"You're amazing, but, you already knew, I thought that." Not getting what he meant I motioned for him to continue. "Elaborate please? How would I know what you thought? I'm not a mind reader." He chuckled softly and smirked. "I asked you to go out with me, knowing I'd probably get reprimanded for it, work and all that. I asked you to sing for me even though I've already heard your voice…I kissed you…" With that he closed the gap between our faces and kissed me again, this time was a bit longer and his mouth was a bit more demanding on mine. After I got over the initial shock of the cold barbell in his tongue, I was used to the metal in my lip but the new metal felt weird, and then I kissed back. I felt myself lift up and fought with every fiber of my being, to stay where I was. After what seemed like forever, I struggled to push free of him, and he muttered to himself as he pulled away and sat back. "Dammit, I blew it I knew kissing her would have fucked it up. I knew it but she's just so damn… … Argh!!!" A beat of silence that not even I could break. "Feroscha I'll take you home if you want me to but… I'm sorry about that." He spoke to me only towards the end. I laughed and leaned over, this time I initiated the kiss and he practically sighed into my mouth with relief. I broke away and smirked at him. "What was that little rant of yours about? Huh, Darius? You didn't fuck anything up, I like you too. I couldn't breath. Hence the pushing you away." His face brightened up and he looked hopefully in to my eyes, once again the involuntary reaction to his stare climbed up my spin like ghostly fingers.
"Really? I didn't think you did. I was so nervous because… well I don't know you that well. I didn't want you to think I was soft or that I was coming on too hard, or I that I over thought things too much or that I didn't think enough…." I smiled and laughed again, cutting him off, shaking my head. "No. Anyone who can repeatedly make me shiver is perfect with me." I hadn't meant to confess this to him but I was trying to reassure him that I liked him too and it slipped. He looked up incredulously at me, one eyebrow cocked in utter amusement. "I make you shiver?" Judging by the look on his face I'd say he was worried, shocked or excited, but I couldn't tell you which it was. "Y-Yeah every time I look you in the eyes or when I first saw that smirk on your face, and when you untied that blindfold, brrrhh… your knuckles touched my neck. It went through my whole body, didn't you see me, or feel it?" Looking sheepishly up through my eyelashes, I watched his face for a sign; that I didn't just make a fool of myself. He looked as nervous as I felt though I probably showed it more. Suddenly he moved away, he moved to open his door. Getting out he stood, stretched and as I put my hand on the lever he was there, holding my door open, "M'Lady, would you join a most humble and least deserving subject on a stroll through this woodland area? You're Highness?"
He reached in to the car for my hand, which I gave, and upon lifting me from the seat, he kissed my hand. I simply smiled politely and played along. "Does this peasant have a reason for such a strange request of her Highness?" he held our hands high as we stepped away from the car, after locking it. "Why of course, the peasant has a childish crush on her highness and would like a chance to explain himself before her Royal Highness disposes of him for insane insolence." I mocked a disgusted yet regal look in his direction. "I assure you that her Highness would never think to punish anyone for their feelings getting helplessly caught in her presence." He smirked and kissed my hand once again. "Is that a confession Your Highness?" We had reached the edge of the footbridge before I answered. "Maybe her Highness is tired of being the outsider and just wants to be equal to everyone else." I watched his eyes take on a hard edge when I said this and his response only clouded things more. "Maybe being that kind of outsider isn't as bad as it feels. Maybe the peasant is worse off than everyone else is, maybe he's an outsider as well but he isn't openly accepted as better, like her Highness. Maybe he's a scary kind of different." I understood very little about what he was saying but I was willing to try to figure it out. I broke character as I watched him with a confused look.
"Darius, I have a feeling, it's just a hunch but; we're not talking about Princesses and Peasants are we?" He shook his head and refused to look at me. "Then what are we talking about?" I continued, wanting anything that would explain how this guy felt. He looked up in what I didn't think was possible: a sheepish expression. "Do you really want to know?" I nodded furiously, ready for anything he would say. "Don't say I didn't warn you okay?" When he saw that I practically shook from anticipation, He continued cryptically. "Well a lot of people are afraid of me, my whole family, and it bothers me, I don't like everyone fearing me, it's unnerving." His explanation left something to be desired but I understood what it was like to not be liked. My family had even gone so far as to attempt to murder me before they would accept my emotions or me. "Yeah it sucks to know that some people only pretend to like you. That's how most of my family was, never doing something with me or for me if they could avoid it." I smiled up at him and kissed his cheek. "I like you for you, you're nice and sweet and kind and caring, a bit self-critical but who isn't sometimes. I can't believe that you like me back." I looked up at him with hooded eyes, his smiled spread slowly into a full-blown grin; he looked like the Cheshire cat himself. Smirking and laughing; I spoke again. "Why, don't you look like the cat that ate the canary?" his eyes leveled with mine as he stared intensely.
"I didn't eat the canary. Yet, and it's a good thing I haven't or your sisters and my father would kill me." Darius leaned in slowly and kissed me again and it seemed as if he was committing my lips to memory whilst trying not to devour them. I pulled away, reluctantly as it was, and looked up with what must have been dreamy clouded eyes. "Oh, those aren't my sisters we were born consecutively in the same year Oct. 29: Avanti Oct 30: Katoura, Oct. 31: Me, we all lived near each other and grew up together we're closer than sisters. But you did plan to do away with me, huh? Were you going to say that I ran into the back of the exhibit, wanting to see how they made the bodies and that leaning over the edge of the balcony I fell into a vat of formaldehyde?" I smirked and couldn't help the bubble of laughter that came out of my mouth. Cocking an eyebrow at my laughter, he spoke soft and hauntingly. "How do you know that I planned to kill you? Maybe I wanted to torture you for my own perverse enjoyment." He turned without another word and walked a few paces ahead, which had me jogging to catch up with him. "And how do you know that I wouldn't fight back and beat you?" I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him around to face me with an incredulous look. "You don't think I'm some damsel in distress do you?" He places his hands on the sides of my arms lightly, his thumbs rubbing up and down slowly, almost making me melt.
God what the hell is wrong with me? I haven't felt like this in ages. "No." Darius' voice broke me out of my thoughts. "I don't think that, Feroscha I couldn't, you're too stubborn to go down without a fight." I smiled sheepishly. "Oh…" To avoid the awkwardness of the moment I lean over the railing and watched the water. Darius was standing directly behind me in the water's reflection, since he was a good six inches taller you could still see him as he wrapped his arms around my waist. With his chin on the top of my head, he breathed in deeply, almost shuddering from the force of his own lungs. I turned my head up in efforts to look at him, the real him, when his head came down to rest on my shoulder. His nose touched the skin of my neck sending my pulse to breakneck speeds, racing to tell my whole body that I was extremely, almost painfully aware, and loving every second of it. Next came his mouth, lightly brushing along the seam between sleeve and skin, moving closer and closer to my neck, when his lips finally reached their destination my heart threatened to stop all together, it was so happy. I breathed in deep to try to regain some resemblance of control. He suddenly stopped and looked up at me. "Are you okay?" Miraculously I found my voice, but it was choppy and stilted, squeaking in places. "Y-Yeah, neverrrrrr bett-er, Darius." My voice would have cracked if I had tried to say any thing after his name. He chuckled next to my ear and before I knew what was happening my earlobe was in his warm mouth. I gasped as his teeth came down to nibble lightly, forcing a hard shiver through me. He pulled away slowly making sure that I felt his teeth scraping along my skin.
"Still alright, Feroscha? I could have sworn I heard a sound of defeat…" I shook with a combination of rage at myself for gasping and the pleasure his tongue and voice on my skin were giving me. "No-nope. I'm good." I turned around in time to see his eyes darken to almost black with gods knows what emotion, before he abruptly closed his eyes and rather roughly pushed away from me. "I- what's wrong? Darius, where are you going?" Rejection washed over me followed by anger. He didn't look at me, just waved me toward the car. "Go get in the car, I'll be there in a minute, I'll take you home." GRRR!! How dare he act like my master? Just because I reacted to him. That ass hole! "Hey wait what the hell is wrong with you?" He faced me and I saw what was wrong, his eyes weren't green any more, they were bright blue almost white. His nostrils were flared like he smelled a dinner that he loved and was famished and his lips were pale from strain as if forcing himself not to show his teeth. After a beat he spoke through gritted teeth, eyes still different then before. "Get in the car, Feroscha, and I might explain but I'll be there in about ten minutes." My eyebrows furrowed, but I turned on my heel as if pushed, didn't question him and walked to the car. I sat in the car for the time he took flipping through my Ipod not able to settle on a song to listen to. Finally about three minutes later I settled on Seether. He was in the car ten minutes later and he slowly relaxed again. I didn't feel like being yelled at again so I rode next to him in silence. Until he swerved to the side of the road, and looked at me reverently.
His eyes were green again… maybe it was just the light outside that made then look different. No Feroscha, quit looking at his eyes, his dreamy eyes, No you're mad at him. I looked at him astonished, anger flooding the dam I'd put up on my emotions. "So you thought you were gonna get some huh? Damnit Katoura was right." I jerked around to unbuckle my seat belt and open the door when he grabbed my wrist. "Let go, Darius." I growled dangerously, unbidden rage coursing through my veins. He jerked his hand back as if burned. Of course; my rage was protecting me, as had all of my emotions had at one point or another. It's why Katoura, Avanti and I got along. We all could channel our emotions and project them or use them for protection as I had just shown. I jerked the door handle so hard it's a wonder it didn't break, and stepped outside the car fuming. Just as I'd slammed the door a clap of thunder and a torrent of rain sounded. My anger was running rampant, causing the storm.
With a thought a bolt of lightning struck inches from the front grill of his car. Darius frantically fiddled with his door buttons, rolling the passenger side window down, he shouted over the roar of the rain. "Feroscha, get in here before you soak yourself, and catch pneumonia." I glared as I realized that he was right, even though I caused it, the storm would do harm to me if I stood out in it. I yanked open the door and sat grumbling loudly as I did. "Take me back to your house so I can go home." he obliged but with some stipulations. "If you tell me what happened to my hand it feels like it's on fire, and when we kissed that first time I felt like I was on a cloud. But it only felt like that the first time not the others." Staring at him open mouthed for a few minutes. It took me awhile to realize that I had projected my emotions to him and he didn't think it was just his own feelings, like every one else; he noticed they weren't the same as his own.
"I-I…" I couldn't think of a lie so I decided to tell him the truth. "I accidentally projected what I was feeling to you." I said worrying a new hole in my bottom lip. His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "You what? Projected your feelings?" I nodded slowly not wanting to speak anymore. His hand came slowly to rest on my shoulder. Was he going to push me away into the now drizzling storm like everyone usually did? To my immense surprise he was kneading my skin lightly trying to comfort me, he spoke softly to me. "So that's what you meant when you said people didn't like you." It wasn't a question. And I felt him jump slightly when I lean into his hand and looked at him before I answered. "Yeah, it scares most people, so they either avoid me like the plague, or, attempt to get rid of the problem, like my dad and mom did. But, oh well, it taught me to not blindly trust people, and value the trust given to me." His smile was wry and knowing. "Yes that is true it took a lot of guts to trust me." He laughed at some unspoken joke that had me giving him a bewildered look. "What's so funny?" I felt heat flood my face with embarrassment I couldn't stop.
"Nothing, I just thought what I said was funny. There's no reason to blush, Feroscha, please don't think I was laughing at you." The heat intensified greatly, Darius brushed his knuckles along my cheek where it was bright red, then moved away as if I'd burnt him again. Once again he was tense almost to the point of bursting as he spoke. "If you can project feelings, project a calm, the gods know I need one right about now." I projected the feeling of swimming in a calm cool ocean listening to the waves break along the rocky beach. Feeling a surging in unadulterated lust, I switched to a forest watching the leaves sway slowly in the wind and listening to the animals going about their business. Finally he settled into a slump and looked over at me. "Wow, how'd you do that?" I smirked at him slowly. "You answer me first, why didn't the first one work? What made your feelings jump to the opposite extreme?" His eyes didn't meet mine; I could tell he was lying. "I thought about swimming with you and, uh certain… things woke up and took over for a few seconds, I apologize for my rude thoughts." I gaped at him for a moment not knowing what to say. "Oh… okay."
I turned the volume up again letting Adam Gauntier's voice sooth my raw emotions. "Go ahead and leave this all behind, 'cause I swear I don't care…" Darius' gazed fell on me again, I could feel it, and when I looked up I saw that it was a questioning look as if to say: 'Really? This?' "What? This song helps me get my emotions back under control." When I looked up again and saw that we were in his neighborhood just driving in circles. "Darius? Where are we going? You've passed your street at least tree times." He looked at me in an earnest plea. "Well I was hopping I could change your mind about wanting to go home yet." His face could almost be called smug, but he wasn't that stuck up to think that he had me already. I nodded slowly after a gut wrenching moment of silence where not even I knew what I was going to say. "Sure, it's only eight thirty and I'm usually out until two on a good night unless I work the next morning, which I don't have to." I was rambling; I only did it when I was nervous and couldn't get away with being silent. He smiled and pulled into his driveway smoothly and parked the car so it looked as if it had never moved.