— I'm not here looking for absolution —
She is perhaps the only thing that has ever snagged his attention for long. The only thing that he has touched without killing, although he has come so close with her. It’s a strange, dark thrill and he gladly lets it race through him, touching the corners of him that are so rarely illuminated by anything.
He closes his eyes as he feels the tides of her against the edges of his mind. As he remembers what it had felt like to drain her nearly dry, to take her to the very edge of consciousness before dragging her back.
He doesn’t take her there now though, even though it’s tempting.
“Who are you to judge my reasons for coming?” he asks, his voice hardly raising above a whisper, his dark eyes opening again. There’s no real heat to the question—nothing to speak of any true annoyance to her audacity in asking him. “I certainly have no reason to explain them to you.”
She slinks closer and he doesn’t stop her, but neither does he move toward her.
Let her come, he thinks.
A slight tug against her life force, lingering there, a reminder that he merely close his grasp around it should he want to hold her tongue for good. “You didn’t answer my question,” he asks, crocodile smile widening even further, little warmth sparking into the curve of his lips. “I don’t like being left waiting.”
