Page 27 of The Ballad of a Bard

C rimson wanted to dance.

No, that wasn’t correct.

Not dance, but something similar to that.

It was on the edge of her mind, teetering and toppling and precariously balanced between sanity and insanity like the Imp. Perhaps they’d switched places. Her skin felt hot, clammy, too heavy to wear. She wanted to peel it off and dance in nothing. To be coated in stardust and moon pearl, to allow the midnight to wash over her. To let the candlelight, the chandelier glow, bask her in something incandescent.

It was the kind of daze that followed far too many cups of wine, the sort of trance after not enough sleep, the haze of finding something so attractive that it broke one’s heart.

Her head was heavy too, but in a different, heady way instead of a painful thrum. It swam and swirled and it was heaven.

But she couldn’t stop looking at him.

The way his skin gleamed with a honey glow, the way his hair was nearly pitch black, the way his mouth moved as he laughed at something one of the other Saints said. He clapped them on the shoulder, but she couldn’t tell who it was. She couldn’t see anything past him. And she didn’t want to.

Crimson stepped closer, her heels clicking on the ivory and ebony squares below. Her fingers followed the line of his carved jaw, the way his neck bore lines that she wanted to touch, the muscles that corded in his wide set of shoulders.

“ Ohh ,” She breathed, softly, in a dream.

West looked down at her, an umber eyebrow raised in suspicion. He stopped talking with the other immortal, giving her his full attention and it was too much for her to handle.

Her hand quivered in the air as he asked, “Are you alright?”

Saints above, even his voice was pure sex.

It rippled off her arms like tantalising vibrations, slank down her tingling spine with feather light touches, skittered over every inch of her skin until she could stand it no more.

She wanted to dance with him.

He was so unearthly beautiful, and it made her want to burn. It was a pounding sensation just inside her chest every time she caught a glimpse of him, a breathtaking draft as they interacted, touched. It was everything and it made her feel like nothing at the same time.

“Do something with me.” Her lashes fluttered, grazing her high cheek. Crimson was desperate for her power in that moment, to use it until he couldn’t stop looking at her.

In a different way, because the way he caught glimpses of her wasn’t the sort of attraction that she wanted, needed, craved from him at that moment. He told her that she was beautiful, yes, but she wanted him to look at her as if there was no one else in the world. She wanted him to look at her as if he wanted to devour her, and she would let him .

“Like what?” He asked, crossing one arm over the other. He was splendid in the sunglow doublet that fit him as if it were a second skin. Blue may have been his colour, but he was a sparkling star in gold.

“Something. Anything.” Crimson almost begged him. She might have, if he didn’t. What she wouldn’t do for a mere brush of his fingers against hers, a puff of air against her thrumming neck, a dash of his lips against hers.

“That’s not an answer.”

Just touch me, hold me. Please.

“ Yes it is.” Crimson caressed his sharp cheek, and he flinched from it. She didn’t back down, coming to stand even closer. They were inches apart now, if even. “We can dance, or take a stroll through the courtyard. We could go back up to the room and you could show me how to fight.”

She was going to shatter into a thousand pieces if he didn’t act soon. The heat in her low core was almost to the point where it was unbearable, to the point where she might break if he just looked at her again.

“You already know how to fight. Or do I need to remind you, Lyric ?” He took her wrists in his hands and removed them from his face. It wasn’t forceful, but it wasn’t tender either.

Crimson wasn’t entirely sure she wanted him to be gentle with her. She wasn’t sure if she’d want it rough either, considering she’d never been with anyone in this way before. She’d never even kissed anyone before. Her mind left her standing there as it kidnapped every sensible, rational piece of her and forced her into a daydream. Well, night-dream, considering what time it was in the evening, but still.

West, shoving her against her closest wall, sharing a breath with her as he came ever so close, until there was nothing between them. As his mouth claimed hers and she felt renewed, reborn, redone. She imagined he kissed like a god, worshipping and melding and forging. She could imagine the way his calloused hands would cup her and palm her and own every inch of her.

For Saints sake , she was going to burn alive.

She lost a breath, savouring the way it sent shivers throughout her. Her smile flipped however as he let go of her wrists, turning into a disapproving look.

No, no, no. Come back.

Why wouldn’t he let her touch him?

He was the one who invited her here, invited her into his room, his bed. Shared it with her for over a week now, and yet he made no move to touch her, taste her, take her. She let out an annoyed puff of air that had his mouth curving into a smirk.

A stupidly attractive smirk.

One that she wanted to taste.

Did his mouth taste like unfiltered moonlight, pure and pearl? Did his tongue feel like stars as they burst in the sky, colliding with others and creating something new entirely? Would his white teeth feel like the sharp curve of the crescent moon, hot and cold at the same time?

“Fine.”

Something like sour shame and an embarrassing heat that tasted like bitter disappointment washed over her. It wasn’t enough of a bucket of cool water to calm her raging heart down, but it did curb her hunger for him in a way.

“If you won’t do something with me, then I’ll find someone else to keep me entertained.” A terrible, horrible idea popped into her head. One that she knew he wouldn’t allow. “Altivar was quite pushy for a second dance. Maybe I’ll take him up on that.”

“No, you won’t.” His navy eyes flashed down to her hazel ones in a protective pulse that ripped into her with shredding claws. Hell brewed like a poisoned potion there, sapphire and amber bubbling up to the surface and exploding. Stars, that’s what she saw.

“Yes. I rather think I will.” She made a face at him and spun around to seek out the Prince. Saints, she felt as though she was ignited to the core, with nothing to ground her. Nothing could bring her back down from this magnificent high that she was riding. Even the breeze stirred something inside of her that was undeniable ecstasy.

“Crimson.” He yanked her back to him, a cry of dismay leaving her mouth but it was shortly over as she experienced the most delightful sensation of them all. His touch made her want to explode, made her want to writhe and wriggle against him, made her want to ride him until there was nothing left to feel. Until she became one of those stars in his vision and burst into a million pieces.

“Westley.” She bit her lip, no longer caring about the red that stained them. Blood filled her mouth as she bit hard, unable to tear her eyes off of him.

“What are you doing?” He latched onto it, narrowing his eyebrows at the sight of it. His finger swiped under her mouth and she fought the rising groan. Fought the urge to take his finger pad into her mouth and suck on it. “You’re bleeding.”

“You’re so good to me.” She lustfully murmured, tilting her head to stare at his chest, his torso, his powerful legs. “Stop it.”

He didn’t stop tending to her scab. “Stop what?”

“Stop being good to me.” Crimson elicited with a fuel that only grew and grew and grew. “Be bad to me, instead.”

West froze, “Crimson, this isn’t funny.”

“Good. Because I’m not being funny.” She whispered, sneaking her hand up his front on spider legs. “I’m being entirely serious.” Her dress was too tight, too close to her skin, too confining.

“What is going on with you?” That was worry she spotted in his fine features, concern flickering back and forth in blue and ochre.

“I want-” She began and then decided to reword it. Because want wasn’t a strong enough phrase for what was happening inside of her. “I need you.”

A visible shudder ran through him at that, and she took joy in it. In seeing that it had just as much of an effect on him.

“No, you don’t.”

Crimson was red hot, she was scarlet, she was crimson. “You have no idea what I need right now.”

“I think I’m beginning to.” West’s top lip curled back, an obvious strain in his voice, the tension in his throat as it tensed. “This isn’t you. Something’s happened to you. But what?”

She exhaled, trying to calm herself.

Maybe he was right. Before, she never had this unquenchable thirst for him. It came in small amounts, never in full force. Crimson placed a hand over her chest, right above where her heart lay and began to take soft inhales in order to try to bring the racing back down to a normal, steady pace.

“Your drink.” His relentless gaze on her paused as soon as he saw what she was trying to do, understanding it. West paused, snapping his head over to something else in the room. “What did Altivar put in your drink?”

Clever, he was too clever for his own good.

And within that second of his realisation, she came to one of her own. The vial that she’d seen in his rooms, the one that held her father’s altering blood. The one that two drops could change one’s very deepest desires.

That was it, it had to be.

“Blood.” Crimson traced her mouth, trying to feel where the desire was controlling her from. “My father’s blood.”

West tracked the motion.

“How in the Saints name do you possibly know that?” He questioned, taking her chin in his fingers and rotating it every which way as if he could see as well.

She let out a little noise that sounded like a whimper. His jaw flexed at it and his gaze guttered like stars winking out, submitting to the darkness of night. She went molten at it as she explained. “He told me about it, before you came into his room that day.”

Oh Saints, she wanted him to never stop touching her. It was a pulsing desire that quivered between her legs, a rising wildfire that burst to life in her core, a tidal wave of lust that crashed against her, throwing her to its deepest parts without forgiveness.

“Shit.” West started to see the full picture as he understood what she was saying, what was happening to her. “We need to get you upstairs, now .”

“Only if you come with me.” It slithered out before she could stop it. “I want-”

“I know very well what you want, Heartstrings.” He cursed again, shaking his head. “But it’s not going to happen.”

“Please, West.” Crimson licked her lips, needing to feel something on them unless they dry up and wither away. “Just one night, just once. I want to feel what it’s like to be with you, I want to know what it-”

“ Saints sake , Crimson.” The Saint groaned, trying to conceal it. “You can’t say things like that to me.”

“Why not?” She stubbornly refused to stop.

He looked her dead in the eyes, and she almost faltered back at the sight of them. Because they were hazy, glazed and smouldering. The midnight sky was on fire, and she understood.

He wanted her too.