And her name is…

We stay in the room as the sun starts to set, not that you can really tell with the windows mostly blocked, but the room does get noticeably colder. I’m determined to finish this book before dinner and pull my feet up onto the chair to sit on them. When that doesn’t work, I warn my toes in my hands and rub at my arms, turning the page with the book in my lap as I switch.

I’m so lost in my book that I don’t notice Wulfric get up until he’s in front of me. I’m about to ask what he wants when he pulls his sweater over my head. I mean to protest, but it’s warm and makes me feel more comfortable. After he’s guided my arms to the sleeves he holds his book in front of me again and points to a word.

“Brobdingnagian, it means giant,” I inform and he nods solemnly.

“Thank you,” he returns before moving back to his seat.

I smell the collar of his sweater lightly, it fits right in with the smell of the library, but more like what I think the smell should be, and I wonder if he smells like that to everyone. My eyes follow him as he sits and I’m ready to say something but I’m not sure I should. The quiet we’ve found is so comfortable that I’m scared to ruin it.

“What is it?” He asks and I jump, realizing now that I’ve been staring.

“Nothing,” I return quickly and hold my book up again.

He closes his book and sets it down, making me prepare myself for hostility, but when I meet his eyes he’s just looking at me. His face is calm and it’s like he’s doing what I did to him yesterday in the gym. He’s waiting for me to be ready to speak but holding me in the moment until then. I last longer than he did but I still cave.

“What are you doing?”

He smiles, but it’s small. “Keeping you company, and treating you like you deserve. We’ll work up to Queen,” he finished with a wink.

I just stare. “Why?”

“Because you’re an incredibly strong woman… and I wish I’d been able to get you out sooner.” He looks down and away from me.

“Don’t start,” I close my eyes tightly, not able to look at him either.“Please, not now. Not if you want to keep being Wulf to me…”

“No, I need to. I tried so many times, even before I knew for sure. It’s why I couldn’t be there when he hurt you. I was an idiot, I am an idiot… but when I saw you on that horse… I thought I was imagining it.” I’m shaking my head, keeping my eyes closed, but it sounds like he’s smiling, “but when I smelt your smell like.. it was an effort to pretend I didn’t notice.”

“Like what?” I insist.

“Hmm?”

“What do I smell like?”

His hands are on my arms before I’ve heard him move and I open my eyes to see him.Then he’s kneeling in front of me. I know of the last several things he’s said this is the least important, but I know when I ask my other questions we’ll start fighting and I won’t get to come back it. He seems to know it to.

“You smell like strong metals and fire. You smell like the forge,” he tells me, never taking his eyes from mine.

I take a deep breath in slowly and then force myself to exhale without making a sound before asking, “why do I smell like a forge?”

His hands move onto the sides of my legs and he squeezes them in time with his breath in and out. “Because the forge is where we find the strong in the weak. The forge is where my father works and I found more comfort in that shop than on any kitchen bar stool with a baked good.”

The forge is also where the useless become weapons.

“What do you mean about getting me out sooner?” I ask finally.

He reaches to hold my hand. “I tried to get you out dozens of times. The poisons….”

No.

He’s still talking but I can only gleam what he is saying through the haze I feel. My affinity is trying to get me into fight or fight and it’s an effort just to stay still. Wulfric today has been so.. natural. In the gym he knew just what to say to keep me going and just which buttons to push when we were fighting. I pushed it off like I was just average in something for once, but now he’s talking to me like we’ve had this conversation before.. just like when he told me about my friends.

How many things have I repressed, or lost after being in that dark, soundless room?

My vision starts to blur and I can feel his energy pulsing through where his hand touches me.It’s right there, take it.I can remember what his energy tastes like and I’m suddenly starving for it.Just a taste.I can’t seem to return my focus to the conversation and I can’t even tell if he’s still talking as his face moves out of focus.

Before I’ve let myself think about it I’m weaving his energy steadily into mine.Mine mine mine.I feel greed and longing, but I have a question and I force myself to listen with this little strength I’ve gathered.

“Have we had this conversation before?”

“Yes,” Wulfric admits and it’s an effort to remember he has a name.

“Yes, what?” I return coldly and, for a moment, I don’t remember what we’re talking about.

“We’ve had this conversation before, but I’ve had to tell you again several times, usually after you sustained major injuries or your time in the sensory deprivation room… it’s been your way of dealing with your torture.” He corrects the word like he has to force himself to admit it happened. “I stopped trying a little over a year ago, after another failed attempt to get you out almost killed you.”

Take.I pull a little harder on his energy, taking more into my tapestry of life. His energy adds colours of brown and green to the piece and… I can see it.More.More. It’s there in my mind and I can picture it in the air.

He’s talking again but I can’t hear him anymore. I’m too distracted reaching out to touch the ghostly image I’m weaving in the air. In my head, it feels soft like the towels here and I start to smile.

My full power is returning, but what’s better is I have control.

A sharp pain in my shoulder pulls me away from the tapestry and I glance down to see a dagger in my arm.Danger. Kill!My power stretches across the room and pulls a red fibre into my tapestry before I’ve registered who it’s from.

“Theo, no!”

Hands are on my face and then lips are on mine and it’s only the urgency of it that catches my focus. My hand drops from the work it was doing in my invisible tapestry and another one finds it. A tight squeeze on my fingers brings me back but a second later the lips are torn from mine and I’m jostled to the side.Kill!We’re now standing and I’m looking around to figure out what’s happening.

“Wulfric what are you doing? She was draining you!” A voice yells but I remember the knife in my arm and the pain takes me away from their conversation.

I squeak as I pull it free, the sharpness of the pain startling me. I’ve been numb to pain for so long, but as I regain my strength and my powers, my body feels like it’s waking up. There’s a hand on my shoulder and it takes a moment for his words to translate through the languages I know to give me understanding.

“Theo answer me. Are you alright?” My hand is moved from my side onto his face and my eyes meetWulfric’s. “Siphon from me to heal yourself, just like before.”

I chuckle, “I like when you beg,” instead of siphoning from him but grip the knife tightly and look for who threw it at me.

Standing just behind Wulfric is Ricard but Noryth is standing at the door, leaning against the frame like he knows something extra. His position looks like he’s almost standing guard, but I’m not sure for who since he doesn’t seem worried about his brother and I was stabbed. I certainly didn’t think him andRicardwere that close. I return my look to Ricard and he looks furious with me.

Wulfric has his shirt off and he’s pulling my shirts aside to pressit to the woundthat’s still bleeding into my clothes. “What the fuck Ricard!” He demands. “If you had dropped that by just a little it would have been in her heart.”

He scoffs. “I’ve never been that far off my mark.”

“Get out,” Wulfric returns. “You have no reason to be in here..”

“Neither do you, you’re lucky I sensed what she was doing or you could be dead!” Ricard is still angry but I catch Noryth laughing from the door and spare him a smirk.

They are talking like I’m not even here, and while a part of me is offended, that’s usually when people slip up and say too much.They could all be dead. I push the voice away, but I can’t close the lid to its box and I can feel the growl of its irritation.

“She wouldn’t have killed me, yet,” Wulfric smirks.

He’s still looking at me, pressing his shirt to the wound. His eyes roam over me like he’s inspecting me for other injuries or trying to guess how I’m feeling. I see it there, that he would have let me keep taking for as long as I wanted.More?

“Can you not feel it? She’s basically an animal and, whether that’s from years in your prison or not, she’s not safe to have just walking around. One wrong word, or reminding her of something, is enough to flare up her magic. She doesn’t even seem aware of it half the time.” Ricard is talking loudly, like he thinks I’m not paying attention and he wants me to hear just what he thinks of me.

Oh, I’m definitely listening this time.

Wulfric raises my hand and silently instructs me to hold his shirt where my bleeding is slowing. When I have a firm pressure over the knife wound he grabs my face and looks into my eyes, moving my head around as he stares into them like he’s looking for something. When his thumb brushes my lip where he kissed me I bite it and he laughs.

“You’re feeling better,” he states. “Thank the deities.”

I quirk my head to the side, feeling a loss of language skills that doesn’t bother me right now. My affinity is practically purring in my head, a sound I don’t recall ever hearing before and I quirk my head to the other side to listen to it. It switches between the purr and the grumble of a growl like I’m not sure if I’m safe or not. He watches me with his own curious look and I feel it, the animal in my affinity stirring in a way I’ve never felt it before.

Wulfric clutches me to his chest quickly, burying my face in his chest. “It’s okay,” he says softly but I can hear his heart racing.

“Noryth, talk some sense into your brother!” Ricard yells.

“I can’t control him,” Noryth laughs. “I’m only here to make sure you don’t get too excited.”

“Me?!” Ricard yells.

Wulfric turns to look at him with me still clutched to his chest. I’m not sure why I’m allowing him to keep me contained, but I am hoping Ricard will get ‘too excited’ and talk more. His chest against my face engulfs me in his smell and it calms the half of me that’s growling.

“Do you guys not sense it? Everyday she’s been here she only grows more dangerous. I don’t know who she was before to survive among humans, but I don’t think she could go back to that since Kheliq’s had her. She’s a danger tous,let alone those without magic. She was startled in the green house and everything around her shrivelled and died,” Ricard proclaims like this will cause Wulfric to shove me away in terror.

It doesn’t.

“You forgot to mention that it was you who rattled the glass panel against my head and startled me,” I mutter into Wulfric’s bare chest just as I remember I was trying to stay quiet. ” You forget, Ricard, that as you point out how dangerous I am with your very alive and functioning meat suit, you are also pointing out what incredible restraint I have displayed. All things considered.”

I push away from Wulfric and I catch his eyes as we both realize I’m about to do something stupid. I walk toward Ricard and, to his credit, he doesn’t back up. It only takes nine steps to be in front of him and I hold his knife out horizontal to the floor and spark a mage light above us to illuminate my blood on it. Turning it in the light I keep his attention on my blood until I speak.

“Taste it,” I whisper and he jumps as the words more than likely match his thoughts. “Iamdangerous, which is why I’m so surprised so many of you have already beentesting-my-patience.”

“I won’t lick a dirty knife covered in blood to prove anything to the likes of you. And don’t anyone gripe to me when she goes on a killing spree.” He snatches the knife from me and turns to leave. “I’ll probably be in the middle of it all telling you I told you so.”