face the entire time we spoke. He held my wrist but he put my hand down so gently before leaving that I assume maybe he thinks me as a fragile glass.

Alexander did not rescue me from Saber Ea because he had to. He did it because he wanted to. And after that when I was brought back to the Cavern, the Group's living place, he took most of the turn on guarding me. At nights when I could not sleep, he even held me. And when I was finally getting well but had a really bad temper, he always soothed me. He has really strong feelings for me but he denies it to me and maybe even to himself.