“No, obviously not.” He snarls, because he is certain she could stop being afraid if she were motivated enough, but that isn’t his problem. “...but I could distract you.” And he lips at her cheek, a sultry kiss that he drags back behind her ear, grooms the skin behind her poll. He has taken his time with her and, as unlikely as it is, she seems inpatient for him to move on. Not away, but on with this.
What do you want from me, Tunnel? She asks, not quite a whisper but soft enough to put him in mind of the murmurs between lovers.
He’s withdrawn enough to meet her eyes, as she looks up at him through long and impossibly dark lashes. “Why Briseis… I don’t want anything. It’s already mine.” He rumbles, deep and seductive with the electricity of cruelty riding every syllable with a hiss and snap. He pivots, dark legs shifting in the needles and ferns and he is beside her, his shoulder just behind hers. They are close and even if she flees him now she will only narrowly evade the white teeth that close against the roots of her ebony mane behind the crest of her neck, forcing her a fraction closer with a jerk of his head, unsatisfied with her stillness, or the centimeters between them, something undefinable. He lifts his fore-hooves from the black loam as he releases her, only to drop his teeth against her withers, to cut her skin between tooth and bone. He doesn’t usually draw the blood of his precious things, but Briseis has inspired him.
When he lets her go he drops his head to breathe the perfume off the line of her shoulder, a featherlight touch, a taunt of gentleness to follow the pain he’s inflicted. “Don’t you want to be mine?”
As if she has a choice.
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves
as though we were drowning inside our hearts
@[Briseis]
