FOREVER KNIGHTS: #6 Malevolent Attentions
In Living Color

Her fingers curled around it comfortably. Eyes wondering as she slid it from his hand. Unaware of the thin slice she cut in his palm as she took in the hard lines of his face. Surrounded by wild blonde hair. Thick lashed blue eyes were intent on her. Though they looked black in the dark. And she’d never seen a jaw look so hard.

She shivered. “Why are you giving it back?”

“Because,” His breath stirred the hair near her ear as he whispered to her. “I can take it back anytime I want it.”

She hissed through her teeth. “You think I’m just some defenseless girl?”

Not after seeing you throw that dagger.

“Not at all.”

Her brow furrowed in doubt.

“Any defenselessness you possess is naught to do with you being female but everything to do with your lack of understanding of my breed. You’re little threat to me, Girl.”

Fire lit in her eyes as he’d hoped. He drew back to give her space. In her ire she was hardly aware she closed it. Her slippers dragging over stone to pursue his step doggedly.

Outstretching his arms showed he posed no threat. “You must come this way if you wish to leave.” He rounded to lead her through the cave.

She regripped the handle of her weapon. Debating throwing it at his retreating back. Lifting it to do so.

“I think not!” He turned. Drawing his, he threw it at her.

She watched its approach. Flattening against the wood behind her and shielding her face with her forearms in terror.

After a moment she cracked her eyes and focused on the glimmering blade. Her breath hitched as she realized the bit of silver turned slowly before her. Floating harmlessly. A hairsbreadth from her eye. Breathing raggedly, she didn’t move.

Her eyes flitted beyond it to him. She eased from in-front of it. “If you come at me, I vow I’ll scream my head off!”

A candle burned to life from a sconce on the wall. She could now see his outline leaned against the stone sidewall. Arms and legs crossed, he grinned unabashedly.

Acharius smiled dangerously, unworried. “No one can hear you from here.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

She’s worried I’ve wicked intentions.

“Your silence.”

Confusion was written over her face.

“Don’t tell anyone I’m here.” He commanded.

She quirked a questioning brow. Oblivious to the slit in the rock above which allowed moonlight to sift over her. Making her nightgown luminesce. “I don’t even know who you are.” She crossed her arms patronizingly.

“I’m the same person you’ve talked to below your window many nights. And now you’re out for my blood?” His voice rose.

Her lips tightened.

“You deny me the one thing I ask of you?” He stiffened. The candle near him snapped out. Doused by his ire. He turned and made way to the cave entrance.

To wait for her. She has to come by to leave. He emerged to moonlight. Squatting to rest his back against the grassy overhang, encasing the entryway.

Hours later, the sun crested the tree canopy. Water dewed on the leaves causing grass to sparkle and skeletal branches to darken with moisture. Where is she? She couldn’t have gotten that lost.

The cave has only one turn off to get here from where she was. My chambers.

Could she be snooping there now? He felt a momentary flash of fear as he wondered if she had come for the artifacts and could somehow be sneaking them out. Even as he waited. Could she have found them? They were hard to spot with the door masked as stone.

She’d have no interest in them. Tilting his head back against the stone, Acharius let the rising sun warm his arm and the side of his neck. Seeing the black and gray hues of the trees and their waving leaves.

Relaxing until everything abruptly bloomed in color. Flushing leaves green, the sun gold, and the bark brown.

How? He caught a flash of white reflecting the rising sun’s glow near the cave’s back entrance.

No. His head fell forward. She couldn’t have…

“The entirety of my life has been spent in black and white. Decisions were easy. Honor was my guiding force. My only wish was to die with it.

Then she brought color to my world. Reds, greens, yellows. I’d never known how beautiful these woods were. How wondrous every moment could be…Now I can’t fathom a second of my life without her gorgeous red hair brightening it.

I can’t go back to the black and white. What a nightmarish concept that’d be.

What if I have to spend the rest of my life shadowing her steps just to enjoy a world everyone else has always seen?”

-Acharius told Rhyers on a fall afternoon as they checked traps.

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