( i'm an orphan, she could say, what do you think? starved things weren't trained to wait for scraps; if she were metaphorically plucking feathers off of little birds, she would devour and devour until she was gluttonously sick from it.
in the end, she settles for a shade of honesty that doesn't feel like offering her heart up for vivisection. )
I have more experience with being hunted. And even more experience in making myself difficult to snare. Is it really just the hunt you enjoy? Or is it the promise of catching something worth having?
( she doesn't recognize the question is its own little tell of where her own preferences lie. that little rot of an infection she can't quite cure, with all its symptoms of wanting to be coveted, adored, special. )
[ Sold, donated, turned into something hungry and hollowed out, Armand knows that starvation. He has grown used to it, grown accustomed to the ways his body has been shaped by it, feverishness whittled down to a thing of long bones and sharp edges. Eternally ravenous. He enjoys the thought of the hunt, the snare, her fragile bones breaking in his teeth.
He'll eat her under a cloth like an ortolan, in wretched joy. ]
I would not hunt prey that is not worth having. But I get the feeling you do not fear to be caught as much as you wish you did, little bird. Tell me, have you been thinking about our encounter as much as I have?
( distantly, she thinks of mal's first attempts at slipshod snares — twined rope and bent twigs from the earth. how rabbits had still fallen for it, despite its crude design. she doesn't have to take the bait armand has laid down to be guiltily caught, her desire skinned and laid bare; silence is as much an admission as any.
because he's right, of course. she fears that she doesn't fear it as she should. )
A good hunter doesn't lay such an obvious trap.
( tell me, have you been thinking about our encounter as much as i have? stupidly, she knows she's going to walk into it, anyway. subtlety doesn't matter, if your prey is famished and curious enough to paw closer. )
That depends on how often you've been thinking about me, doesn't it. Tell me.
[ He enjoys this, the back and forth of the struggling animal before it knows it's taken. ]
Every day. Every night. [ Easy lies, and not entirely; she's been occupying his thoughts frequently in the long hours, while the manor slumbers. In the pool, he tastes chlorine against his lips and remembers the eager pulse of her cunt. ]
I haven't been hiding. You could come see me at any time.
( this nightmarish echo of the little palace is stupidly (wastefully) spacious, yes, but she has one experience that speaks to his patience. it isn't difficult to imagine him as a restless phantom stalking the corridors, slipping into the corners of alina's usual haunting grounds. pacing. waiting. seeking.
so the implicit, unspoken question becomes: if his honeytrap-words are true, if his want for her is a persistent toothache, then why has he been there while she's been here? )
[ Maybe he has been, at the edges of her awareness. Watching her swim, eat dinner, walk across the lawn. For a sleepless vampire, the time is there to be filled.
Nevertheless, a gentleman has to maintain some sort of form. ]
And deprive myself of the pleasure of being invited?
( not in the traditional sense of bloodsoaked battles, but in the sense of claiming her open desire as though it's a spoil of war. needing, hungering, to hear her admit to it the way she's gorged himself on his confession, so freely handfed to her.
for his trouble, her implicit invitation, sealed like a drop of blood, the teasing whiff of sweet perfume on an absent lover's letter: )
I spend my days by the lake, and my nights in the library. Will I see you?
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( a challenge in the realm of (affectionate) rather than (derogatory), mostly. )
Go on, then.
I'm an attentive audience waiting for whatever next line you've come up with.
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As I remember it, you usually prefer a longer prelude.
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in the end, she settles for a shade of honesty that doesn't feel like offering her heart up for vivisection. )
I have more experience with being hunted. And even more experience in making myself difficult to snare.
Is it really just the hunt you enjoy? Or is it the promise of catching something worth having?
( she doesn't recognize the question is its own little tell of where her own preferences lie. that little rot of an infection she can't quite cure, with all its symptoms of wanting to be coveted, adored, special. )
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He'll eat her under a cloth like an ortolan, in wretched joy. ]
I would not hunt prey that is not worth having. But I get the feeling you do not fear to be caught as much as you wish you did, little bird. Tell me, have you been thinking about our encounter as much as I have?
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because he's right, of course. she fears that she doesn't fear it as she should. )
A good hunter doesn't lay such an obvious trap.
( tell me, have you been thinking about our encounter as much as i have? stupidly, she knows she's going to walk into it, anyway. subtlety doesn't matter, if your prey is famished and curious enough to paw closer. )
That depends on how often you've been thinking about me, doesn't it. Tell me.
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Every day. Every night. [ Easy lies, and not entirely; she's been occupying his thoughts frequently in the long hours, while the manor slumbers. In the pool, he tastes chlorine against his lips and remembers the eager pulse of her cunt. ]
I'd like to see you again.
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( this nightmarish echo of the little palace is stupidly (wastefully) spacious, yes, but she has one experience that speaks to his patience. it isn't difficult to imagine him as a restless phantom stalking the corridors, slipping into the corners of alina's usual haunting grounds. pacing. waiting. seeking.
so the implicit, unspoken question becomes: if his honeytrap-words are true, if his want for her is a persistent toothache, then why has he been there while she's been here? )
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Nevertheless, a gentleman has to maintain some sort of form. ]
And deprive myself of the pleasure of being invited?
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( not in the traditional sense of bloodsoaked battles, but in the sense of claiming her open desire as though it's a spoil of war. needing, hungering, to hear her admit to it the way she's gorged himself on his confession, so freely handfed to her.
for his trouble, her implicit invitation, sealed like a drop of blood, the teasing whiff of sweet perfume on an absent lover's letter: )
I spend my days by the lake, and my nights in the library. Will I see you?