Author's Obstinately Odious Note: hi there, everyone! Sorry I didn't write any Atrocious After-note for my ninth chapter, but I was very busy, and I didn't have time. In fact, I was engaged in a desperately dangerous quest to find the Eye of Amethyst, which is the preciousest—I mean, the most precious (you know what: I never quite understood why on earth must we put sometimes most, and sometimes est. Do you imagine how quicker the world would turn if all the adjectives could be est-ed? Hm? I bet you never even thought about it—you should a #shamed of yourself :contemptcontempt:)

Never mind. Just read and Review, which is the point—if I didn't need someone to review, I wouldn't put this text here. Be logic, que diable!

Chapter Ten

Lord Drymarchon

Arach woke up a few hours later, with the moonlights spreading dim silvery-blue on the bed, and an awful headache. Hawkke, under her, was snoring, and she vaguely felt as if she wanted to punch him, but his naked back was so warm and soft, and she was so cold and felt hurting everywhere. She grunted, and pulled herself away from him, without even opening her eyes, for the moonlight was hurting her already seriously damaged head, and she groped around to find a fur. He groaned, and turning on his side, facing her, still sleeping; he slurred:

'Don't leave me, kid, I am cold…Don't be cruel and come to warm me up with the sweet white body you unfortunately possess…'

She grunted again, curled under a fur she had finally found and drawn up, and utterly ignoring him, she started to fall asleep again. She had nearly crossed the line of consciousness when she felt both his strong arms reach for her thin waist, and grab her possessively, pulling her hard against his naked, warm chest. She sighed, sat, and started to tug the fur around him, then she slipped in again, snuggling against his hard body, and falling asleep in his arms, with her hair spread like a raven fan behind her head, on his arm; and feeling exceptionally good.

When as outside the sun rose with its army of glorious colors, the tall, fair silhouette of Frostrosé in her nightdress appeared at the doorway of the chamber; they were still both fast asleep, still curled together. The lady shook her head, smiling a rueful smile, looking at the two of them with her blue eyes; the girl breathing softly, her hair all wild and spilled over his arm and the pillows, her face against his naked chest, the hunter with his noose in this hair, one arm under her head, one hand under her cheek, slightly snoring, looking very angelical, no more snappy and ironic, but like a child in the arms of his mother, even if it more looked as if the assassin was the child and him the parent. Frostrosé sighed, still smiling, and disappeared, locking the room again with the keys she had always possessed.

Arach started to wake up slowly, feeling far too comfortable and warm to wake up at all. She jerked her arms in the air, stretching her aching muscles, and by the way punched the sleeping man at her side. He muttered incoherent words she didn't want to understand and tried to grab her back in the embrace of his arms, but she limply rolled away, feeling as if she was going out of some comfortable, very warm water into the cold of the morning. It seemed that her departure made him come back from his drunken unconsciousness, and he sat up, yawning, opening his golden eyes widely and blinking like an owl in the sunny light.

'Argh, kid, I feel like a received a bag of potatoes right in the face,' he grumbled, looking at her hair and her pale face as she stood immobile, looking dreamily at the window, face turned to the light and narrow eyes sparkling.

''Tis no wonder after all that wine you drank last night,' she said groggily, turning to glare at him.

''Twasn't my fault, kid, I just felt sad.'

'Oh, yes, of course, now that the fair lady Frosty has dropped you for another man!' she said sarcastically, but yawning and feeling like nestling in his arms and go back to sleep forever.

'Yeah, it's true; she has dropped me. And I am a hunter. I should probably kill her…'

'Don't waste your time on killing disloyal mistresses. You'd better make something useful, like…washing and dressing yourself?'

'I don't feel like it,' he said, sounding suddenly moody, 'were Frostrosé here, she would light a fire, and pull blankets over me, and warm me up with her body. You haven't got what she has, but if you gave me a piece of what I can catch a glimpse of under your clothes, it would content me, really…'

'Who do you think I am! I am not your bloody mistress, hunter, so keep away from my bed and leave me and what is under my clothes alone!' she cried, turning her head and glaring at him again.

He stubbornly said nothing, but gathered himself on his knees, and threw himself on top of her, pinning her down on the bed. He stuffed his arms in her long, fan-spread hair, grabbed her head between both his hands, and half lifting, half bending over her, he crushed his demanding lips over hers, totally awaken now, kissing her so hard, so angrily, with so much passion that she was left breathless, immobile under him, her eyes full of tears his savage desire had drawn, feeling at the same time good and anguished to be so totally at his mercy. He breathed deeply, and bent again over her, but she drew her fingers, cold, slim fingers, on his lips, and said in a low, soft whisper.

'You shan't do that again. Bog off, hunter.'

He sighed, and looked at her with so much genuine need and desire, all fury gone, that she very nearly kissed him for the mere sake of his will; but she tore herself away from under him, and quickly dressed up. Then she quickly stumbled out of the room, without even looking back behind her, and headed towards the courtyard, with the firm will to go away, leave him and his mistress to their world, and plunge back into the mist of StonePort, go away from him and his murder, go away from the strong, weakening feeling of his mouth upon hers. She wanted to weep, but instead she stuck her shin in the air, and tossed back her jet black mane, ignoring the strange, tickling, warm, nearly disagreeable sensation of the sun playing on her white skin. She crossed the silent courtyard, and arrived at the great gates, at the bottom of which was dozing a guard, drunken and sleeping, snoring like a fat pig. She bit her lips, and was asking herself what to do now, when she heard a voice, so soft, so half-regretful, half-regretless, behind her.

'So, instead of killing him, you have ended by becoming his mistress. I knew it would happen.'

Arach turned sharply on her heels and glared at Frostrosé, standing tall and fair in front of her, her hair falling in shining loose curls of pale gold around her pink draped shoulders. She was talking gently, not reproaching, just observing something she had noticed.

'I ain't his bloody mistress!' yelled Arach, furious and ready to snatch the spear away from the still sleeping guard and stuff it in the woman's stomach.

'I am not so sure about it,' replied peacefully Frostrosé.

'You talk about things you don't know about, you pig-pink bitch!' screamed Arach hysterically.

'He desires you. In his eyes, in his hands, in his voice, in his heart, I can see it. He wants you so much he couldn't even get himself to go in his own wide cold bed yesterday. Tell me I am lying, tell me, assassin, so that I can laugh.'

Arach, with a hiss as sharp as the movement she followed with, slapped the lady across the face, than she thoughtlessly scrambled up the wall, and jumped over it, crashing down on the floor at the other side of the wall. Sobbing, tears streaming down her face with anger and a sorrow she could not understand, she ran away from the castle, her long legs barely supporting her, but making her run fast in the thick, high green grass on the rich fields of GreenLands. She ran for a long time, and her desperate tears and sobs presently stopped, and she altogether stopped thinking as well, just concentrating her energy on running, running away from the hunter and his castle, from the late mistress, from everything that tried to make her feel. She wanted to be back in the Alchematoria, or prisoner of the pirates, anything, anything, but not there, away from GreenLands, away from this cursed land where she would leave the little piece of heart she had left.

She ran for so long that when her she collapsed on the floor, she couldn't even feel her legs, so aching they were, and she was so exhausted she early fell asleep here and there. She had barely eaten anything the day before, and her stomach ached nearly as much as her legs and the rest of her body, which still didn't ache as much as her heart. She calmed down her thundering breath, and stood up, and started to run again. She was still in the horizon-less fields when she felt herself being drawn right from the floor, and was pulled over a galloping horse, between two slim, strong young arms. She felt a cold, long-fingered hand covering her mouth, but she didn't even try to scream. She wanted to know to whom the arms belonged.

'You see, Arachna, I certainly didn't want to see you; but I need your handsome heritage and your glorious name. So, you are going to marry me, and then, we shall patiently wait for your father to eventually die—meanwhile, I shall teach you obedience, humility and respect for your superiors. You see, I do play with peoples; and I was playing with you from the moment you first talked to Lady Frostrosé, till now. Both the hunter and his mistress have received their reward for trapping you in my arms, and now that I got hold of you, I shall not release you. Does the ingenuity of my plan reach your mind, tiny one?'

Drymarchon's cold, exhilarated voice stopped as he gasped in his breath, and then went on:

'It was easy: you were avid of money, oh so avid, exactly because of your family's fortune; and you were an assassin. This dear Lady Frostrosé wanted her lover killed, she had money to give you—enough to allure you—then the hunter was told, and he spoiled your pretty childish assassination. Then he took you to his castle—or should I say dragged you— and there I was supposed to make you loose your head and flee, but you didn't, clever girl, oh no you didn't, so we changed our plan. Frostrosé was supposed to find any stratagem to make you go away, and she succeeded. You have run away, right in my arms.'

He brushed his face against her cheek, and he was slightly surprised that she hadn't replied. Arach, drawn into her own self, was thinking that she would use the same dagger to kill Drymarchon, Frostrosé, and Hawkee.

Author's Aesthetically Perfect After-Note: (I won't say hello or hi or goodbye; from now on, I shall always say: what do you want? Just to warn you. I am definitely finished with politeness.)

Anyway: how did you like that? It was very well done, and I deeply congratulate myself. I m just quivering when I think about the dramatic events that are going to happen in the next chapter—aha, and I'll make you wait until you dribbled and your eyes are crossed with the impossibility of the suspense—ooh I'm so evil! Never mind—just review, and do it, or else.