Page 19 of These Eternal Bones
She moves quickly, rounding the tub, her hands flying to the knot in my robe. I fumble as it pops free, my hands slamming to my chest to tug the robe back together as I jerk away.
“Enough for tonight.” Elric growls from behind me, his presence growing like a miasma, making the odd woman’s head snap down.
“Of course, it has been a great many years since I have served you. I fear my excitement got the best of me.”
Served me?
“You’re excused.” The command is quiet, but the warning in it is clear, making the woman rear back before fleeing quickly from the cabin.
I spin on Elric; my brows raised in question.
“She is a selkie. A fae creature who finds great pleasure in serving a household. It seems the long years have not been kind to her memory.”
“Oh.” I breathe as if those words don’t rock me to my core.Fae. “She looked so young.”So kind, nothing at all as she should be.
That seems to dissipate his lingering anger. “As do I, no?”
“Yes, I suppose so. H-How old are you?”
He smirks. “Old enough to have seen every inch of this world…” he trails off as he turns, stepping away from me and giving me his back. It's only then that he continues to speak, and I realize he’s giving me a chance to get in the water. Apprehension fills me, reminding me of that first night I bathed in the creek after I’d seen him. How I’d called out for him to look away, feeling him there as effectively as I could feel the cold. My stomach gives an odd flutter as I take a steadying breath, only half aware of his words. “I have watched dynasties fall and rise, syringa. Wars, famine…miracles. I have borne witness to amazing things, and horrible ones.”
I have to stifle a gasp as I sink into the water; the heat sinking into my core as I pull a large bathing cloth over me, hiding my form. “You must have a lot of stories to tell.”
He chuckles with his back still turned to me. I find myself wishing he wasn’t, so I could’ve seen the smile that accompanies it. “I will tell them all to you.”
“That would take a lifetime.”
It’s then that he turns to face me, making me sink deeper into the water, so much so that only my nose sits above it. My breath disrupting the surface. Even now…I can feel the call to atone, to be so exposed in front of a man.Hewould seethe if he knew. What would Elric think of my scars? Would he think them an honor to carry like they did, or something terribly shameful? It was not until the dreadful captain had seen me… bare that I ever realized what we did was not normal. What most women were not marked in that way. That perhaps the scars were not ordained by God at all.
My hand grips the deep green bathing towel, slowly and gently gathering it in my fist. Inching it up until it's dangerously high on my thigh. The lines of my own body look…extra pretty under the water, surrounded by dark tones and candlelight. My heart is hammering when I peek up at the man lording over me; he’s gone silent. First, I see…claws, dark slashes of bone digging into his palms, which is alarming enough but what I see next makes my heart stop, that sensitive little spot on my core throbbing in tune with it; he islarge. The feeling of being…desired is nothing like the first time. I’m not scared, not even when I meet his eyes, finding the type of hunger that makes men go mad budding there.
But Elric is no man.
He’s more.
So much more.
That restraint he spoke of earlier is what saves us both. His voice deep and…pained? “I’m sure you’re in need of rest. Don’t worry about the tub, the others will empty it tomorrow. Rest, little human. The selkie brought some cloth you might require during your–”
“Thank you, Elric. For everything.” I rush out, having incurred enough embarrassment for the day.
His eyes lose their faraway look as he walks to me, his cool fingers making goosebumps pebble my flesh underneath the water as they trail across my jaw. His tendrils are gone from sight. “Of course, Molly.” It’s the last thing he says before he leaves.
I soak until the water grows cold, my skin soft from the luxurious soaps that smell like flowers. Long tucked into sheets far too fine for the setting. I’m thankful for the selkie providing me with cloth for my monthly, although the cramps continue to keep sleep at bay. The moments when I drift off, it's not the dark woods, or the desert I called home, or nightmares ofhimthat greet me. It’s cold skin, inky eyes, and a voice that makes my pulse jump, waking with a new budding tension where I’d never felt one before. My dreams are haunted by a vampire, but I could hardly consider them a nightmare.
Elric
The manor is buzzing around me, a constant hum of murmurs and undercurrent of whispers bludgeoning my ears as I stalk the halls, restless again. Finally, after decades, it’s for an entirely different reason. Where madness once clouded, doubt and worry, pain and guilt…now there’s excitement. An anxiety budding deep in my gut, an urgency that never fades. For me, time is both borrowed and endless, a human life spent in the blink of an eye. A beautiful soul lost over a dusting of snow in the night. Her ghost walks beside me, her portraits egging me on as a growl rips through the darkened hall.
Six days.
Six days she turned me away, refused to see me. Her whimpers and groans of pain needling my chest as I lingered, stalking outside the cottage. Only the feel of her evergreen eyes tracking my dark form from outside her window.
Go to her now.
You have to.
You’re running out of time.
