“Make another move and I'll snap your neck. I’ll kill you where you stand, spawn of evil,” I threatened, taking a step back to remove myself from her touch. My chest did not like losing contact with her warm back, protesting through each of the senses and I struggled to keep a clear mind. I did not understand why, but every part of me called to connect with this female.
Struggling to detach myself from her while trapping her neck, I decided to allow her to twist towards me, to face me fully, so I could take a better look. The last thing I wanted to do was press on the wrong bone and rip her jaw, I did not fancy making her die slowly and painfully. So I shifted my fingers towards her jaw, pressing tightly, and forced her to turn, following the hand that held her captive like a rabbit in a snare, until she faced me fully.
At the sight of me, her eyes widened, forcing my fingers to press tightly onto her, which she did not seem to mind or be scared of. For whatever reason, seeing me had the opposite of my intended effect, and the female looked joyful and relieved, rather than fearful for her abruptly shortening life.
“Ansgar…”
She kept repeating that name, over and over and I understood it was for her own benefit rather than mine, as though she needed to convince herself of what she was seeing, what she was experiencing in my presence.
“It’s really you…” she barely murmured in between sobs, her voice broken and shaking, just like the rest of her body.
I continued to hold her by the neck, feeling like a youngling who’d caught a chicken but could not force myself to make that life-ending twist. All the while, the female kept trying to reach more of me, and when she understood that my fully extended arm wanted to prevent exactly that, she went on to catch my wrist andcaressit with both her hands, crying louder at the contact with my skin, worshipping every part of me that I allowed her to reach.
My heart pumped louder, overpowering my mind and demanding more of her touch, forcing me to close the distance between us. I could not deny it, the female was good,too good. Whatever her purpose, she avoided a quick death, entangled me in whatever her ruse was and made me curious enough to follow through.
Her utter joy at discovering me, the reverence with which she regarded me and the building sensation in my chest forced me to allow this to play out. To let the woman have her fun and try whatever it was that she came to do. For that, I had to make sure she did not carry any weapons, and to achieve this quickly, without her realising my intention until after its completion, I removed my hand from her neck and took a step towards the female, situating myself right in front of her, only a few inches separating our breaths.
“Baby,” she whispered and plastered herself across my chest,huggingme tightly. Hugging me like her life depended on it, like she wanted to press onto my chest so tightly that her own heart would pierce into mine to adopt the same beat. As though she had waited for this moment a long while.
Instinctively, I placed my arms around her and caught her in an embrace, both because that damned feeling in my chest demanded me to and out of necessity to feel for daggers. I traced my fingers across her skin, across her body, from her shoulders to her back, to her rear, and down her hips in long and soothing strokes. Through it all, she exhaled and only held me tighter, if such a thing was possible.
Her head remained buried in my chest, her tiny arms splayed across my torso, clinging to me without a speck of fear or intranquility. This female was completely trusting me with her life. And I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it.
“Why are you doing this?” I questioned, carefully sliding a finger across her cheek and caressing the soft skin. It felt wet and velvety, the contact managing to rise a long dash of goose bumps across my back. “Why are you here?” I asked again when I received no other answer than a continuously tight embrace and deep inhales into my chest. The female did not seem to care that I was covered in festering wounds and dried blood and breathed me in with the angst of a long-awaited reunion.
Had I known her before all this?
It could be the only reasonable explanation, seeing as she did not look like a fireling. Even though her skin was pale, it didn't look ashen and a few sun-kissed dashes across her cheekbones suggested she had recently seen natural light.
Aware that I would receive no reply nor would I have a chance to talk to the female until she had her full in sniffing and hugging me, I allowed her to continue and relaxed inside her embrace, for whatever unknown reason. My initial reaction was to put a halt to it, to grab her arm and stop any intention she had of connecting with me, but her touch was soft and determined, grabbing at me with eagerness and addiction, hard enough to grab a proper hold of me yet gentle, as if she was too scared to harm me.
“You’re hurt,” she observed once her hands moved across my back and through a hole in my shirt, compliments of a stab wound. The realisation woke her from the need for connection and made her detach herself from me, though very reluctantly, I might add. Even though her body made a motion to withdraw from my own, her hands still lingered on my shoulders and she kept them in place while she stepped to my side and then towards my back to observe the wound more carefully.
I instantly heard a gasp and knew the female found the marks. I didn't know how many wounds I had acquired during my rampage through the dark corridors, nor did I have a chance to heal them, since I had either been too busy killing enemies or barred in iron, which incapacitated most of my power.
“Ansgar, your back...” she stopped in place, her palms gently sliding onto my shoulder blades and down my back, touching and discovering the abundance of wounds it must have displayed.
“We need to get you treated immediately, they look terrible. I'm no doctor but I know how dangerous they can be.”
Her hands were shaking, as well as her voice, yet she tried to maintain as much of her composure as she mustered. She managed to lift what remained of my clothing and I wordlessly collaborated, raising my hands to allow her to pull the garment off, leaving me shirtless in front of the female. Her eyes summoned a mixture of emotions I struggled to understand. Initially I thought I spotted lust across her face, but the sentiment quickly came replaced with something else. It looked like rage. Or dread. I could not properly place it.
“Who are you?” I asked, unsure of what the answer would be. Of what I wanted it to be. If she told me she was indeed a fireling, then I would have to remove this newly acquired sentiment of peace and dispose of the female as I’d done with the other members of her kind. At the thought, a sharp pain pierced my chest telling me what I already knew. What I dreaded. That I did not want to harm her, that for whatever reason, this creature, had settled that need for hatred and bloodshed. That for a sparse moment, she had given me peace.
“Anwen,” she answered sweetly, a speck of a smile appearing on her face.
“Anwen,” I repeated. “Anwen,” I said it again, the sound a balm to my soul. “And why are you here, Anwen?” I could not help myself, I had to find a reason to say it again without making it obvious that I fed on the sound.
“I came to get you out,” she immediately replied, then made a grimace, like something truly displeased her and felt the need to add. “Of this cell,” she sighed. “Not sure what we’ll do about leaving this kingdom, but we’ll figure something out.”
I huffed, either she was well trained, repeating those exact words, designed to give me hope and make her look truthworthy, or she actually believed one could leave the firelings like they could leave a training session.
“And why would you do that?” I pushed her on it, keeping my emotion in check and only displaying a plain and slightly disgruntled expression.
“Baby, I had no idea what they were doing to you, I thought you were dead. That bastard Rhylan made me think you died in Evigt and only came to find me because he needs something. We made a deal, for him to bring me here, to you,” she started to explain but I silenced her with a hand across her mouth, grabbing both her cheeks to silence her.
“First of all, stop calling me that. And second, when you arrived fromwhere?” I frowned, keeping her face trapped, to better analyse her features. One look at her irises and I had all the answers I needed. “You’re human,” I said, to which she nodded, moving her head feverishly through my hold, and even though I had covered half her face, I spotted the portrait of relief on her features. Why was a human here? And why, no matter what I did, was she not scared of me?
I released her face and Anwen immediately raised both her hands to touch and slowly massage the muscles I’d hurt. I exhaled an abrupt breath, remorse bringing a bitter taste at the back of my throat. Without grabbing a hold of my instincts, I raised my hand to her face, making her remove her own, and continued the soothing caresses across her left cheek, where I had left pink marks. I couldn’t see the severity of them very well, since we only had a torch light, but it seemed to be enough to make her relax once more.
