There is none of the heat of their last encounter.
Instead it is frigid between them—so cold—and he fidgets slightly, a muscle twitching on his shoulder but otherwise nothing else giving away his annoyance at the cold way that she greets him. It was nothing that he didn’t deserve, he thinks, but he doesn’t say that. She deserved to give him nothing but these cold daggers, nothing but the way that she keeps the distance between them like they didn’t know one another.
She says his name but it’s nothing like the way she said it last time when she was splayed against his chest and her teeth were running down his side. His face grows stonier when he remembers it; when he realizes that his heart is clenched in his chest with the thought of what she had felt pressed against him.
“My own territory,” he repeats, mostly to himself, letting the pieces click into place when he realizes what that means. She wasn’t just some girl. She wasn’t some girl he met in the meadow. She was a leader of a territory. She was a player on the world stage and he was just a boy with too much anger to process.
It makes him edgy and makes him feel small and he hates that about himself. So he gives her a tight smile, nodding his head in a play of show, letting the dreadlocks of his mane slip down his neck. “Well then, my Queen,” he knows that territories don’t claim such titles but it feels good to let it be bitter on his tongue. “far be it from me to get in your way.” He motions, antlers swooping. “Be on your way then.”
He looks away for a second, stomach clenching, before looking back at her.
There is a split second when his mask slips (how much like his mother he is in this moment) and there is nothing but the raw, wild want, but he washes it away quickly, leaving nothing in its wake.
“I like the cold.”
If only she knew.
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake
@[Kensa]