and all of us, we’re meant for the fire, but we keep rising up and walking the wires
She hates the fact that of everyone she has ever met, he (he) is the one to scare her.
Him with the bright eyes and wide smile and floppy ears, using his ability to manipulate ice and snow and control winter itself so that he can grow absurd ice eyebrows just to make her laugh. Running his lips down her ribs to get her to giggle. Teasing and poking at her and looking so damn smug the whole time.
He is ridiculous, and he is absolutely terrifying because of it.
“I see the tree,” she snaps, growing increasingly icy with the fear. He is too close. Physically. Emotionally. He is too close to seeing everything about her. The fact that she is lonely. The face that beneath everything, she has always been just a scared little girl who wants to believe the best in the world. The fact that she loves her family and hates them for not chasing after her more. The fact that she had loved her father and can’t stand the thought of him anymore, of how he has destroyed their family.
He is too close and she desperately wants to keep all of it from him.
When he gets serious, she grows increasingly skittish, not liking that somber look in his eye. She freezes at the feel of his nose against hers like prey, drawing in the scent of him, before shifting her head to the side. She scoffs, shaking her head. “Everyone tries to keep secrets.” Her control slips once more, but this time she looks terribly sad instead of girlish and joyful, shadows striking her eyes. “I should know.”
She ignores the fluttering in her belly as his face shifts from mischievous to playful. She can’t stop feeling the way that she straddles a need to get rid of him for good or satiate that hunger gnawing at her—the one that mirrors what she sees reflected back in his eyes. Suddenly, irritation flares in her belly.
She shouldn’t be afraid of him.
She shouldn’t feel trapped by his warm brown eyes or goofy smile.
She takes an emboldened step forward, trying to grab for some semblance of control in the conversation that has increasingly felt like it is heading down a dangerous road. “How about you do that, Fox,” her voice drops an octave as she takes another step toward him, closing the distance—hoping to throw him off balance as much as he has been throwing hers off. “You certainly talk a big game.”
lynx