Page 17 of These Eternal Bones

Butterflies fine needlework of dark flowers trailing upward peeks out of my winter cloak. The wind grew harsh and frigid so quickly. Like winter had held its lash for as long as possible, and now it’s making up for lost time.

“Come, little human.” He hums, but he doesn’t wait for a response.

Instead, my heart flings to my throat as his hands band around my waist like a vice of velvet, soft yet unyielding as he hoists me atop the beast. It makes a snorting sound, shifting, my hands flying out blindly to grip onto its mane.

I nearly slip before a body of steel slides behind me, his strong thighs banding around my backside, locking me into him.

My body tenses, forcing myself ramrod straight where all I want to do is melt against him and inhale lungfuls of spice and cedar.

He makes an irritated sound in his throat as I try to scoot away.

Not that there’s much room to work with.

My eyes widen when those…tendrils band around my middle, pulling me flush with the man at my back before he grips the reins, pulling the horse toward the woods.

“Is that really necessary? ”

He has the audacity to sound all too pleased with our new positioning. “I take all manner of your safety seriously, Molly. Especially when you are so easily broken.”

“Yes, clearly, seeing as you killed a man because of it.” I snap, sucking my lips into my mouth afterward, willing myself to be quiet.

He huffs his voice in a growl. His breath is even cool against my neck. “Not a man , the fox.”

That fear from yesterday, the sight of his…

fist in his back, sickens my gut, making me grit my teeth, pushing away from the tendrils despite that being a lost cause.

But that’s not why I’m angry, is it? Not all of it.

While my heart pangs for the fox, it’s the other that has me bowing my back away from him.

“Ah, so that is why you’re angry with me.”

“I am not angry.”

“Syringa …”

“My name is Molly.” I rush out, folding my arms over the tendrils. He’s quiet for a beat after that, as am I, watching the frost tipped leaves as the horse continues its gentle rocking, innately aware of the press of his hardened length against my back.

Elric sighs. I can sense some soothing, liquid velvet words on his lips, so I spare myself the temptation of listening. “He did nothing wrong.”

“He did everything wrong. He knew how it would end for him the moment he stepped from the tree line. The fox waited, weighing his options in the woods for a while before, then chose wrong.”

“Because speaking to me is a crime?”

You are here for me.

His words from yesterday set off another flurry in my stomach but also more needling irritation in my chest .

Elric doesn’t answer my question. I assume he doesn’t need to.

I can’t work out how I feel about that. Our prophet had always spoken of temptation.

The treacherous ways of a woman’s heart, he’d said, were perhaps the only flawed design by God.

That we were the same as we’d always been since Eve betrayed Adam in the garden.

I believe something inside me is being ruefully treacherous now, but the only thing in jeopardy of being betrayed is me .

I scowl forward, unmoving, until we turn away from the lighthouse, his lighthouse , toward the manor…

and I can’t stifle the gasp that leaves my throat as the horse climbs the short trail toward the estate.

The sheer size of it all is…overwhelming.

There is something so horribly daunting about the black brick, the sculptures that perch as wards on the awnings.

Something that seems so much more menacing…

and familiar than even the Tabot. I get the feeling that both beautiful and horrible things have happened here.

The energy in the brick practically screams it.

The horse huffs as if it’s pleased to have finally returned home.

There’s something so unexpectedly welcoming about the place, not in its appearance but in the man who rules it.

In the salty air that comes a little too quickly through my lungs.

The estate seems to match that cadence, like it stood suspended in time until this point.

Everything around me seems to breathe for the very first time in forever.

A sense of déjà vu hits me hard, and finally, fleetingly, I push back into him as if I’m trying to escape it.

I have a feeling that this is going to end horribly for me.

For us both, perhaps.

Péal catches my eye next, her kind, hopeful smile in its place as she rushes forward. “Good morning, mistress. I’ve had food prepared for you in the solarium. Come.”

“ Saru .” Elric growls softly behind me, dismounting the horse .

I watch as the hopeful look in her eyes dies.

She nods, dismissing herself. An odd tinge of defensiveness rises in my chest at the sight.

I grit my teeth, knowing it's far from my place, doing my best to ignore the way my belly flips as he reaches up, pulling me from the horse. My nipples pebble behind my bodice as he lets me slide down his front all too slowly, keeping me ensnared in his arms long after I’m safely on the ground. “What did you say to her?”

“ Leave .” He answers before addressing the quiet golden man, his twiggy frame rushing down the grand stairs toward the horse, although I don’t miss the apprehension in his eyes. “See him to the stables.”

The golden man takes the reins like they’re venomous snakes poised to bite him. His back nearly bowed away from the horse, who grunts roughly, stomping at the ground in obvious displeasure. Elric steps toward him, running a gentle hand over the irritable beast. “ Kiraku ni ike, Jin.”

The knot in my chest loosens at the obvious affection between the two.

The horse all but tripping the golden man when he jerks his head toward Elric, giving him a soft nuzzle.

One that seems to please them both greatly.

Although, of course, Elric doesn’t smile, he simply…

looks slightly less severe. There is no shortage of sides to the man.

How he can switch between gentle and lighthearted to domineering and commanding, then to downright deadly in the blink of an eye, again reminds me how terribly out of my depth I am.

This is not Captain Faine, whose moods I could track a day out.

Whose desires and wants were as sure as the waves.

He’s nothing like him , whose anger was veiled by warm smiles and haunting, stomach churning adoration.

My mother's and sister’s motives that stopped and began with the whims of their husband and father .

Elric doesn’t so much offer his hand to me but demands I take it as he leads me up the large stairs into the estate.

I can feel his dark eyes on me, but the world around seems too quiet, like stepping into a haze.

Emerald green marble floors shine and reflect the art that lines the dark paneling.

Beyond the entrance, which is larger than the cottage itself, the estate opens up, the walls so tall I can only imagine this is exactly how an ant feels when it walks inside your home.

How easy it would be for someone like me to be crushed under the weight of… all this.

I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t notice he’s pulled me to a stop just before the entrance.

A soft gasp leaves my throat when he drops, kneeling in front of me as his hands meet my ankle, urging it up from the floor.

My eyes widen on those hands as he lifts my boot, placing the muddy bottom on his knee.

Something can be said for men of his caliber kneeling, something to be felt, deep in my belly as his eyes roll up, looking at me like that .

“Before I landed here, I spent a good deal on another side of the world. There, it was customary to remove one’s shoes before entering a home.

It was there that I shared the most features with the people.

Although I can no longer remember my life before it ended. If perhaps I had always been there.”

“You were human once?” I whisper because the fingers of his free hand trail underneath my skirt, dancing across the back of my knee before tugging my boot free.

“I have sometimes assumed so, but likely not.”

That tightness in my belly lowers, a line pulling taut down deep…

down there . The same needy, heated feeling that makes me squirm when I wake with dampness between my legs, ever since that day I saw him on the balcony.

He lifts my other boot, repeating the process with a reverence that makes it hard to breathe.

His black hair shifts as he pulls the boot free, reluctantly setting my crimson lace-adorned foot back on the floor.

The garment confused me the first time I saw it, but now I quite like how I look. Regal. So much…finer than I truly am.

When he speaks, it’s in that language again, it’s beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache. “W-what did you say?”

He lifts to his full height, a secretive smirk on his face as he quickly removes his own shoes, slipping on another pair that are fine to be inside?

He offers a pair to me, but I decline, something I immediately regret when my foot hits the cool floor outside the entrance.

“We can discuss your position and hours here over breakfast.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’ve just lied to me?”

“ Kashikoi koibito.”

I frown at him. “You’re not playing fair.”

“I called you clever , syringa.”

“And before?”

He laughs, and suddenly the castle I’m being led through pales. I barely notice it at all, in fact. That anger in my chest quickly loses steam. How can such a simple touch in an innocuous place feel like so much more?

How mad must I be to have butterflies?