Page 48 of These Eternal Bones
Another One Hundred and Seventy-Two Years
Molly
Elric stayed on the stairs that night…and every night since.
Seven, going on eight, judging by the meals I’m brought and by his constant lurking, pacing, and lingering.
Péal’s eyes were lit with mist as she brought in my dinner an hour ago, looking at me through her pale lashes.
I’d been angry, angrier than I’ve ever been, when she first came.
Elric let her into the cage to clean, and for a moment, I thought of hitting the woman who had, by all accounts, been my friend for nearly seven hundred years. She’d known.
They all knew what he was planning. That day, when he held me outside and their eyes cast down, their greeting was not as cheerful as the day before…th ey knew.
My fists clench, pain lacing around my battering ram heart. They betrayed me. I hold on to that concept, trying to ignore the filtering doubt.
But did they?
Did they really?
What did I expect them to do?
Fight him?
Elric runs his hands through his mussed silky black hair. He hasn’t bothered doing it in a few days. His clothes are wrinkled and worn as he watches me, always watching.
He would’ve killed them.
All the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been gathering in my chest leaves me in a loud sigh, most of my anger for Tien, Péal, and Cartiel leaving me.
They are every bit prisoners here too, their warden one rough blow away from utter mental collapse.
He mutters to himself, and lord help me, even now I want nothing more than to go to him.
To wrap myself around his toned form and let the chill of his flesh ice some of the intense anger in my chest.
His head snaps to me from where it had fallen, unseeing, to the ground in front of his seat. Could he feel it? How badly my traitorous heart wants him.
For eight days, I have reverted to her.
Silent Molly.
Agreeable Molly.
Molly who saved her tears for the night when she was tucked into her blankets and could discreetly wipe her nose on her sleeve.
“Molly, I have not heard your voice in days, please .” He begs again, the same thing he’s pleaded for until his throat goes hoarse. “How can I make you understand?”
I do, though. I do understand. That’s what hurts the most .
I fucking understand.
It doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I trusted him when he walked me over the snowy trails. As he kissed and doted, I smiled and laughed. I saw the look in his eyes, them building into something, the way he closed himself off while working into a frenzy.
The desperation.
Every inch of my soul wants to curl into him, to assure him it’ll be okay.
To leave those soft kisses along his jaw that make the chip on his shoulder melt away.
I want him to brush my hair, to snuggle me close while he hums my song.
I want the tip of his claw tickling my flesh as he maps out my freckles.
But he took me for a final walk.
Like slipping a dog a piece of chocolate on their last day because no being should die without tasting it.
A small kindness to assuage the guilt before you did the hard part.
The part that ate you up inside. We always had dogs back home, if nothing else than to keep coyotes at bay, away from the chickens and livestock we kept on New Eden.
I remember the way Joseph lined us up, each of us kids offering a special treat and pets, a few kisses and tears for Bizzy as he walked her past.
I didn’t understand at first; I was only five, six at the most, when I dipped my fingers in the chocolate powder and let her lap at them.
He’d taken a step back, told the sweet old dog to lie down.
She did, tail wagging slowly, pleased with her treats and attention.
Then he drove a blade into the back of her skull.
I didn’t understand then.
But in a few years, I remembered the odd lumps on Bizzy’s sides and belly. I remembered the slow way she moved and how sometimes she whimpered at night .
I’d stayed away from the other dogs after Bizzy. It seemed easier that way.
But it wasn’t easier, because staying away hurt too. I wanted to scratch behind their ears and press my nose up to their wet ones. When they ran up, tails wagging, and licked at my hands to get my attention as I went about my chores, I wanted to pet them more than anything.
My mouth opens to tell him something…anything. To say anything.
He blurs toward me, his eyes unguarded and raw, swirling pools of darkness.
But nothing comes out, and when he reaches for my face, I jerk away as if he’d burned me.
A savage growl rips from him as he bends to my height, his tendrils manifesting and snagging me in a brutal but not too terribly painful hold.
My heart ratchets in my chest like someone is pumping it manually. Perhaps it’s him.
“It is better to see hatred in your eyes than to see them vacant, syringa.” He growls. “If it is an apology you require, you will find none from my lips. Another one hundred and seventy-two years without this warmth in my chest is too much a burden to bear!”
Whatever train or thread of understanding I had blips out of existence just as proficiently as the Chimera. “I will leave this cage! I will leave you !” I scream, and god, it feels…good. It’s a right and terrible burning, and I don’t want to stop.
I gasp as the world pivots, my back meeting the huge four postered bed with a soft thud as he pins me. “ Why ? Why would you even say that?”
But this time, I don’t hold steady as he pushes.
I thrash and squirm, trying to dislodge his hold on me.
“Look what you've done to me! You've taken everything I ever wanted! Oh god, Elric, the things I did to be free! The things I cannot erase from my flesh, I fought so hard to be outside of a cage, and you knew ! You knew that night in the snow when we first kissed! You’re a terrible bastard. I told you all I wanted was to be free, and you knew you would take it from me. It was an illusion you offered and nothing more. You didn’t have to do this!”
Another savage sound leaves the man as he jerks away from me, my bleary eyes locking on his tendrils as they brace on the bars, as if to pull them apart.
They don’t budge, and I can’t breathe past the hurt and anger pounding in my chest as I get to my feet.
“Yes, I did!” He runs his claws through his hair, scraping his flesh as he paces. “I cannot lose you again!”
“But you have Elric! You have lost me! I may be living, but to you, I am as good as dead!”
His dominion floods me, making me wobble on my feet as he whirls to face me. “No.”
“Get out! You have no right!”
He blurs, taunting me, pressing harder, making my heart slow, calming it without my permission. “You are mine .”
My hand connects with his face before I think better of it, slapping inky black strands across pale flesh. He snarls before capturing my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tracks of my tears. “ I love you .”
“If this is what it means to have your affections, I do not want them,” I whisper.
His clawed hand caresses my cheek as he presses his dominion into me more, as if he’s desperate, trying to fuse himself with me. “I have adored you in every life, Molly. I fear it cannot be helped.”
He searches my eyes, letting his cool forehead thud into mine softly, spice and cedar seeping into the very core of me. I can’t help but lean in to, press myself into his hold. “What if you get hurt?”
“Then you will be there to save me,” I breathe out, treacherous hope bleeding into my voice as his eyes clear, a hint of white within the unrelenting black. Like smoke. I haven’t seen it in so long .
“I will be there to watch your flesh grow cold. I will be there to lower you into the dirt.” That hope plummets to my feet, slamming past the many floors until it reaches the dirt foundation.
“Y-you bury me?”
“Every time.”
“Where?”
“There is a plot behind the castle.”
It was the wrong thing to cling onto, but my breath is thin, wrapped in his arms as his eyes darken again.
His hold is far too comfortable, but I know I should move away.
I don’t speak. What is there to say as he presses a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead.
“I will share your bed tonight. If you must hate me, you will do it wrapped in my arms.”
It’s not a question, and thanks to my damned heart, I can’t find it in me to argue.