Chapter Twelve – Osric
Chapter Twelve
Osric
There are only a few dark drops left at the bottom of the vial.
I turn it against the light from the window, and the tincture slides along the glass, thin and nearly gone.
It stopped cooling me the way it should.
My body burns from the inside out, my blood feels too thick for my veins, and my throat aches from holding back the clicking.
I haven’t eaten in two days. It isn’t neglect, it’s the only strategy I have left.
Hunger keeps me weak, and weak is safer.
If I feed, rest, and let my body rebuild its strength, the rut will surge hard enough to break through what’s left of my control.
So, I drink water, ration the drops, and I stay behind a bolted door.
Esme has come up every day to call me to lunch or dinner.
Each time, her voice carried more worry than the time before.
She asked what was wrong, whether I was sick, whether I was all right, and all I gave her was silence because I couldn’t trust my own voice.
Smelling her so close, just behind the door, the scent of her skin and her hair, made it hard to hold back.
In the middle of the day, she comes knocking again, and this time, she doesn’t stop.
“Osric.” The handle rattles hard. “I know you’re in there. Open the door.”
I stand still and wait for her to give up.
She pounds on the wood with her fist instead.
“You’re going to answer me right now. Are you alive, dead, or just rude enough to ignore your guests in your own house?”
There’s no waiting her out. Not today. I hear the determination in her voice.
I tip the last of the tincture into the cup of water by the bed and drink it down. In the bathroom, I splash water on my face and grip the basin until my hands stop shaking. In the mirror, I see what she’s about to see. My eyes have gone fully black, edge to edge, no blue left in them at all.
I unbolt the door and open it.
Esme gasps and steps back. Her hand comes up toward her collarbone and stops halfway there.
I know why. I look less like the male who bought her, and more like the thing everyone in Haara fears I’ll become.
Two trays are on the floor beside her feet. The meal on one of them is old, gone stale, the other is fresh, steam rising off the stew. She’s carried food up for two days, hoping I’d eat. That makes me want her more, which in turn makes me want her out of the house right now.
She recovers fast. Her chin lifts, and her voice turns sharp to cover the unease at the sight of me.
“I was taking the old one away,” she says, “and bringing you another. Since, apparently, starving yourself is what you consider polite host behavior.”
“I’ll carry them down.” My voice comes out rough from disuse.
I crouch, stack the old tray under the fresh one, and lift both. Holding my breath so I don’t inhale her scent, I walk around her and start toward the stairs.
Fear, I know how to read. I learned as a city guard, part of my job being to scrutinize every person, Scorpii or not, who came through the Lower Gate of Haara, or stepped through the portal in the portal chamber.
However, between her gasping at the sight of my eyes and scolding me in a sharp voice, I think I noticed something other than fear. It’s very likely that I’m being delusional. No, she’s afraid of me, and that’s about it.
She follows me down the stairs, closer than I’d like.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks. “And don’t say nothing. People who are fine don’t bolt their doors and stop eating.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Your eyes are black.”
“I know.”
“That’s not an answer. Do you need a healer? Is there such a thing as a Scorpii healer? Because I’ll go find one myself, if I have to.”
A smile pulls at the corner of my lips at her display of stubbornness.
“I don’t need a healer.”
“Then what do you need? Because from where I’m standing, you need several things, and food is the least of them.”
“I need you to stop asking.”
“Yes, well,” she says, “we don’t always get what we want.”
Darina is wiping the counter when we come into the kitchen. This girl never stops moving. She always keeps her hands busy.
She sees my face, and she freezes. It takes her a moment to snap out of it and look back down at what she’s doing.
Nim trots in from the terrace and pushes between my ankles, winding herself around one leg, then the other, her scaled spine dragging across my shin.
I step over her and set the trays on the table.
She stops mid-wind, gives me a disapproving look, then hides under the table, where she settles with her head on her paws, as if she’s stalking something that might, or might not be food.
Esme pulls out a chair and points at it.
“Sit down and eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t touched food in two days. That can’t be good for you.”
I remain on my feet and keep the table between us. Sitting at the table, with the smell of their cooking wafting around me, with Darina drying dishes and Nim sulking by my boots, would feel domestic, and nothing about me is domestic right now.
My tail won’t stay down. It keeps lifting on its own, curling up and forward over my head, until the stinger hangs in the air where both women can see it. I press it back, but it rises again. I know how it makes me look. There’s nothing I can do about it.
“I’ve made a decision,” I say.
Esme crosses her arms.
“Have you.”
“I’ll take you and Darina anywhere you want to go. Any city on Alia Terra. I’ll drive you to the portal, pay the fee, enter whatever destination you give me, and put enough money in your hands to keep you both fed and housed until you can stand on your own. Today. Now.”
Darina stops her cleaning but doesn’t yet turn around.
Esme stares at me.
“Today?”
“Yes. Pack what you need.”
“Anywhere we want to go,” she says slowly. “I know one city in the entire world, and I can’t go back to it. Where exactly am I supposed to tell you to take us?”
“There are human cities besides Concord. I’ll name every one I know, and you choose. If none of them suits you, we ask at the portal until one does.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
The shock on her face turns to anger.
“You can’t just kick me out.”
“I’m not kicking you out. I’m giving you what you asked for. Freedom.”
“Don’t use that word on me.” She comes around the table, toward me, and her voice rises with every step.
“You told me I could stay as long as I needed. Now you’ve changed your mind?
One moment, I can stay as long as I want, and the next, you’re loading me through a portal with money, so I’ll go quietly. What changed?”
She’s close now, closer than she should be.
Her scent envelops me before I can brace against it – warm skin, kitchen soap and, underneath both, her.
My cock hardens in my pants, and I angle my hips behind a chair.
I hate myself for wanting her in the middle of a conversation about her future. I loathe myself.
“Nothing changed,” I say. “It’s time, that’s all.”
“Time. You decided it’s time without asking me.” She turns toward the counter. “Darina, are you hearing this?”
Darina keeps her eyes on the spot she’s cleaning and says nothing.
Esme turns back to me.
“Is this about the way people looked at us in the city? Did someone order you to get rid of us?”
“No one orders me.”
“Then why does it have to be now? I told you I am leaving, and I’m going to. What is the difference between me leaving with a plan, and me leaving today?”
She’s right, of course. It’s not her fault I refuse to tell her the real reason.
“The difference is time,” I say.
“Whose time? You don’t work, you don’t go anywhere… You have, by every visible measure, nothing but time.”
“It’s better now than later.”
“Better for who?”
I grit my teeth and don’t answer.
She uncrosses her arms and plants both hands on the back of the chair between us, leaning into my personal space, holding my gaze with determination. When she speaks again, her voice is low and controlled, which coming from her, is worse than shouting.
“You’re keeping something from me. Something important that has to do with me directly, and I don’t appreciate it. If it’s about you, and not about me, say it, and I won’t push.”
I clench my jaw. I could tell her the truth. I wouldn’t even need too many words. Three sentences would do it – You’re my fated mate. I crave you. Soon, it will be impossible to hold back, and I might just kill you.
I can’t. I don’t want to see the look on her face when she realizes what I want to do to her.
She’s afraid of me already; the truth would make it worse.
On the bright side, she wouldn’t fight me anymore, and she’d pack her bags in minutes.
But I wouldn’t be able to stand the thought that she’d walk out of my house and my life terrified, disgusted, thinking of me as a feral monster who can’t control his baser needs.
Not that it wouldn’t be a fair assessment.