By the time Mentuc came back to the house a minor semblance of normalcy had returned to the Gyhad family. Tempers were still hot and nerves were still raw, but everyone preferred to pretend things were alright and peaceful rather than risk the situation of the hour before repeating.
Even so Onoelle greeted him warmly with a long hug, and, out of sight of her parents, a long kiss as she pulled herself tightly against him. He could feel her tremble in his hands, and knew she was far from alright. He did not enjoy the situation in the slightest. He wanted to pick her up and take her back home, but he knew that would not solve the situation.
He did not fully comprehend what was going on. What he did comprehend was that Helena had spread information about his visits to her. He did not know why. It went against their agreement and threatened to disrupt his plans. At this stage he did not quite need her any longer. The mission would succeed with what skills he had been taught by her at this stage.
He might have regarded her as an asset that required securing while he still had need of her. Now? Now he saw her as an intelligence leak. And leaks could never be plugged. Only seared shut.
Clearly those thoughts were visible on his face, because his wife made clear that they would talk about it later.
He wondered if he should tell her. Ever since he had embarked on the prep for this operation, he had been asking himself that question continuously. He wanted to surprise her, having learned that this was something that, in general, pleased her greatly. He also believed it was roughly in line with how a normal human behaved. Yet at the same time the secrecy grated at him. Nightmare had confirmed it was a good idea. From what little he had told Cassy, the teen seemed to be of the same opinion.
Yet he remained doubtful.
The meal was shared in relative stillness He noted Nyna's surprising silence, while Jon was unusually talkative and caught up with Onoelle about her life. He was glad to see that it seemed to elevate her mood, and that his actions of the day had caused Jon to evaluate him positively, which pleased her further. Her father also asked the question of what was actually going on, something that caused Nyna to be petrified. Onoelle had put down her cutlery and considered the question. She had put her hand on his leg, gave him a smile that promised an explanation at a later date, before turning to his father. "It's something we need to discuss between us, but there is absolutely no reason for you to worry." Her father had let out a mollified grunt, willing to trust his daughter on the matter.
When Onoelle inquired him about the food, he took some time to consider the more appropriate answer. Taste mattered little to him, but he knew if he told her that it was aptly chosen given the day's activities, it would not end well. In the end he settled for a "it's really good" and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
She had not been fooled in the slightest, and her eyes spoke of her silent mirth. He had decided to simply continue eating, and did his best to partake in the conversation where his limited skills saw a safe opening, but most of the time he simply watched his wife and her father talk, quietly observing them.
Not too long after they were finished. He helped Onoelle clear the table, clean the dishes, pack the leftovers and bade her parents goodbye. In the case of Jon that means a broad hug for Onoelle and a solid handshake for him. In the case of Nyna that meant a strained hug with his wife, and he received so short a hug she might as well have not bothered.
He did not understand, but he knew Onoelle would explain it to him. After she was back to her usual self. Try as she might, he knew she was still deeply disturbed, and he regarded her with great worry.
He held her hand gently, and ran his ring over hers, the soft, chiming sound drawing a smile from her that reached her eyes, where it turned sad. It did cause her to lean against him as they began the long walk home.
Onoelle let out a sigh of relief as she crawled into bed. "Nothing beats being home," she whispered to her husband as he slipped in next to her. She slid closer to him and enjoyed his warmth on her skin. She stretched her arms out, needily wrapping her limbs around him and giving him a brief kiss. In the dark of night, she couldn't exactly see much. Not that she needed to see him to know what was going through his mind.
Most of it, she corrected herself.
He had expected her to question him about everything that went down today the moment they left the village, as well as for her to explain everything that had transpired and was borne from emotion. There was much of the latter he hadn't understood. She had not been willing to discuss it while walking, however. Her mood was still too much in shambles to tackle the subject there and then, and the actions of her mother had been carved painfully deep into her heart.
He sensed her unease, as ever, and moved to counter it. He was gentle, delightfully so, his arms slowly drawing her deeper and deeper onto him. His hands pressing on her, softly but insistently. She knew he was listening to her body. Counting her heartbeat, her breaths, the tensing and relaxing of her muscles. His own hard, solid body radiating heat, something she greedily absorbed through her skin.
She luxuriated in the moment. She did not hurry to collect her thoughts, instead allowing Mentuc's reassuring presence and his eternal love for her to lull her into a pleasant, comfortable state. Her thoughts began to flow freely, the raw hurt from her mother's stupid accusations waning under his tender ministrations and growing more dull.
"I love you," she whispered. She knew he knew, but she wanted him to know that whatever he was planning, whatever surprise he kept hidden from her, he retained her full trust. He understood and squeezed her gratefully in turn.
"I know you're hiding something from me," she told him. He didn't react, which meant he had known as well. That didn't surprise her. It was impossible for her to hide things from him. "I've known for months, now. Cassy isn't the best at keeping secrets." Still no reaction.
She rolled on top of him and lazily drew a circle on his chest with her fingers. "Is there truth to the rumours?"
"Yes," came the simple response.
"Do you know why my mother was affected by the rumour?"
"Which ones?"
She grinned. Typical. She enjoyed his never-changing method of thinking, though. It made him so incredibly dependable. A rock that would not budge, no matter the strength of the stream.
"The original one. With you meeting up with someone."
"It implies—" a brief pause as his mind retrieved the word. "Adulterous behaviour. Cheating. She is your mother and…" he fell silent, tilted his head. "Is it similar to how a leader cares for his men? Except she does not do it out of fear of it affecting your performance."
She snorted, amused, and he nodded, accepting it as an answer.
"There is more to it," she continued. "She loves me, and you cheating on me would hurt me, which she wants to avoid." She paused briefly, wondering if he truly understood it. "It would be a breach of trust. As if you suddenly valued another more than me."
She let out an oomph as he suddenly wrapped his body around her like a vice and he involuntarily squeezed the air out of her. He gets it, she thought, rapidly slapping him on the back in order to get him to ease up.
He did so, but he remained glued to her. Even in the dark she could see his eyes now that they were directly in front of her own. That meant she knew where his lips were, and she pressed her own on them, letting her arms slip around his head.
She broke it off after a short while, before he decided he needed to express himself further. He was delightfully dangerous like that. He had long since mastered the trick to, where his own words fell hopelessly short, let his body do the talking for him. The only problem, if it could be called that, was that… it turned her into a rapt listener. He was very physical and it took but very little for either of them to drag the other across the line where they spoke with nothing but their bodies.
"There is more to it," she told him, widening her shoulders slightly to make him let go again. "She believed that I needed to dress more like… The woman you're supposedly meeting. Show more skin. You remember how we studied clothes in the city?"
"Like women in clubs? Show as much skin as possible without revealing the—"
"Yes, like that." She grinned at the memory of the look on Jane's face when they crossed that topic.
"But why?" he asked, audibly confused.
"To lure you into bed."
"But I am in bed nearly every night with you? And sometimes during the day as well."
She tried to stifle a giggle, failed, then burst out laughing. She couldn't help it, he sounded just so adorably confused. The big, wholesome oaf.
"She believes," she said after getting her laughter under control, "that unless I dress that way and act more feminine, you would have no interest in having sex with me."
She bit her tongue as she saw him sink into deep thought. She knew something hilarious was coming. This was a man to whom she had to explain the very concept of intimacy and sex, and many other highly embarrassing subjects besides. She was well past the stage of awkwardness and could now fully enjoy the hilarity of the end product of his very inhuman thought process.
"Why would the clothes matter? I undress you anyway when—" he delivered, causing her to roar with laughter.
"What she believes," she continued, wiping tears off her face, "and what is real are not necessarily the same thing. Even if I tell her otherwise."
"I accept that," he said. Which meant he did not understand, but that didn't keep him from accepting it as truth.
"Is that what caused your outburst?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" She raised herself on her arms, gazing down at him in confusion.
"You told your mother the truth, and she chose not to believe you. You delivered her intelligence, information, that you had from a first-hand observation, and she chose to ignore it and accept something else for truth." His fingers slowly hunted down rogue strands of hair and tucked them back in place as he spoke. "You were hurt by her not believing you. It was a breach of trust."
She only became aware of the tears forming in her eyes by dint of him gently wiping them. She smiled down at him. "You, my love," she said, kissing him softly on the lips. "Are damnably perceptive between your bouts of blindness." When he didn't say anything, she nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what hurt me. And what made me so angry. She refuses to accept me as an adult."
He pulled her close again, and she did not resist, the emotions of the day returning to her in force. She recalled her mother's words. She repeated them to him. What she had said. How she had said it. How the woman had accepted those rumours for truth. How she had alluded that it was her fault that it had happened to begin with. Every word was said with the best intentions. Every word had infuriated her more and more. Her own mother had chosen to believe the gossip of strangers over everything she had told her only moments before, preferring to condemn her to stupidity and Mentuc to infidelity.
"I told her," she snarled, her anger having returned in full force. "I told her how happy we are." She swung her legs out of bed and got up, feeling her husband's eyes tracking her as she moved about. "I fucking told her. I've never uttered even a single word about being unhappy, or about us lacking anything. Every time I've seen her, talked to her, I had nothing but good things to say about our relationship. And yet. And yet." She let out a scream. "It's so fucking frustrating!" she shouted, turning back to her husband. "It pisses me off, so, so much! Why can't she just accept that I'm an adult! That I've got my shit together! What have I done wrong, Mentuc, that she doesn't accept that?"
She felt his arms gently slip around him and slammed her elbow into his stomach with all the force she could muster. She swore in pain as it bounced off him, but he let go. "I don't want to be held!" she yelled. "I want to be angry, dammit!"
He took a step back, and she felt his displeased confusion at seeing her in this state. He wanted to help, the big oaf, but didn't know how. Didn't realise that he couldn't. That he just had to let her rage by herself for a bit, now that her parents weren't around to judge and she was in the privacy of her own home.
She paced back and forth, her anger mounting with each step as she let out a vitriolic series of swears about the entire situation. Then she suddenly stopped in front of where he was. "And you!" she shouted. "Stars, I love you, but you're part of the voids damned problem!"
He took half a step back in shock, but she paid it no heed. "Do you have any idea how badly I want to know what you're planning? Stars above, Mentuc, I've known about it for months and you've still not done anything. Do you have any idea how much that is pissing me off?" She stomped on the ground for good measure.
"Do you—" he began, as direct and oriented on solving the problem as ever. Which she usually loved, but right now…
"No! I don't want you to tell me! You keep your mouth shut! I've not put up with your mysterious crap for so long just for you to ruin it now! I want you to surprise me, damn it!"
He obeyed her and remained silent, though his body language told her he did not comprehend any of it.
"And how much longer are you planning on going to delay going to the city? We've been planning that equally long and you've made no move on setting a damned date! Stars above, do you have any idea how annoying that is?"
Part of her knew she was just shouting it in anger and rage. That he had seen far more suffering and pain than she could even imagine, and that it was purely her own emotions running utterly rampant that caused her to say those words. But right now it being fair or not didn't matter. She wasn't Genesis, dammit. She was just a simple human of flesh and blood. She wasn't a centuries old super-soldier, she was a voids damned young married woman who'd put up with too much shit today.
Yet the effects her words had on her husband were profound. In the dark she had missed his eyes darting all over the place as he heard her rage and rant, missed the tell-tale signs of his mind working overtime.
As such she had no warning when he stomped towards her, the floor trembling as he approached her. She turned towards him, rage thundering in her own eyes. He was her husband, not a threat, and she faced him as such. Which turned out to be wholly inconsequential when he shoved her into the wall. She snarled at him as he pinned her down.
"And what do you think you're doing?" she hissed as he pinned her hands down above her head with ridiculous ease.
"I do not accept your anger towards me," he told her. "It makes no sense."
"You…" she began, before trying to kick him. "You don't get to decide whether people are angry or not!"
"You know fully well why we have not yet set off to the city. There is not enough of a guarantee that I will not have a hostile reaction to being surrounded." His voice was insistent. The tone of a commanding officer.
"I know!" she screamed back. "But I'm voids damned tired of waiting for you to feel confident enough!"
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
"Then we go tomorrow."
Her eyes widened. Then narrowed. "Absolutely not! You don't even dare show up at the Festival!"
"Your anger is irrational. Either you accept that we do not go yet, or we delay the waiting and commence the mission with our current assets." She knew he was being reasonable, and it only angered her more. "If you choose neither, then what do you want?" he demanded to know.
"For you to let me go and to let me be angry!" she shouted, kicking him as hard as she could, only hurting herself further in the process, even with him pulling back to dodge the blow. He obliged her and she nearly fell, landing awkwardly on one leg, only an attentive hand of him preventing her from falling. She glared at him, refusing to relinquish her anger. Enjoying it, in a way. She could give in to it here, without consequences. She would have to explain it to him tomorrow. It was not a good way to behave, but right now she didn't care. She knew he would never imitate it, so she gave in, wanting to get it all out of her system in one go. Against the one person with whom she could fully be herself, faults and flaws and all, with no fear of it polluting her relationship. Against her husband, whom she could trust her everything to.
That thought inflamed her anger at her mother to new levels and she leapt at him. The reservoir of frustration built up over the past months now broken by her mother's stubborn arrogance.
Their battle, one-sided as it was, was brief and intense as she drained her energy reserves in the assault. It was over in minutes, and she collapsed in his arms, exhausted, dripping with sweat and thoroughly bruised.
"Stars above," she whispered, tears streaming down her face. "I'm a mess."
She felt his hands tremble slightly as they caressed her. An unspoken question of how he could help her.
"You can't," she cried. "Just… Just hold me. Just love me."
She sobbed softly as he carried her onto the bed and laid her down. She shivered in the cold night air as he repositioned the covers and crawled in with her, carefully laying himself down on top of her and providing her with his comforting body heat and intense presence. She looked up at him, feeling herself every bit the wreck that she was. Her hair a warzone, her eyes stained with tears, her body covered in bruises, her self-control annihilated and her mind a total and utter mess. And he didn't care. He only saw her, the woman he loved, and wordlessly told her so.
His fingers brushed her skin, his touch featherlight. His endless care, bottomless love made her feel worse. She knew his past, knew how much he tried to become human. That he tried so, so hard. She knew she couldn't comprehend the depth of the damage to his psyche, what so many centuries of war had done to him, what scars eighty years of the most intense combat in history and the loss of everyone he had ever cared for had left on him. And yet he cared for her, a young human with barely any years to her, with no experience, a stupid, stupid girl who couldn't even convince her mother that she had a happy marriage.
And he saw it all, and responded to her inner turmoil with a kiss. His lips pressed on her, conveying his own emotions he would never be able to put to words. His fingers moved, darting to the places where she had been injured in the past, when she had been holding onto him as she fought to pull him out of crippling flashbacks even as his muscle spasms bruised her skin and fractured bones, reminding her of how much she had done for him, of her successes. His mouth danced across her chin, down to her neck and back up to her ear as he whispered of their shared past, of how much she meant to him. Of how they had met, how she had helped him over and over, how she had clashed with her parents to keep seeing him, to stay true of the promise she had made him. How she had guided him onto a new path, one that steered away from the self-destruction that awaited him. How she had given him the very thing he had desperately sought after for centuries.
Slowly he spun her into a blanket of his love and affection, shutting out her feelings of hurt and self-doubt. With each passing heartbeat she sunk deeper into his warmth until, at last, he whispered her name and she whispered his, and everything outside of them ceased to exist.
It was very late in the morning, closer to noon really, when the light filtering into the house annoyed her enough to disturb her peaceful slumber. She stirred, only to find herself very thoroughly entangled in her husband. She gave a lazy smile and closed her eyes again, making a soft noise that immediately saw him draw said net of entanglement even tighter. She let out a purr of contentment and wiggled herself into a more comfortable position, enjoying Mentuc's presence and the leftovers of the spell he had brought her under.
It took until well after noon that her mind finally managed to rouse itself out of the pleasant stupor it had been under. It had made several valiant attempts before, but Mentuc had masterfully thwarted any breakouts.
Even now she could feel his hands only reluctantly parting as she slid out of bed, wincing as the myriad of bruises made themselves known. Her good mood soured some as the memories of the day before returned, her mind jolted awake by the state of the room. And then she found herself back in bed, strong arms around her once again locking her in a gentle embrace.
"Damn it, Mentuc," she laughed. "We'll not get anything done at this rate."
"I disagree," he stated. "How do you feel?"
He loaded the word with enough inflection to let her know he would not be pleased with a generic answer. So naturally she went with "really good," using enough of a teasing note in her voice to let him know she was getting payback for the day before.
Normally that would have been enough to lure him into getting a form of retaliation in, usually by kissing her or by moving his hands in terrifyingly effective and unfair ways, but now he did not. He's worried, she realised. She decided to forego further teasing and rallied her mind fully.
"I feel a lot better than yesterday." She turned her head and winced as it put stress on a particularly large bruise on her thigh. "Mentally at least." She forced herself to finish the turn and kissed him. "Thank you for letting me rage, yesterday. I needed it."
"I understand," he whispered back, giving her a kiss in turn.
"You do?" she inquired, her own interest piqued.
"My own flashbacks did not occur when I was partaking in intense combat. I assume it is the same." He tilted his head. "Pyramid of needs, was it not? To purposely step down a level?"
She blinked, surprised at the comparison and shocked at his reference to psychology. Then nodded. "Intense activity that demands our attention can shield us from painful emotions. Or pain in general. And it isn't quite the latter, but it is a good point. There is more to it, though" She watched him tilt his head further, patiently waiting for her to continue. "Humans tend to stockpile emotions. We can hold them back, but then they'll bother us later on, in general. Letting everything we feel out in one go and deal with it immediately saves us a lot of grief in the long run. Though there might be some truth in the pyramid of needs. Psychology is complex, and not set in stone."
He nodded seriously. "A minor problem not requiring immediate attention can become, left unattended, a greater problem," he suggested, doubtlessly thinking about something tangible in nature.
"Yes," she affirmed, not bothering to explain the difference between emotional issues and physical problems to him.
"How do you feel about your mother?"
She winced, and not just because of the bruises. Mentuc pulled no punches. "I'm still angry at her. She hurt me, Mentuc." She grimaced as his embrace tightened and he softened up again the same moment. "It's… I really hope dad will be able to talk some sense into her. But she needs to lay off, and I've told her as much. I wasn't joking. Either she starts treating me as an adult, or I'm cutting her out of our lives. I'm not going to let her walk over me all the time and tell me how to live my life."
Another nod.
"But I'm not going to let it ruin me. I got it out of my system yesterday." She smiled at him. "Thank you for that. I… You need to know that the way I behaved wasn't appropriate. I should have maintained my self-control better." She averted her eyes. "I shouted and raged and screamed things at you I shouldn't have said and I'm sorry for it."
"It helped you."
"Yes, but—"
"Onoelle." There was a hint of authority in his voice and it was enough to make her shut up and look at him. He rarely used it, so when he did it got her attention. "I once ripped off a soldier's arm, by the shoulder, after he had been hit in in the hand by a poisonous projectile, to prevent the poison from spreading through his body. Ripping off an ally's arm is not appropriate behaviour."
She blinked mutely at him. "You couldn't tie it off?" she ventured feebly, the thought making her more than a little queasy.
"He was wearing power armour," came the reply. "Just because something is typically not appropriate, does not mean it is always so." He placed a kiss on her forehead, the gentleness of the action in stark contrast with the violent story he told. "Your actions were beneficial in the long run. You need neither be sorry, feel guilty nor apologise over it. I understand." He ran a hand through her hair. "Besides, you did not lie."
She looked up at him, a soft smile on her face. "You're unfair, you know that? I'm annoyed with you because I'm impatient, and rather than you getting annoyed at me in turn, you're just annoyingly understanding."
He tilted his head for a moment as he parsed the joke, before responding in the most unfair of manners. He rolled on top of her and kissed her. She fought back, trying to push the sappy oaf off her, but he refused to relent and just kept on. She clenched her teeth and angrily glared at him and she was taken off guard when he suddenly did part with her.
Only to discover that he had decided, apparently, to annoy her too.
"Sooner or later you will have to breathe," he warned her, and kissed her again.
She found out he was right, but somehow, she found she couldn't quite hold on to her annoyance.
It was evening by the time they finally got out of bed and decided to start the day. Mentuc, as ever, busied himself with bustling through the house and clearing up everything, simultaneously dealing with the cooking as well as the chores. It was a breach of their agreement, but Onoelle had given him her blessing. She had tried to protest it at first, but by the time they had come out of the shower, she had been in no condition to do much of anything.
Now she just laid on the bed, dressed for a change, and listened to the quiet noises her husband made as he stormed through the house and cleaned everything he touched, while somehow simultaneously tending to the stove and the pans simmering on top.
"So, are you planning on seeing your mysterious woman still?" She smiled to herself as she asked the question, finding herself surprised by it. She did not think herself above jealousy, stars knew she hadn't been in the past, and yet the idea of Mentuc meeting up with a woman who was, from the sounds of it, doing a fair attempt at seducing him, didn't bother her at all. It had taken her a long time to get close enough to gain his trust. It had taken her even longer to, after she realised she had fallen for him, to get him to return the sentiment. Nobody could threaten that. It was as true as the stars in the sky.
It took a surprisingly long time for him to answer. "I wonder," he finally told her, "if I should kill her."
She rolled her head aside, allowing her to look at him. "Because she betrayed your confidence?"
He tilted his head briefly, indicating he was unsure. "Our agreement involved the need for secrecy. She betrayed that." A pause. "Unlike you, she has no reason for it I can discern. It is a directly harmful action. I consider it hostile."
It took her a moment to realise he was talking about the time she showed up with Cassy rather than alone. The rest of the statement did not surprise her anymore.
"Killing would be bad, though. Aside the fact that I would strongly disapprove of it."
"That is the main reason I have not yet decided on the final course of action."
"Wouldn't it also cause a lot of suspicion?"
"Yes," came the cold answer. "I find it worth the trade."
"Even if you'd be the most probably suspect?"
He turned his eyes on her and for a moment she felt her blood freeze. "I would have made it look like an accident."
She shivered, the transformation from his typical loving self to inhuman soldier never failing to shock her. "But you won't," she said. It wasn't a question.
"No. You would not want it."
"And you don't get to cause any "accidents" either," she told nobody in particular.
"If I wanted to interfere," Nightmare responded, "I would have done so already the moment she decided to spread the rumours."
Onoelle let out a deep sigh. "I should have known."
"That I knew? Please, I am everywhere. I could have set fire to a house to distract her and gotten her killed in any way I wanted before she'd take ten steps. Also, you're welcome for having the day to yourself."
She snorted. "Control freak."
"Someone has to retain some self-control here," the AI snapped back.
Onoelle winced at the cutting remark, but refused to take the bait. Nightmare was nettling her on purpose, testing to see how much she had learned from her emotional outburst.
"So you know what he's planning?" she inquired instead.
"Hello-ho, all knowing semi-demonic artificial intelligence here. What do you think?"
The deceptively innocent, teenage-like voice that the AI used to deliver that line made her smirk, despite herself. She still did not trust Nightmare, likely never would fully, but even she had to admit that the being had made great strides in being more sociable over the past months. Whatever weird conversations her inhuman family held with each other in regard to emotions, they were clearly paying off.
"Right, stupid question." She shook her head and turned her attention back to Mentuc. "So what will you do with her then?"
"I will have a talk with her."
It was well past midnight when a sudden sound caused Helena to jump out of bed and reach for the night light. As the bulb flashed on and covered her room in lumination, the shadows came alive as well. Her four-poster bed, the flowerpots, the antique paintings, the chandelier… They all threw up shadows that could hide things. Or people, she darkly thought as she slid open the drawer to her nightstand, pulling out a pistol.
The world might regard her as a simple, loose woman and a disgraced aristocrat, someone who was only interested in fooling about, and she very much was. But this playful kitty-cat isn't without claws¸ she thought as she chambered a round and flicked off the safety. She looked around the room, feeling her heartbeat pound in her throat as she slowly got out of bed.
She got one step.
A massive shadow came to life and rounded in on her in an instant. She didn't have time to aim. By instinct she tried to squeeze the trigger, but found it inert, the safety having been switched back on. A massive hand was atop her mouth, painfully clenching it shut.
"Good evening, Lady Helena," came an emotionless voice she had become familiar with over the past months. Her eyes went wide as she recognised Mentuc.
Oh God. He's heard the rumours. She suddenly realised she had made a very dangerous mistake. He was not like the others at all. He was not a sheep in wolf's clothing as so many of her conquests had been. He was the real deal. A predator. One who did not rely on servants or money or status to get what he wanted. He radiated danger like nothing she had ever known before.
"Release the weapon," she heard him say, and her hand went limp. There would be no resisting him. And she wouldn't. Whatever he wanted to do to her, she'd let him. She was wise enough to know when to bend the knee. Resistance would be extremely foolish.
She tried to convey that to him, that she wasn't going to put up a fight or resist him, but either he did not notice —which she found doubtful— or he did not care.
"Do not try to alert anyone," he said. She nodded furiously, only seeing her own eyes, wide open and filled with fear, reflected in his sunglasses.
It seemed to satisfy him and he withdrew his hand.
"Mentuc!," she whispered, "I've heard the rumours, someone must have seen us—"
The glare she received shut her up. He no longer radiated danger. Now his entire being emitted a level of murderous intent that terrorised her to her very core. Her years of experience in playing a crowd and controlling her emotions abandoned her in an instant and her legs gave out. She tried to breath, but her lungs refused to draw in any air.
He leaned over her, indomitable, a true monster capable of snuffing out her life in a heartbeat and feel no remorse over it. "You lie," he simply stated, voicing the word as if it was a capital offense. "Nobody has seen me."
Her heart tried to leap out of her body, shivers of fright running down her entire body. She didn't know why he was so sure. Anyone could've seen him!
Yet as that unforgiving gaze nailed her to the floor, she realised that there was no doubt in his mind about the statement. He was too sure, too confident.
"You spread them," he told her. Not accusing, simply stating a fact. He tilted his head. "Why?"
Her mind raced, trying to think of an answer that would let her survive. Should she tell him the truth? That she just craved excitement? There were so little options! She hungered for the conquest of what wasn't hers, the thrill of the hunt! To chase the forbidden fruit! Had he been another, she'd have told him that she wanted him so much she tried to cause cracks in his relationship, so she could go after him. She'd done it before. Knew it worked.
Yet her instincts that lying to him again would be the last mistake she'd ever make.
Then what? Should she—
He grabbed her by the neck and growled, and she found herself shrieking the truth before her brain could override it.
She barely was aware of him backing off and looking down at her in confusion. Did not hear him whisper quietly. She hyperventilated violently, her sight rapidly filling with spots and her sense of balance abandoning her altogether.
I'm going to die, was the thought bouncing through her head.
She felt a hand on her mouth again and tried to fight it. Her limbs batted at her assailant, fingers desperately trying to dig into the object that sealed off her ability to breath. She tried to kick, bite, break free, all equally useless. Her limbs began to slacken, her resistance weakened as she ran out of breath and energy alike. Tears freely ran down her face as she engaged in a final burst of resistance, spurred on by blind panic.
And then he let go again, allowing her to draw in a deep, desperate breath, unaware that he had forcefully kept her hyperventilating from spiralling out of control.
She was not given the chance to recover, immediately coming face to face with the source of her terror once again.
"Our agreement is over," he told her.
"Yes, yes, of course," she cried desperately. "I'll pay you back, and more besides, I'll do anything, I—"
"No," he cut her off. "You will simply honour what we agreed upon." He leaned in closer, his mere presence causing her to freeze up once again. She didn't even dare breathe. "You will make no mention of me having been here. You will cease spreading rumours."
She nodded furiously, shaking free the tears that ran down her cheeks in rivers.
She saw him nod once in response, and then he was gone, darkness swallowing him.
Onoelle walked into the kitchen to find her husband —once again— busy making pancakes while a very enthusiastic Cassy was nattering away at a bedraggled looking Jane. The latter was clearly being held hostage by the scent of fresh tea wafting from the steaming kettle on top of the stove, right beside the pan.
"Good morning, all," she greeted them warmly, swooping through the kitchen to give her friend a hug and to mess up her sister's hair. "Pancakes again, really?" she asked her younger sibling with an accusing glare.
"Yes!" the girl grinned back unabashedly.
She threw her hands upwards, shaking her hand with a rueful smile. "Fine, but we're working off the calories later."
"More farm work?" the girl exclaimed happily, the prospect clearly not daunting her.
"No more than usual," Onoelle replied, a dark smile on her face. "No, I was thinking of having Mentuc draw us up an obstacle course work out. Improve our technique a little."
The happy excitement was gone in an instant, a look of pure dread filling her face. The girl loved bouncing around, but when Mentuc decided to teach techniques, she was forced to sit still and redo a single move a hundred times over, until her body collapsed with exhaustion. It was a form of slow torture, the results be damned.
Onoelle patted her sister on the back, who looked down at her beloved meal with no small share of regret, while she bustled past her to her husband.
Despite juggling a kettle, a pan and two plates, he still found time to turn around and hug her. "How did it go?" she whispered, too quiet for the others to hear.
"I think it went well," he replied honestly.
"Went well?" Nightmare interjected with an incredible amount of glee. "She's been trying to put her house for sale and is getting ready to move. Not just back to the city, mind you. She's trying to abandon the planet all together. Not to worry though, I'm keeping that nicely contained and she's none the wiser."
She saw her husband's face contort in a frown, and understood why. The woman's sudden departure would reveal who he had been visiting. Another leak.
"It seems," he said wearily, annoyed by how little normal humans understood of basic OpSec, "I will have to pay her another visit."