Living Amongst the Shadows

Chapter 8

We turn back to the party and watch it for a bit longer. The craving to join in that hit us before but was forgotten returns, more forceful.

"Can we resist the nymphs magic?"

I look at Salis who is still looking at me but with not as much longing as before. There's an ease in his posture now, aside from the twitches of his body and feet.

"No... not even a god can resist their work," he holds out his hand. "Shall we?"

I place my tankard in the box of used ones and take his hand. The same feeling as before stops my heart for a moment. Death and a spark.

He leads me back into the crowd but we stay to the edges. He drags us to a spot between three fires. The gigantic one in the middle and three corner bonfires. It's possibly the hottest place to be.

He draws me close to him and lets my hands go. His arm glides around my waist, his arm is so long his hand rests on my bare stomach. My muscles twitch under his fingers. The skin is sensitive to his touch and I have to bit my lip to stop myself from squirming. I hate being ticklish. Some people can turn it off but I can't. It's annoying.

I rest my hands on his chest and his other hand reaches under my hair to cradle my neck. His arm presses into my side moving me to the side and then his fingers press down to move me back. Bit by bit he sways me from side to side manipulating my hips into swaying and my body into curving. As he builds up a pace, I lean back into his arm letting him support me. I don't know what this dance style is but it's soft, sensual like the gentle hissing of a snake.

We sway with the music for a while and then he bends his knees and drags me down with him. My skirt bunches up on his thigh as he lowers me. The fabric is pushed up when he pulls me nearer until we're pressed into each other, the only barriers our clothes and hands. This close I can see the way his shirt clings to his skin from the heat and sweat. I can smell the heavy taste-it-on-your-tongue sweetness of decay and the musk of something dark and spicy. An old smell. And he smells like smoke and pine. The scents of the park. It's a wild, natural combination with no hint of the common perfumes and colognes that other men wear.

Beneath my palm I can feel his breast bone thumping hard from his heart. It's slow, slower than a humans, I think. If I lean in a little more and turn my ear towards his chest, I can almost hear it. Or that might be my imagination.

He leans towards me quickly and I'm forced to arch over his arm to stop myself from head butting his collar bones.

The tip of his nose murmurs slowly over my exposed neck, down my chest and to the low cloth of my shirt as he bends over me. I can feel each hot huff of air as it leaves his nostrils. His breaths tickles and scorches my skin as he moves back up. But slowly, as slowly as he can. And he slides his hand up my spine, supporting me as he brings us back up.

When we're upright I'm even closer to him and straddling his thigh. He manipulates my body again moving me from left to right. His hand falls lower, to my hip and his fingers graze the skin over the shard of my pelvic bone.

My hip twitches beneath his touch and I accidentally rub myself against his leg. I gasp and my eyes widen at the shock that spears through me. I've never felt that before. I flick my eyes up to his and find only darkness. The golden flecks and streaks in his eyes are have been banished to the outer edges, fleeing his enlarged pupil. He watches me as he presses his arm into my back and rubs me against him again. Biting my lip, I can feel my cheeks warming even more. In my stomach there's an uncomfortable writhing and tightening. Heat rises in my body until it reaches my chest and smoulders there waiting.