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I felt the need to say it. To tell him. I could raise the water of this lake around him now and encase him in an entrapment if he dared strike for me. But it was what caused his sudden change in attitude that encouraged me to wait out his temperament.
“The hunger never rears its presence so soon,” Marius said, stretching his neck from the left then to the right. “Give me a moment and it should subside.”
I waited in silence as Marius concentrated on whatever internal battle he was having.
“What do you hunger for?” I finally asked, breaking the painful silence between us.
Marius said one word that had me frozen within the body of warmed water. “Blood.”
18
Mother had told me time and time again that the body that was first left for the villagers to discover was completely drained of blood. Empty. A vessel of flesh and bone. The local healer had studied the remains only to find every vein and vessel dried, like a petal beneath the sun. Yet the body had not been sliced, cut or stabbed by a blade. Only the multiple puncture marks that peppered the victim’s body gave evidence of what could have caused it.
Two, small puckered marks, the perfect distance of one’s clamped jaw.
Blood. Marius’s word echoed through me.
“I am not scared of you,” I said, unsure where the comment had come from; also unsure if it was truth or not.
“You should be.” Marius glared at me, his ruby eyes creased with angst. “Please give me a moment. I will be able to… control this. The feeling will pass.”
I paddled in the water, body tense, as I waited for Marius to regain whatever control he desired over his hunger. Hunger for blood.
In those silent moments it began to make sense what occurred on the final night during the blood moon. Did he gradually lose his reality the closer time gave way to the fatal day?
I flinched when Marius turned back around. Gone were the lines across his forehead and thinned lips. His face was once again relaxed, but his eyes glowed with embarrassment.
“It would seem that I have grown well accustomed to ruining the mood.” Marius splashed a handful of water across his face, washing away the tense emotion. His hands were so large, fingers incredibly long, that they perfectly cupped his face as he sighed into them for a moment.
I swam towards him, closing the space between us that I so desperately did not desire. “Tell me what it feels like.”
Marius lowered his hands and looked up slowly, droplets of water falling off his pale eyelashes. “You truly desire to know?”
The mist from the lake created a wall between us that only my breath could penetrate. Marius stayed completely still until I was before him, my hands reaching for his hard stomach under the water. He tensed beneath my touch. It spurred me on as I trailed my fingers down from the mounds of his stomach muscles to the smooth lines that crowned his hips. I did not look beneath the layer of blue but could sense that his manhood was close to where my hands rested.
“I would not have asked if I did not want to know.”
“It can only be described as pure, agonising hunger. Although my time before the curse has grown hazy over the years, I suppose it is most likened to the feeling of being withheld from sustenance for a period of time. I was fortunate enough for that not to happen during my youth, but can only imagine how similar the feeling must be.”
“But you can control it.” My hands slowly moved around his lower abdomen, tracing the lines of his chiselled stomach.
“I would not describe it as control. It is more the sensation of burying a feeling until it is far too great to be kept hidden.”
A chill raced across my exposed shoulders and neck. I felt all too exposed as his eyes found that glistening part of my skin which entrapped his attention completely. “You still feel it?”
Marius nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing in on my lips. “Is your plan for me to lose control? You are playing with dark waters, Jak.”
I gave up tracing my fingertips and made a point of running my nails across his skin. “I told you that I am not scared, Marius. You will not hurt me.”
Now, in this moment, or on the final day. It was a promise to him, as much as it was a promise to myself. Yet for this night I, like Marius, buried the thoughts of the future. Until that fate would become far too great to be kept hidden.
“Won’t I?” His hand snaked out of the water and reached for my neck. It was so large his fingers splayed over my entire lower jaw.
As his frozen touch caressed my skin, I felt my stomach jolt. My hands slipped from his stomach, stopping at the definitive V-shaped lines that had burrowed into his hips.
“Are you fearless, Jak?” Marius growled, eyes fixated to my neck. The danger sent a thrill through me. He trailed a nail across my jawline, his other hand now holding me from behind until both our chests pressed together. I craned my neck, thrusting my chin skyward to allow his touch to completely trail my jaw from one side to the other.
“I want you,” I breathed. It was both an answer to his question, and my ability to blatantly ignore it. But my words harboured no lie. I did, in fact, want him.
