Sorry I hadn't updated sooner, I still don't feel this chapter entirely right, mainly the beginning which is a bit awkward, but I just didn't want to stretch it further. (it took so long because... er... ok, I admit I decided the previous version of the chapter... wasn't good enough, and er... I deleted it. ^.^ However, it will be used to Chapter 3.)
Chapter 2 - Rise
It was pouring, heavy water-drops knocked against the window whenever the wind turned. Nobody could be seen outside, everybody was closed up into their houses. The rain had been pouring for more than two days, and everybody had grown impatient.
Reinna felt some tension in her body, something she was not able to define or describe and she had never felt before. The tension was not only in her rigid body but in the air as well. There was nothing softening it. She didn't know what caused it, but a big storm and some lightning could ease on it, she was sure. She looked around in her small room and forced herself to stay in front of the window and not begin to pace back and forth nervously.
She stared out from the window and forced herself back to that numb state she had been during the past days. So, when a young girl was waving her on the yard, at first she didn't realize what it meant. But after a moment, the realization hit her and looking around for her cloak she started to run here and there in the room crazily. She had to hurry, she couldn't be late.
Five minutes later, she felt as though she had been about to expose. She fell over in her own foot and knew that it was a lost battle. She had to go without her cloak – she couldn't have taken more time. She opened the door and ran through the yard. The thick mud splashed under her feet, and although she had lifted the bottom of the long dress she was wearing, she knew it was going to be fatally muddy for the time she arrived.
She couldn't do anything about it though, so she kept running. She sighed as she reached the arcades besides the yard and shook her head. Her hair was all soaked from the rain and stuck into her face and onto her scalp. She was shivering with cold in her clothes which became heavier with several pounds as the thick cloth absorbed the wetness.
She suspected that half the soil of the yard materialized on her many underskirts as she had no chance to keep in hand her every single skirt at the same time. At least the more valuable embroidered upper dress avoided the mud. She tried not to think about it and rather grabbed the trace with the lord's lunch and hurried towards the high staircase.
It needed all her strength to be able to make it to the top. The heavy skirt was a dead weight pulling her back, hindering her every step. Her legs were painfully trembling the time she reached the wooden door which was closed as always. She lifted her hand to knock and stared at it in shock.
It was all wet and muddy and looked like she had been on the street for the last three days. Her soft white skin looked indescribably awful, attracting tears into her eyes. Suspecting bad, she looked over her body. She was miserable, her clothes soaked and muddy, her lunges aching, gasping for air, her legs hurting and trembling.
The trace became muddy as she had placed it onto her lifted thigh to free one of her hands and be able to knock on the door. Blood flew into her face and her cheeks must have turned redder than the scarlet cloth her dress was made of. She had no chances though: she had to deliver him the food. She took a deep breathe and quietly knocked.
The man didn't answer. He never did. She opened the door and hurried to the table placing the trace onto it. She didn't look up to search for him; she saw Murtagh was standing at the window, his back towards the rain, but she avoided his gaze. She turned around without a word, knowing he would not like to chat with her or await her to say anything. She went to the door and sighed in relief: this wasn't that hard at all.
She was taking her finger at the knob when she, following her routine of the past week, wished him good appetite.
"I don't have." She heard a deep bass behind her. She turned around so quickly her skirt whirled in the air from the sudden movement twirling around her leg, and she fell against the wood with her back in her surprise. Murtagh was staring at her thoughtfully, not saying anything more.
"Pardon?" Her voice was shaking and she hated herself for that. She must have looked like a weak puppet compared to the strong powerful lord opposite her. She shivered at his cold eyes and suddenly became well aware of everything in the room.
"I don't have appetite." He answered, his voice steady and calm and heavy, like rich velvet. She stared back at him, her eyes questioning. It was a feeling: she was a young girl, somebody weak and too innocent, too inexperienced standing in the same chamber that this man, who was able to kill, to murder, to fight battles. A warrior.
The room was comfortably warm and dry, not like the yard outside, still, she was shivering. She told herself that only because of the coldness of her clothes all soaked, but a chill ran down her spine and she knew she was lying herself. She could feel from the air of the room that he was in a bad mood. She had been bringing his food for a week, three-four times a day, so she had become completely aware of his moods just from the air of the chamber without glancing at him.
Right now, something dark was whirling in him, something dark she could not help about. The man waved her as a dismissal and stepped to the table with a disgusted frown on his face. Something pulled her there – and as always, she followed her instincts no matter how bad their advice seemed. She just didn't want to let him alone here in such a mood.
The man glanced up at her as she stepped close to the table as well. His eyes were deep and she couldn't read the emotion in them. It was like a mirror, reflecting his thoughts, the only one what could tell that he was… depressed. Those two wells confirmed what she had already known and she instinctively shuddered of the dark depth.
"Would… would you prefer something else?" She stuttered blushing again - remembering she had wanted to escape this chamber the soonest. A crooked smile appeared on his mouth as she turned her gaze and head to the ground, she could see that from the corner of her eyes.
"No, thank you." His answer was polite, more polite than a lord would have needed to use with his maid, but his tone added some deeper meaning his words that she couldn't identify clearly. The only noise in the room was now her breathing which was quick and loud with the shivering.
She sensed his fingertip touch her burning cheek. He caressed her. Like he was just trying how it felt against his hard, rough hand. His hand with which he had killed before. Slowly, not wanting his finger to leave her face, she lifted her head and looked up at him. He was standing closer than she had thought. Just a few inches away.
She knew she was going to die, she was doing wrong, but the decision – that crazy decision – had already formed in her. She stood up on her toes and leant to him, touching her lips against his. She slowly kissed him, his hand at her face undecided for a moment, then he obviously came to a decision and his fingers slipped into her wet hair at her neck. He leant into the kiss, forcing the girl closer to him.
A surprised moan escaped her throat as the man parted her lips and his tongue slipped into her mouth. He kissed her with such intensity she had never imagined to exist, and she had no other choice but give him what he wanted. Passion woke up in her and her body began to burn. She had never experienced such defencelessness: she was entirely at the man's mercy, not being able to do anything besides letting him take of her everything he wanted.
The kiss ended abruptly. The man jerked away, leaving the girl alone. She swallowed hard. Her lips were swollen and too full. She felt herself empty as if the man had stolen from her. Her heart was racing and blood was thudding in her ears, her breathing uneven and fast.
She managed to lift her eyelids and return from the daze. The man was staring at her frowning, his hands grabbing the table on her both side. His knuckles were white from the force and she suspected he was having a hard time trying to rule himself, yet, his voice was even and emotionless when he spoke. "You had better go now."
The girl weakly nodded, but her legs were trembling so badly she knew she couldn't get too far. The clothes on her bare body had become colder in a moment. "Reinna." He lifted his eyebrow as she didn't take a movement. There was something in the way he said her name.
Something that made her stay.
She knew she was wrong already before she committed the crime, but she just closed her eyes. "You should go home." He said sensing her uncertainty. His statement was logical, he was right, but his voice was husky. She could feel his breath on her neck and she shuddered. She touched his face with shaking fingers. The man caught it and took her fingers into his palm. He murmured something unintelligible and paced along on her arm with his rough palm. Where he touched her, warmth spread into her body. He did the same at her other arm as well.
He didn't stop when he reached her shoulders, he slipped his fingers up into his hair pulling out the long hairpins she had put her hair into a bin in the morning with. "What…" She wanted to ask, but then she understood and froze in one place. He was using magic to dry her clothes, the cloth on her arms had become the same soft silk it had been before the rain, if not even softer and more vivid scarlet.
She closed her eyes hoping he was very careful and knew what he was doing. She wouldn't have liked to burn to ashes under his gentle fingers.
"Thank you." She whispered sensing her hair free from the wetness and flow around her face softly, like the magic-helped dress embracing her figure.
"I must be insane, don't you think? Using magic to dry your clothes in a situation there could be much more comfortable ways to warm you up – much more preferable ways, I must say."
"Then why… why are you letting me go?" She didn't understand it more he seemed to – she was defenceless against him and she was in his bedroom by her own want.
"I don't let you go." The look on his face was dangerous, with a glint in his eyes which was a hunter's. "I just… you could say I play with my prey first." He answered thoughtfully leaning close to her and gently biting her ear. She swallowed hard – it would have sounded ridiculous from anybody else's mouth, but from his, it sounded darkly.
Though, there was a strange sense in the room, a strange feeling not passing since he said her name: that she was safe here. That he wasn't going to hurt her, that he was going to take care of her. There was no intelligible reason why she felt so – she just trusted him.
She leant closer to him and embraced his neck to keep herself straight as her feet became suddenly very weak. He paced on her neck with his mouth and her head fell backwards. World, time, chamber, right, wrong became all a blur as everything faded away. Just the hotness remained, hotness she hadn't known about, hotness gathering in her stomach, hotness making her kiss back with a passion she hadn't known she had had.
Everything burnt on fire, flames burnt under her skin, her head was dizzy, but she didn't need it: she was finally feeling. Her world danced around and nothing mattered besides the row passion and desire. She melted the coldness in him, she could feel when he finally gave up fighting against her, and she felt herself a goddess, she felt she was ruling on him, she was having everything on earth. She knew it wasn't real, that her power was lasting only for a few moments: but those few moments felt valuable enough to forget about every other moment of her life.
The man wasn't gentle anymore, wildness filled them and passion raged around in the room while both of them became mellow. Nothing mattered anymore, king, country or war. It was just the two of them on the world. He didn't bother to take her into his bed: they forgot about it at the beginning. He had her where they were standing, at the table.
To be continued...