A/N: This is my latest WIP it's an adventure/mystery –ish Rose/Scorpius which I hope you all enjoy :)
Prologue
... 997 A.D ...
Gold light shone in shafts from the captured flame which burned upon a candle's wick, warming the cold stone walls of the windowless room. The glow was concentrated at the very centre of the small space, revealing a thick ply of richly hued rugs and pillows which formed a make shift bed.
Where the light receded from its centre, it was swallowed up in the heavy drape of darkness which beckoned from the room's hidden corners.
A slight glint of that light played along the ornate edges of a gilt frame which hung on one of the walls. Yet the man facing it could not observe the detail of the painting, obscured as it was in the darkness.
He knew the scene it held though, knew it very well.
His stare was pressing and held a clue at the depth of meaning to his thoughts in that moment. So too did the shadows beneath the tortured gaze and the hard line of his clenched jaw.
Small and slender hands traced beguiling patterns across the skin of his bare shoulders. The touch seemed to call the man's attention back to the young woman before him; her face upturned to his, her nubile body open to his disturbed gaze.
Her lips curved into a secret smile, one of many he had received before. He questioned this one now in a way he never had before, when he had trusted her. She pressed her warm cheek against the seam of his neck and shoulder and brushed soft, wet lips to his skin.
The tickle of her hair and the scent which rose to meet his nose acted as a heady reminder that clutched at the churning emotions within him: anger, guilt and lust. Broiling, stirring and overwhelming though they were, the man knew that on this night he must not succumb to their strength.
Everything relied on him and what it was he had to do.
The man took a deep breath, but clarity was not forthcoming; instead the perfume of her hair rose higher around him, all encompassing. He lifted her head to hold her face before him and wondered at the truth that lay beneath such beauty. Her long-lashed eyes were large and wide and tempting.
Always tempting.
The woman pressed her comely form against him and he recalled other times when they had been together, like this but so very different. There had been times when he had unwrapped her like the gift he had thought she was, when he had revelled in her presence, her knowledge and the power she had seemed to emanate. She had been his protégé, the most beautiful flower in his garden and he had quite forgotten his senses. He had forgotten the caution he usually showed.
But he knew how she was tainted now, could taste the bitter knowledge in each of her kisses.
And still, even as he knew this, the man felt his resolve crumbling at her gentle touch. He would not forsake his duty; but stronger men had fallen at such a promise as was held in her gaze. He would taste her just once before the time would come.
A feline expression of triumph and desire gleamed across her features at the expression of surrender in his eyes and she turned her mouth up to meet his once more.
His hands swept through tumultuous curls, along the arched line of her back, into moist crevices and across smooth skin. The sound of her breath in his ear, his name and words of love caused the burning coil within him to tighten.
Lies, he knew. All lies. And dangerous ones at that.
Her hands traced circles across his heated flesh, drawing paths of fire over his abdomen. They moved lower to caress him and the air hissed through his clenched teeth. She had eager hands, practiced hands. And he could not allow for that, not this night.
With an evasive sweep he brushed those hands away and hauled her body against his. She responded with enthusiasm, her arms embracing his neck, her legs enwrapped around his waist. He could feel her heat against him, warm and slick and pulsing, dizzying his senses. Her breasts were soft as they brushed the harsh wall of his chest, they pressed against him like beacons of her yearning. He knew that, despite her deception, she had never lied to him about this.
She shifted her hips and, as her lips brushed across ear in a whispered caress, she was there. He surged forward and felt her teeth graze his lobe.
They were still for a long moment as he fought for control of his senses and then cursed the nubile movement of her hips for the way he lost his mind. She held him warm and firm, cloaking him in all of her.
The taste of sweat on her neck and the scrape of her nails across his slick shoulders were his undoing. A catch of broken sound thrummed in his throat at the remembered feel of her sheathed around him: a reminder and a curse. The light glinted off her bare breasts, rosy-hued and flushed. It danced across her features and curled through the tresses of her hair.
The room bore witness to the man's greatest weakness: this alluring woman, the one that would undo everything. The one who had unravelled him.
He wanted desperately to fall apart in her once more, to feel her clench around him, to feel her lips fastened against his. He could not chance it, though. It would risk more than could be imagined.
The man drew a deep breath and steeled his resolve without a change in his rhythm that would alert the shuddering figure draped across his frame. A palm held her firm as, with his other hand; he stroked the fine texture of a narrow strip of wood held behind his back.
The woman sighed and a satisfied smile curved along the red line of her lips. She opened large eyes as he brushed a finger across her mouth and whispered his goodbye. He saw the look of awareness, the cowering of fear and desire for flight that ran across her features.
It almost made the man think her as fragile as she seemed, he knew better though. But she had not credited him with knowing the truth of actions, her ill intentions; she had not realised how very much he knew. But this was his domain, and he always knew.
He felt her muscles bunching beneath her sweat-soaked skin as she made to spring free from his grip, but he held firm and stared at her with eyes that showed his anger and his pain.
She stared back it him, eyes wide open and fierce in their expression. He knew they would haunt him always.
Light burst from his wand and he caught the final hunted look in her gaze before she disappeared from his embrace. The light faded slowly from the tip of his wand and lingered to dance once more along the gilt frame of the hidden portrait.
Though he kneeled on the floor of the now empty room and told himself that she was gone, he knew better. He knew that the courage for which he was renowned had failed him, because he could not kill the beautiful creature as he should have. She had been his failing and none must ever know.
The man braced himself against the churning from within and vowed resolutely that she would not return.
He could never allow it.
