Bloods Of Power

14

Aranya felt as he broke their hug and no matter how much she wanted to cover up her pleased expression, she couldn’t. He stared at her face and noticed the way she was trying so hard not to smile at him, “Let it out,” he said softly with a hint of laughter and when she opened her mouth to speak at him, her smile came out as beautifully as he had never seen it in his entire life. “God, Avyannah, you’re so beautiful, have I ever told you that?” He asked with a dreamy expression and this time when the smile urged to be painted out on her cheeks, she let it.

She shook her head softly, “No, but you called me a fairy.” She said as she eased herself out of his hold, moving a few inches away from him, her body still brushing his long legs that were sprawled on the bed. 

He held out a hand at her, “Then you’re beautiful, Avyannah, so beautiful.”

“Is this a confession?” Realizing that tonight would be the last time she would ever see him in her life, Aranya wanted to have a good ending with him. At some part in her heart, it ached to think that this would be the last time she would see him and she knew she could never meet him again, ever.

“More than a confession.” She didn’t know when he pulled her to himself and in less than a second, Lorcán had sealed their lips in a passionate kiss that she knew even if she wanted to, she could never shun something as eccentric as this. So, she kissed him back as beautifully as she could ever kiss someone. No, as eccentric as she had never kissed a soul in her entire life.

She felt the way he pulled her closer to him, his hand on her back and she let her hands wander into his hair as she forced a moan out of his lips. Who was this man? Why was he making her feel the things she had never felt in her life? She wanted to run away, go far away from him as possible because she knew with Lorcán by her side, Aranya would have to make the mistake she had always been dreading to make, she knew. 

Slowly, she broke their kiss, realizing that what she had been dreading had happened because now, Betla surely knew she had kissed him and he would be one she would be expecting come tomorrow. She stared into his eyes that were an amalgam of l**t and what she wouldn’t want to believe, not to fathom at the moment. 

She lounged forward to stand up, “Goodnight, Lorcán, take care of…” she wanted to say wound, but Aranya knew his wound was the least she was worried about, she was worried about the whole of him as a person. “Yourself. Take care of yourself, okay?” 

He held her wrist and stopped her from walking a step further, when her eyes looked up at him with inquisition swarming through them, he sighed. “Let’s sleep together. Not to do anything, just sleep together, should we?” He asked, she could even say there was a pleading tone in his voice. And when her eyes skimmed over his chest, Aranya knew she could not say no to that. She would love to feel that fantasy she once felt.

“Okay, let’s sleep together.” In a second, she was laying on the bed beside him and Lorcán carefully placed her head on his chest and she looked up at him, “Your wound, will it be fine?” She asked with a soft and slow tune, and he smiled back at her.

“So long as you’re the one on my chest, I can assure you it’s fine.”

She tried to sit up but he held her back, “Why not let me heal you at once? It won’t be there anymore.”

“No, I want to see it as it heals gradually, it will remind me of you.” She shook her head, suddenly having the urge to heal him, she wouldn’t want to leave him with a cut on his hand and the cut she was a creator of.

But before she argued with him on that, he asked her. “The howl, that howl…” he let his words trialed off, because it just occurred to him that she made the same exact owl even though not as powerful as the one they all heard that day, which was enough evidence that she was the one.

She smiled, the day she kissed him first, the day Betla let her know that she had found her hunt. “Yes, that was me.” She admitted, because it would be foolish of her not to. “I’m a wolf, and you?”

“An elf, aren’t I so handsome for you to tell at once, Avyannah?” Instead of an answer, she lightly punched his chest and he chuckled, she smiled as well. Feeling the way his chest reverberated with his laughter, how he carefully had his arms around her even when she had her head on his chest, Aranya wanted to scream out. He was handling her carefully as though she was so fragile she would break with a single wrong move. As if he wasn’t the one that nearly cut through her neck with his sword, which she undoubtedly knew was so painful.

“You aren’t handsome, for the record.” He smiled and tightened his hold on her. Aranya knew he wasn’t asleep, they both weren’t but no word was exchanged between them. She loved the silence, because she figured they both had something on their minds to work out, feelings they needed to sort out and things that were meant to be unsaid tamed down their throats.

She didn’t know how they fell asleep through that peaceful silence, that beautiful and amazing silence that filled their hearts as though they had spoken all through the night. When she woke up, it was still dark on the sky but nearly dawn and she knew she had to go back to her suite before Jaromir went there and found out she wasn’t there. Realizing they had to leave while it was still dark, she immediately sat up. 

She stared at Lorcán’s face that was still sleeping and figured she had brutally lied to him when she said he wasn’t handsome, because by god, he was. So handsome even. She had always known that elves were so beautiful, but she could never testify to that until now, until today even though she had known him for so long.

She traced her fingers around his strong jaws and found herself smiling when her index finger touched the tip of his lips, and man, did he kiss so terrific. She was going to miss him, that was a fact that she wouldn’t even mind to argue with. She knew she was going to miss Lorcán and there was nothing she could have to do about it. She was thankful they had that fight, and when she stared at his arm, she saw the stain of blood, she told this man literally sleeping on his arm while she rested her head on his chest will harm him, but he acted tough, and now the wound had reoccured that she had no choice but to heal him in an instant.

With a swift turn of her thumb and her first two fingers, with a flash of fire passing through his arms, the wound was gone as though it had never been there. She watched as he squirmed in his sleep and the last thing she wanted to happen was for Lorcán to wake up now. Knowing that too could happen, she held out her first two fingers and magically made him fall into a very deep slumber that she knew he wouldn’t have to wake up until after noon.

She carefully pulled herself out of the bed and when she leaned onto his face to have a closer look, she kissed his cheeks and then lightly on his lips. “Good bye, Lorcán,” she whispered and disappeared like a thin air.

She was in her suite like a flash of light and magically, she had her things packed up that if someone saw them now, he or she would think she had spent the entire night packing her belongings. She sat back on her bed, the flowers Lorcán had given her hadn’t withered and they still scent beautifully, even though not as heavenly as they did that day. But she figured out it was healing to think the flowers were still alive when she left.

Her hands were feeling the softness of the petals when Jaromir knocked on the door and she sighed, it was finally the time she was going to leave Elara, never to be back again. She was going to miss the rustling market streets, the busy pathways, the soothing riverside and even though her wish of meeting those young men again hadn’t been fulfilled, Aranya knew she would never come back to Elara. She had never gone back to all those places she had once gotten her hunt from, Elara wouldn’t be the first.

She unlocked the door holding her luggage  in one hand and she smiled sleepily at him. Looking around him, she saw there were no guards with him, “Your guards,” it was more of a question than a statement and she walked out of the suite and closed the door behind her before he answered.

“You told me we could not go with them, I sent them back to Gantrick yesterday.” She knew she had told him that, she just wanted to make sure if he had done what she had asked of him. Even though killing the guards wouldn’t be hard, Betla didn’t want more than just her hunt when she went back to Zinambra. 

“Oh yes, I’ve said that, we don’t need them. Can we go?” She looked up at the sky, it was still dark even though one could know an hour to come, it would be dawn and the lives will be up.  She stared at the tree and thought of Portia, they hadn’t said their words of goodbye, she went out to look for Lorcán at night and she hadn’t been back until a few minutes ago. 

“Portia?” She softly called out, silently praying that Jaromir hadn’t sent her off as well.

She heard the faint flutter of wings and a smile graced her lips. Portia flew to where she was before she turned into her beautiful self and Aranya waited until she greeted her before she smiled and answered. “I’m fine, Portia. We’re leaving now, I just want to say goodbye and that I’ll miss you and your soothing chirping voice.”

Portia was taken off guard when Aranya hugged her, “Be a good bird and recognize me whenever we meet again, okay?” She said with a smile and broke their hug.

With sad eyes, Portia nodded her head, “I will never forget you, Verena. Until we meet again someday.”

Jaromir wanted to act up for her calling her Verena when Aranya quickly shook her head, “I asked her to, she’s more of a friend than a maid to me. Good bye, Portia.” And like she said, it was so hard for Portia to watch a friend leave, whom she knew she would never see again.

She fluttered her wings back on the tree and she didn’t know she had fallen into a forlorn sleep until she heard a man’s voice around the suite. It would be so hard to leave this place. She flew down before she transformed and extend her greetings toward him, wondering how she was able to sleep this long.

“She isn’t in her room, where has she gone to?” That was the first thing Lorcán asked, because it was so hard to wake up and find himself alone on his bed, in his room, in the whole suite when he thought they had slept together, or had he dreamt of all that?

The wound, he moved his hand to his arm and felt nothing, she had healed him before she left. “Verena has left Elara at dawn, and I’m certain she wouldn’t be back.”

Verena? Who was this lady talking about? “I’m not asking for who you’re talking about, I’m asking you about Avyannah, the lady that stays in this suite.”

Portia shook her head, “Her name isn’t Avyannah, it’s Verena. And yes, she’s the one that stays in this suite, or better, used to stay. Red gown, long black or brunette hair, a hairpin. In better words, a fairy.”

He didn’t know when he nodded his head, so he wasn’t the only one that had noticed all these? And without intending to, he heard his brother’s excited voice as he spoke, ‘Lorcán, I’m in love with her. And what amazes me is that she doesn’t have a single name, sometimes she’s Kenna, sometimes she’s Avyannah, and I’ve once heard an old man called her Úlfa. But to me, she answers the name Avyannah.’