Virtual Season Two – Episode #25
"Where The Wild Things Play"Part Two of Three
"Remind me to never get pregnant again." Ruby repeated darkly for the hundredth time as she struggled to sit up from a couch that she no longer wished to recline upon.
John watched her with a sense of amusement over her predicament, but was intelligent enough not to let it show. He was also intelligent enough to know that if he tried to help her get up, he'd probably only withdraw from her just as fast, minus a hand.
Seeing his mate go through the hormonal stages of not only a pregnant woman, but a pregnant Skinwalker woman had definitely shown him a different side to his passionate young wife.
And one of things that he had learned was that sometimes it was best not to do anything or say anything at all until he was sure which way her moods were going to shift.
And it was a surety very rarely in stock these days.
To say that she could be a little testy once in a while was an understatement of gigantic proportions. But again, that was a revelation that he was also smart enough to keep to himself.
"I hate being pregnant." She muttered more to herself than to him as she finally managed to get her feet under her. "There is nothing enjoyable about this entire process at all, I don't care what other women say. It's nothing but a mass conspiracy against us younger women who've never had children to convince us to conceive and therefore populate the species. 'Most incredible experience of my life', my ass."
"And to think that you still have two more months to go." John commented.
Ruby rolled her eyes. "At least there's only two in there. But then again, if there had been more, this pregnancy would have already been over."
Skinwalker pregnancies were interesting things. Under the rare chance that there was only one fetus, the gestation period was no more than eight months. But if there were multiples – which proved to be the case more often than not – then for every baby in a multiple pregnancy, meant one less month on that standard eight month term.
So because Ruby was carrying two, it meant that her entire gestation period was speeded up to allow her to give birth sometime during the sixth month. Which basically meant to the casual observer she now looked like she was ready to pop almost any minute. But then again, the casual observer (i.e. human) wouldn't immediately think 'twins' when they looked at her either…
She both envied and pitied the women in the Clan who wound up carrying three or four babies in one shot. Yeah, that meant that their pregnancies only lasted about four or five months… but it also meant that everything was sped up… and for some of the women, it could be a totally draining experience due to the increased growth rate of their babies. Many had to submit themselves to bed-rest, and in so doing, became highly vulnerable.
Well, hell would freeze over – and then thaw and freeze again – before Ruby would allow herself to be pushed to such a decision. She had already been kept under lock and key enough for one lifetime. She wasn't going to become any more trapped by her own body if she could help it.
Pressing her hands to the small of her back, she winced as she walked over to John. Leaning into him for comfort, as he took a hint, and ran his own hands down to the pained area of her back, massaging it gently.
"It wouldn't be so awful, if I could at least shift." She confessed grudgingly. "I miss running in the forests. I miss how it felt to be consumed by the Otherness."
John pressed a kiss to the top of her head in sympathy, even as he continued to soothingly rub the strained muscles in her back. "I know, baby. I miss running with you, too."
She picked her head up from his chest and looked up at him. "You know, you don't have to abstain from making the change yourself. I know how hard it can be to deny our other nature."
"Ruby, we've already had this discussion a hundred times by now. As long as you can't make the Change, neither will I."
"I hate not being able to flip." She admitted. "It's like I'm trapped in a prison, but the prison is my own skin. I used to be able to shed it so easily, but now I can't, and it's driving me crazy."
That was always that hardest thing for Skinwalker mothers-to-be. Once they got about a month or so into their pregnancies, and their babies began to take on noticeable human features, they could no longer make the change from their human forms to that of their Wolven ones, without the threat of severely deforming their young in the earlier stages of their term, or killing them at the later ones… and quite possibly themselves as well.
It hadn't always been like this for the Skinwalkers. They used to be able to make the Change regardless of the stage their pregnancy was at. Just like their children, once they reached puberty, had been able to Flip for that first time almost as easy as drawing breath, with not the fear of excruciating pain or the possibility of death hanging over their heads.
Proving once more that this, like all the other lessons of their kind, had to have been learned the hard way over the course of the last hundred years in Wolf Lake.
Sensing her melancholy thoughts, John sighed and reluctantly pulled away. Dropping his arms from around her torso, and taking one of her hands in his. He didn't like the shadows that he saw in her eyes. They usually meant that she was thinking too much.
"Ruby, you can't keep doing this to yourself. You can't keep worrying about what might happen. It's not healthy for you, or for the babies. And it sure as hell doesn't do any good." He paused for a moment. Peering into her face searchingly. "How 'bout we go for a walk, hmm? I think that maybe just getting outside for a little while, breathing in the night air, will help relax you some before we go to bed."
Ruby pushed her dark hair back from her face with her free hand. Teeth scraping against her bottom lip as she contemplated the possibility. "Okay," she finally breathed out, smiling faintly. "That sounds nice."
Ruby breathed in deeply of the cold, crisp scent of the surrounding forest as her and John moved through it. Despite her enlarged stomach, and the weight of what lay within it, she still moved over the earthen floor with pretty much the same inherent grace and agility that she had always possessed, and John watched her with a sense of wonderment over the beautiful creature at his side. They had only been officially mated (and married) for a couple of months now…
And John would have been lying if he said that he didn't still fear that one day he would wake up and find all of this a dream.
Some of it had been hard. Some of it harder. There were still many things about the Pack he didn't understand, and many things that he didn't want to be a part of at the moment. The same piece of him that had accepted the truth of this town, was completely separate from the other piece that had him so secretly screwed up he felt more like an outsider here than ever before. Because he apparently wasn't human… but he wasn't really one of them, either.
He had been exposed to the mystique of Wolf Lake for a little over three months, right before it all had come full circle. He had seen and heard and experienced things that had completely turned his world upside down. It hadn't been that much of a stretch to actually have the truth revealed to him… That the town of Wolf Lake was controlled and primarily populated by shapeshifters. Skinwalkers. Werewolves.
Whatever you wanted to call them, they were real… and now he possessed the very same gift that set them apart from the rest of the world.
It had been easier during those events four months ago to work around that sudden life-shattering alteration. He had just found Ruby, and they all had been so fixated on surviving, that nothing else had mattered. So what if he could shapeshift? He was a decorated cop. Surviving was something he was very good at, and utilizing his newly acquired abilities to do just that was just another facet of his personality. He could try to work his mind around whatever possible ramifications later… he had had to do whatever was necessary to keep Ruby alive and safe at that time, and falling into complete and utter denial wouldn't have done any of them any good
He still wasn't completely accepted by everyone else in the Pack. Oh, they kept their opinions to themselves, simply because of the high-ranking members of the Clan that supported John and his union to Ruby. But he was still smart enough to know that one day he would have to be the one to establish himself. One day, someone in the Pack who wasn't happy with his presence there, would bring the fight to him… and John was going to have to be willing to deal with that when the time came.
Ruby felt guilty and responsible for his decision not to shift while she couldn't… but to be perfectly honest, it was a break that he had found himself heartily welcoming. It was providing him with the time that he needed to figure out where to go from here.
Ruby paused under the shelter of one of the towering trees, and looked up the length of the steep trunk till it finally met up with the top. Viewing the night sky through the canopy of limbs and evergreen leaves. She tilted her head to the side in a familiar gesture of hers, as if she was hearing things that only she could hear. And maybe in a way she was.
It was a beautiful night. Moonlight filtered down through the branches, and cast haunting designs across their surroundings, even though the glowing orb itself wasn't visible. Tendrils of fog circled her calves with its cool, slightly damp touch and spread out across the ground. Interweaving through the trees, and glittering with the finest sheen of ice particles in the ferns and underbrush. Freezing upon the moss covered trunks of fallen trees crisscrossing across the terrain. Some had collapsed recently, while others had been dead longer than she had been alive… But even in death, life still shone stubbornly where it had taken up residence in the cracks and crevices of the ancient wood.
The beauty surrounding them was the same beauty that called to each and every one of them. It called to them as children, and sung to them in their dreams in the days before their first Flip. It welcomed them into its embrace every night as they shed their human facades for the reality of what lay in their hearts.
If there had ever been a place in the world that could have possessed magic, it would have been this one, for it already sung with the magic of Ruby's wolven pelted ancestors.
The forests of Wolf Lake belonged to each and every one of the members of the Pack. The Clan. It was in their blood, a part of their heritage… and to think that four months ago they had almost lost it was a hell of a lot more frightening to her now, then it had been then, with the strengthening awareness of her two babies – a little boy and a little girl – growing just a little bit more within her womb with every passing day. She suddenly understood the value of having a safe haven for their kind far more intimately than she had in her pre-pregnancy days.
She never wanted to fear again that her children might one day go without a home. A secret paradise to hide their gifts from the rest of the world. For she had gotten a harsh taste of what it meant not to have such a place when she had been in Seattle for those nine months.
John had been her only relief from those cloistered days and nights.
Shaking away her depressing thoughts, she closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the wind whispering through the leaves towering above her, and the muted song of life flowing all about her. She sensed John slid up behind her, and she smiled welcoming, eyes still closed, as his arms circled her. His larger palms coming to rest on her stomach so he could feel the slight movements of their babies.
"I'm getting as big as a house." She complained lightheartedly. Leaning her head back onto his shoulder and sighing contentedly.
He nuzzled the side of her neck. Brushing over her pulse with his lips in a caress. "Pregnant women are a turn on." He whispered into her ear.
She smacked at his arm. Eyes opening and glinting threateningly her lack of amusement. "Liar."
John couldn't control the grin that suddenly spread across his face. A decidedly wicked little grin that she could feel forming against the skin of her throat where his mouth was pressed. The warmth of his breath feathering over her pulse. "Okay, let me rephrase that." His words rumbled deeply in his chest. The amused vibrations clearly felt against Ruby's back. "This pregnant woman is an incredible turn on."
Her lips twitched despite her attempt to keep them from doing so. "Good answer… but you're still a dirty little liar."
John laughed, and turned her in his embrace till she was facing him. His palms came up to frame the sides of her face. Thumbs tracing the lines of her cheeks tenderly, as he gazed teasingly into her stunning silver eyes. Smile still lingering on his lips.
"I thought you liked me dirty."
Ruby's eyes widened slightly as he reminded her of what she had told him so long ago, on what they hadn't realized was their last night together in Seattle. Her smile widened at the implication, and she shook her head in disbelief. "Oh, tell me you can't possibly be thinking what I think you're thinking."
His lips descending quickly on hers were apparently all the answer he thought she needed, as he slowly backed her up to one of the trunks. His kisses falling against her laughing mouth, and his answering chuckle unrestrained as he playfully nipped at her lower lip.
But their laughter was soon followed by the faint yet unmistakable sounds of a slightly different sort, as John sought to convince her once and for all just how attractive he found his stunningly beautiful and pregnant new wife and mate.
The darkened lounge and bar adjacent to the closed Diner was deserted except for the one person curled up in a large worn leather chair sitting by the massive rock fireplace all the way in the back. It was a place usually reserved for the social events of the Clan, but tonight it served a far more intimate purpose for the young woman who had come here seeking solitude for the sometimes overwhelming thoughts and emotions that she found herself confronting almost on a daily basis since the events of four months ago… especially when one conversation in particular tended to haunt her nights…
"You're alive." she whispered in awe. Stepping closer to reach out a trembling hand to touch his cheek in disbelief. Her fingertips moved of their own violation to caress the line of his mouth. Feeling the velvet firmness of his lips beneath her touch.
He let her touch him, but made no move to reciprocate.
Presley's hand dropped away, and her eyes wandered over his form. Taking in his free-flowing mass of hair, dusty clothing, and what smelled faintly of blood. But not his. None of it his.
And most importantly, the lack of that damning pendant from around his neck.
She brought her eyes back up meet his. Heart aching at the cold bleakness she saw reflected there… and she knew. She knew then that he had come to say goodbye.
He was leaving her.
In a way, he was already gone.
Damien barely managed to keep from flinching from the pained awareness he suddenly saw blazing in her eyes, and he knew then that she understood what he had sought her out to do. Knew why he had come to her this one last time.
"Why?"
"You don't want me, Presley. You have no idea what I'm capable of doing. What I've done. Although the struggle within my mind and heart has died, there is a darkness present in my soul that will never leave me. There will always be a piece of what I used to be residing there. Haunting me."
Presley started to shake her head in denial, but Damien stopped her from trying to respond. His accent thickening till it carried that strange quality of velvet rasping over stone. "I am the last of my brethren, Presley. The only survivor left of hundreds. There is much I have to atone for, and I cannot do so if I remain here. If I did, you would always be at risk. There is much still left of my father's influence in this world, that has to be dealt with. There are documents that need to be destroyed. Paper trails that need to be eliminated. I can't just walk away from all that."
"But you'll come back, right? When you've done what you need to do, you'll come back to me?" Presley couldn't hide the slight tremor to her words, as she stood in front of him. Heart exposed. Hands fisted at her sides. Nails biting into her palms.
Damien was silent for a moment. Searching for the right words, and at the same time, battling his own desires.
"I don't know how long it will take," he admitted. "Or if it will ever even be enough."
Presley's eyes suddenly flared up challengingly.
"Enough for what, Damien? For you to stop blaming yourself? Or to stop running from whatever demons you believe to be in your past?"
His dark eyes narrowed. "You don't know what you're talking about, Presley. What you are risking by wanting to be with me."
"Oh, don't I?" she shot back. "You're a liar, Damien. You're lying to me, which is bad enough, but most importantly you're lying to yourself!"
Damien moved so quickly, she didn't even have a chance to react. One minute they were facing each other off, and the next he had hauled her up against him. Body pressing aggressively, possessively into hers, as his gaze burned down at her in suppressed fury and passion.
Presley didn't even wince at the strength he exhibited, but glared up into his eyes angrily. Trying to ignore the sudden flames of desire licking at her skin from the feeling of his body against hers. She couldn't believe he was doing this. Not after everything that they had been through. And she hated him for it. But more than anything, she hated the way her heart was breaking. Betraying her in a way she had never thought possible.
"What do you want from me, Presley?" His black eyes simmered down at her. The coolness of his gaze had been chased away by the flames she saw burning there now.
"I want the man that stood with me on that cliff overlooking that forsaken town." she shot back. "I want the man that risked his life to save all of us. I want the man that I walked with and bared my soul to! I want you, Damien!" She fell silent for a moment. Eyes shifting over his face as she watched his reaction to her words. She swallowed nervously, before dropping the tone of her voice down an octave.
"And I know, without a doubt, that you want me, too."
His grip tightened to the point of pain. As he subtly inhaled her scent. The chemistry arching between them like a living thing, even as he sought to deny it. "Oh really? You seem to forget how easy it is for me to pretend, Presley. To be what I am not. To feel what I don't."
Presley shook her head vigorously. Throat constricting. "Not with me."
"Yes, with you!" Damien hissed. Almost shaking her to drive his point home. "Especially with you! Damn it, did you think that everything that came about, happened by chance? I allowed Eric to torture you. I made you think that I had rescued you, when in fact, all I was doing was following my father's orders. I played you, just as I played everyone else in my scheme to be free of my father's legacy! I implanted a microchip in you, Presley, so my father could track you and fall right into my hands. Why the hell would you think that any of the rest of what happened between us would be real?"
"You weren't responsible for my capture–" Presley started to deny hoarsely.
"That's just it, I was. I knew about the Meeting that your Pack was having that night. I even pointed you out to Eric. He originally was gunning for Sophia, but I ordered him to select you instead for capture, before going back to the Warehouse and preparing for your arrival." His words fell like gunshots. Dashing all her hopes and emotions away harshly, like a cold, unfeeling sea against the rocks.
Presley's face paled significantly, and Damien's grip gentled as he realized that she was finally starting to hear him. "Yes. Now you're finally beginning to understand. I chose you, to be victimized and played. I planned it all, Presley. Everything from your kidnapping to killing my father. Right down to every single moment. And I did a damn good job of it, too."
Presley didn't respond. But Damien watched as a single tear began its descent down the side of her silken cheek.
Slowly, his fingers began to loosen on their grip. Stepping away, he turned his face from her.
"So you see, Presley… things are never what they seem."
Presley felt as if someone had ripped her soul out.
"I am the last person you should ever trust." He continued hoarsely. Eyes burning into hers as he turned back.
"Fine." Presley suddenly spat out. Eyes going blank as the lines of her face suddenly hardened. "You want me to believe you are a monster, Damien, fine. Then tell me once and for all… when we kissed yesterday afternoon, out on that cliff… was that all part of your plan? Your act? Did you feel nothing? Do you feel nothing when you are with me?"
He just stood there. Watching her helplessly. Not moving. Not speaking.
But his silence gave her the answer she sought, and she knew understood more than he wanted her to, what he was trying to accomplish by speaking to her thus.
Presley nodded in dawning awareness. Lips twisting up mockingly. "You see? Now you're beginning to understand me. You can say whatever you want. Do whatever you want. You can try to push me away by revealing to me everything that you just did, but in the end, it doesn't matter. You need me, Damien. Because I'm the only one that has ever seen who you really are... And that scares the hell out of you."
Damien visibly flinched. Breath exiting raggedly as the impact of her words.
Not trusting himself to respond, he took a step back. Black, haunting eyes tracing over her features one last time, before he turned around and walked away.
Presley watched the lines of his retreating back. The suppressed tears finally beginning to slide down her face. A small hand pressing against her chest almost in an attempt to keep the sensation of her heart being ripped out at bay, as a silent sob caught in her throat as she watched him disappear into the shadows of the forest, and out of her life…
(Soundtrack Suggestion – "Do What You Have To Do" by Sarah McLachlan and from the album "Surfacing" )
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she hated herself for her inability to get over him, or how she struggled to go on in her life as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to her, she still couldn't quite do it. She still couldn't quite keep herself from falling into these… moments. Where she was forced to find some form of solitude away from the rest of the Pack. Away from friends and family that could and would never understand what it was she had so far been enduring so silently.
//...What ravages of spirit, conjured this temptuous rage…?//
Five months ago, she had been the alpha bitch of her generation. Five months ago, she had been the only female suitable at that time of being the potential mate to the Alpha's son, after she had seen to it that all of her competition had... moved on to better hunting grounds.
//…Created you a monster, broken by the rules of love…//
Five months ago she had known exactly what she had wanted out of life amongst her Clan. And whom she wanted that life to be with. She had been confident, ambitious, and more than a little self-centered as a result.
But then all of that had shattered to the four winds the moment she had been captured by the enemy, and then horrifically tortured over the course of several days.
//…And fate has led you through it… you do what you have to do…//
And the irony of all of that was, that the same person responsible for having her tortured, was the same person she couldn't forget… Even though he had apparently forgotten all about her.
//…And fate has led you through it… you do what you have to do…//
There had been many nights that she had woken from the nightmares. What had been done to her while in the hands of Damien's fellow Hunters was something that had scarred her deeply. Both emotionally and physically. It had been a rape of sorts. A violation. It was the only comparison that she could come up with that even came close to what it had been. They had stripped her of all her gifts and strengths, had beaten and smashed and bloodied her senseless. Even when she had told them everything that they had wanted to know, the agony hadn't ended.
And it didn't end… at least, not until Damien had intervened.
She still remembered the sense of black rage rolling off of him, despite the apparent loss of her Skinwalker abilities. And even though she hadn't been able to see very clearly, she still heard clearly in her head the sound of her torturer's body hitting the wall on the other side of the room as he was thrown away from her.
In some ways she couldn't help but secretly wish that he had just left her alone. That he had just left her to die in the hands of one of brethren… It would have been better than having to suffer being what his leaving had reduced her to.
Yes, she had had the nightmares of her capture and resulting abuse... But she had already lost count of the times where she had cried herself to sleep from the memories that he had left her with those four months ago, when he had turned his back on her that morning after such a horrible night, and had disappeared out of her life as suddenly – and almost just as brutally – as when he had entered it.
//…And I have the sense to recognize, that I don't know how to let you go…//
She had never cried before she had met him. Never. She hated him for just that alone. But also for what it was like for her without him there with her. How the hell could she become so enraptured with him in such a short time? How had be managed to work his way so deeply into her heart that she couldn't get him out even though she had tried?
//…Every moment marked with apparitions of your soul…//
She had always been in control with her relationships before. She had never allowed herself to fall victim to another. It was just simply the way she was. The way she had always been. But since Damien had left, this yawning emptiness in her heart just seemed to get bigger and bigger with every passing night that he didn't come back. Every night that she spent wondering if when she woke up if she'd find him sitting in her room like he had been all that time ago.
//…I'm ever swiftly moving… trying to escape this desire…//
It had changed her drastically. Even though she was still technically one of the top ranking young females of the Pack, she showed no interest in the antics of her group that had once entertained her. And despite the interest of many different males – including Sean who had once upon a time been a regular in her bed – she had refused to take a lover.
She knew that there were those that were concerned about her behavior, but then again, she wasn't the only one with issues after the events of four months ago. So they all just figured that she was no different. No one really knew what had happened, except for maybe Sophia… but that didn't help Presley any because, despite what they had endured together, Sophia was really the last person that she wanted to see at the moment.
//…The yearning to be near you… I do what I have to do…//
She wondered for the hundredth time if this constant cycle of need and loneliness would ever be over. She wondered if she would ever be able to get on with her life. If she would ever be able to put all of this behind her once and for all, and actually make it through one night without waking up with the taste of his mouth on her lips, and the imagined feel of his hands against her skin.
//…The yearning to be near you… I do what I have to do…//
She couldn't take it anymore. Every time she woke up from such dreams, and the realization hit her that that was all that they were, the pain that she thought she had done such a good job of disguising came flooding back to the surface, till her heart felt like it was trapped in someone's ever tightening fist.
//…But I have the sense to recognize, that I don't know how to let you go…//
Resting her chin on her knees that she was currently hugging to her chest, Presley stared into the hypnotic flickering firelight burning steadily in front of her. Willingly her mind to just simply go blank for a few moments of hopefully blessed forgetfulness.
//… I don't know how to let you go…//
The glow from the frames echoed in her light colored eyes, and caught the golden highlights of her hair which trailed down about the sides of her face, unnoticed.
//…A glowing ember… burning hot… burning slow…//
Slowly the tears began to rise, even though she refused to blink. Refused to let them go. It wasn't going to be that easy. She wasn't going to be defeated without a fight. She wouldn't let him do this to her. She couldn't let him do this to her.
//…deep within I'm shaken by the violence of existing for only you…//
Even though she feared it was already too late.
//…I know I can't be with you… I do what I have to do…//
He was the one who had left her. He was the one who had turned his back on everything that she had offered to him… Everything that they would have had together. He had been the one to walk away.
So now she would just have to learn to deal with that.
//…I know I can't be with you… I do what I have to do…//
And she could only pray that wherever he was, he was enduring the same agony that she was. Hopefully more. Because he was the one who deserved it. Not her. Not when she had been willing to give up everything to keep him at her side.
She hoped he suffered and burned and hungered every single time he closed his eyes at night. She hoped she haunted him as much as he was haunting her. She hoped he starved for the taste of her, and the feel of her skin under his fingertips. She hoped he regretted having never joined his body with hers, and she prayed the he was cursed with the vision of her face every time that he even so much as thought of doing just that with another.
She hoped that she had shattered him as thoroughly as he had shattered her.
//…And I had the sense to recognize…//
And as long as he chose to never come back, she prayed that he would never be able to pick up the pieces. That he would never truly be complete again.
//…but I don't know how to let you go…//
Because that was the life he had abandoned her to without her consent. That was what he had cost her. Cost them both…
//…I don't know how to let you go…//
And that was why the tears she had been trying to hold back finally began to fall. Glittering with the reflection of the shower of sparks that flew up in the fireplace as one of the glowing, burning logs shifted, popped, and cracked in two.
Sophia laughed breathlessly as Luke pulled her through the trees easily at a break-neck speed. They both flowed through the forest like quicksilver over the surface of a mirror. Pouring over logs, rock formations, and uneven ground effortlessly. Following the rhythms of a dance with no particular steps, but still coursing with such incredibly primitive, sensual movement.
And she loved every second of it.
"Where are we going?" her tone sparkling from the healthy dose of mischief that had risen in response to Luke's playfulness.
"You'll see." He called back to her. Hand still firmly clenched around hers as he helped her down a particularly steep slope. Making a left turn, he took her around one particularly massive and towering rock formation covered in moss and natural debris… and then came to a sudden stop.
Sophia landed against his unmoving back. Giggling helplessly as she did so. He reached around with one arm to steady her, a grin spreading across his face as he turned his head around to quickly press a his lips to hers while her chin was resting on the line of his shoulder. She responded enthusiastically till he broke it off. Once again taking her hand. This time an edge of seriousness bleeding over into the sensual heat burning in his eyes.
"Come on. I want to show you something."
Still panting a little from their energetic run, she obligingly allowed him to lead her deeper into the increasingly darkened shadows of this unfamiliar location.
Coming to its edge, he went right. Bringing them to another steep drop made entirely out of sheer rock.
Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze right before he let it go, he quickly made the jump. Landing easily on both feet about forty feet below her.
Turning to look up at her, his eyes glinted gold in the heavy shadows as he beckoned her down.
"Come on. It's safe… for us."
For our kind, was left unspoken but nonetheless apparent between them, and Sophia let out a deep breath. Eying the drop a little warily.
But her curiosity was simply just too great to try to turn back now. Muscles that she wouldn't have had if she had been just a mere human began to ripple and bunch with tension as she judged the distance… and leapt.
A moment of the sensation of being airborne, of her heart flooding up into her throat, and the automatic wonderment about whether or not the strange sensation of being weightless would continue on forever… and then she landed firmly in front of Luke. Legs bending at the knees to absorb the shock.
Luke's hands immediately steadied her, even though it wasn't necessary.
Smiling broadly at him, she couldn't help but then turn a little dazedly to look at the height from which she had just jumped from, and felt almost a childlike sense of accomplishment and pride at the feat she had just achieved.
Luke took the moment to press his lips into the curve of her bare shoulder. Sending a jolt through her body at the sudden contact and reminding her of the reason why they had come out here in the first place.
"You ready to see my surprise?"
She turned back to look at him, dark eyes glimmering with desire. Nodding an affirmative.
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