He doesn’t expect her fire to respond to his own in that way.
It stirs something in his chest—something like jealousy, something like competition, something like possession. He doesn’t expect to share his gifts with others. He doesn’t expect the pretty girl to be any kind of match for him. He doesn’t expect the way that his youthful heart swells and contracts painfully, the need to quash her light or consume it, swallow it whole so that it can flare in his belly alone.
It pushes him forward so that he steps into her flames, his own rising around him. His teeth gleam against the impossible black of his coat as his lips peel back, the flames racing along the cracks on his skin. He reaches for her flesh and his teeth scrape against it, in a mimicry of a more adult action that feels his own.
“My name is Cleave,” he finally offers, finally giving her that inch. “I think you’re mine,” he says, although the softness of the words is offset by the way that he growls them—the way that his skin flares hot beneath the hiss of her flames and his own. “I think that’s what brought you here today.”
He is a possessive thing, greedy, and he watches her with his stern expression, daring her to disagree, daring her to somehow fight against it. As if anticipating it, the fire burns hotter as it races down his spine, the small flames licking into the air. He wonders if the two of them will burn down the kingdom.
Maybe that’s exactly what they had been born to do.
@[brunhilde]