Rabastan groaned, cheek stinging from the force behind her slap, truly stunned that such a soft, small hand could create such a wake. Still, he'd meant what he'd said, kissing Lilith had been worth it. He marveled for a moment at the light in her eyes as if some inner fire had awoken within his witch. She looked amazingly fierce and sexy.
Lilith pulled her hand back to her chest, still smarting from the slap, wondering if she'd made a fatal mistake. Rabastan had promised he didn't want to hurt her but everything he was and had done sort of lent itself to his word being completely unreliable. He didn't look wroth, instead there was an amused grin playing over his lips as one roughened hand reached up to soothe his bearded cheek. Still Lilith was unwilling to let her guard down, she'd done far too much of that already.
"Was that what you wanted to talk about?" she asked with a sarcastic little edge to her voice.
The DeathEaters' grin disappeared and while her own heart beat a bit faster, she could feel his doing the same against the right side of her chest.
"I wish, because I could talk to you about that all day." Rabastan laughed weakly. "What I really needed to talk about is more dire, there will come a day very soon when I'm going to insist you don't come to work or maybe ask you to leave."
"Why would you do that?" LIlith demanded, brow scrunched.
"I know you don't know much about the dark lord or the wars." he began and took the tiniest of steps backwards, moving his hands to her upper arms and holding them lightly. "But the dark lord, our master, was thought to be dead but he's not."
He gave the witch a moment to let his words to sink in and watched all the emotions play out in her expressive eyes; confusion, fear, distrust.
"We don't know how or when, only that it's soon, but he's coming for us, to free us."
It took but a moment for understanding to cross her features.
"People will die?"
Rabastan felt beneath his angel in that moment like he shouldn't have been touching her, as if his touch might taint her with his filthiness and took a large step backward, hands dropping to his sides.
"Based on history, yes."
Lilith nodded, turning his words over and over in her mind. Clearly he wasn't out to thwart this dark lords' plan, else he would have told the guards or asked for an auror. Why then was he going out on a limb to tell her? On the other hand it could have been another trick but if it was a trick what was the angle? What would Rabastan get out of having her not come to work or go home?
"And why would you tell me this?"
He could hear the skepticism in her voice but it didn't hurt or surprise him, he hadn't earned her trust. In fact his actions that day had only made her trust him less. It was regretful but he'd been unable to think of another way to speak with Lilith. If the others knew and god forbid the dark lord found out he was a dead man walking. He had made the decision to not tell his angel everything though. If he could prevent her from being there when everything went down she would never need to know that the men had wanted to gift her to the dark lord.
"Becauseā¦" Rabastan broke off with a deep sigh, eyes flicking around anxiously before finally settling on her own. "I couldn't stand to see you hurt."
His overwhelming urge to hold Lilith propelled him forward again but he stopped abruptly when she let out a surprised yelp. When his head hit the floor Rab realized she hadn't been frightened by him.
"I'm so sorry Lilith, I swore I incarcerous'd him." Longbottom let out a deep breath and re-holstered his wand.
"What the fuck happened to him?" Rodolphus yelled, leaping off his cot and slamming his palm against the bars as his unconscious brother was levitated back to his cot. He glared accusatorily at the witch, her eyes downcast.
"I stupefied him." Longbottom growled, meeting the irate prisoner with a cold stare of his own.
"What the fuck for?" Rowle's eyes traveled from the guard to Lilith. She looked deathly pale and wasn't meeting anyone's eyes.
"For attacking Lilith."
"Bullshit!" the elder Lestrange roared, wrapping both fists around the bars and rattling them, jarring Lilith's senses.
Neville had taken it much more personally than the witch would have ever anticipated. He'd been trying to protect her and while she was touched Lilith was far too confused and upset to feel the warm fuzzies.
"He didn't attack me, it was a misunderstanding." she repeated, yet again, letting out a deep breath.
"Stupid witch." Rod spat, looking her up and down with disgust.
"Shut it." the guard hissed. "Or I'll do the same to you."
Dolohov exchanged looks with a few of the men, all of them wondering what the fuck had gotten into Longbottom. The guard was normally quiet and reserved, not that they didn't know how he felt about them anyway. Still it was very odd and the DeathEater wondered if perhaps he knew more than he should. The men tried to keep their talk of the dark lord and escape to a minimum and quiet but Dolohov was suspicious. Paranoid perhaps but that's what kept him at the top of the food chain.
Lilith took one last look at Rabastan before moving on to finish her rounds, feeling most conflicted. Had he been speaking the truth or had it been just a cover up for a larger ploy? She wanted to believe that he cared about her wellbeing but quite frankly that seemed pretty fantastical.
"Are you sure you're ready to come in?" Greyback demanded, more to keep up appearances in front of the others. He alone knew that he couldn't harm his mate even if he wanted to.
It had been several days since the incident and Lilith would be a liar to claim she wasn't nervous to approach the wolf for the first time since then. The potion she'd mixed to banish both her menstrual and estrous cycles seemed to be working, the bleeding had ceased within hours anyway. Still there was always the worry since she'd never mixed anything of the like before and there was no one to 'test' it out on. His actions that day still left the witch in wonderment, especially saying he may regret harming her. Fenrir was an enigma.
"Nothing a little potion couldn't handle." Lilith replied with an unsure smile.
Fenrir sniffed the air to make a little show of it but what he smelled made his hair stand on end. She smelled like Lestrange, that fucker had touched her!
Longbottom, however reluctant he was to give the men another go at the witch, unlocked the wolf's cage to allow her access. Greyback moved aside but didn't sit down on the cot, fighting his wolf tooth and nail to not go on a rampage. He would have liked nothing better than to trample over the guard, pry open Rab's cell and rip the bastard apart.
"Please." Lilith asked softly.
When their eyes met Fenrir could tell something was wrong, her normally bright eyes were dimmed and she couldn't seem to muster a smile. Suddenly he found himself fighting the urge to hold and comfort Lilith instead of killing someone. Longbottom looked just irked enough to hex him stupid for just looking at her wrong let alone touching her. Finally he forced himself into submission and sat on the cot for Lilith to examine him.
"Are you alright?" he whispered, searching her eyes.
The witch forgot what she was doing for a minute lost in his steely eyes, was that legitimate concern? No, she was just projecting on him what she wanted to see, the idea was ludicrous.
"Just a little shaken up, Rabastan didn't hurt me, I'm ok." though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself and not him.
Fenrir nodded as a feral look drifted across his hardened face.
"Good, because I'll kill anyone who does." he whispered just loud enough for only Lilith to hear.
