And her name is…

I finish my shower in a fog and curl up on the bed with one of the books. Despite not having dinner yet I feel exhausted with the thoughts buzzing around in my head and need some time to tune it all out. I trade the history book for a fictional thriller and dive into a world where the problems are much simpler than mine.

I’m in the thicket of the book when dinner time rolls around so I bring it with me. Barely looking up to see where I’m going I follow the feel of Wulfric’s energy that I can sense already in the dining room. I look up only as I enter to see who’s in attendance and then take my usual seat. It’s just me and him right now, and I decide against paying him any mind.

Someone, in my book, has just been murdered in the garden and she is about to find the body is that of her lover. I’m flipping the page as food is set in front of me, someone removes the lid, and I thank them as they head out. Whatever the food is it smells good but I don’t look as I reach for a utensil.

The silver burns me and all at once I do several thing. I drop the fork and my book simultaneously and gasp out ‘I’m sorry’. My eyes look up and meet that of only other person in the room, Wulfric, and he looks at me with more concern than I expect. My voice as I said those words is desperate but I know I can’t stop my hand and he seems to realize it the same second I do. Everything happens so quickly from when my hand first touched the fork and I dropped my book. My other hand is already flat on the table, waiting for my punishment, and I close my eyes in the hope that I’ll miss but I never have, not really and the last time I tried I had thought so hard about it beforehand. I feel the resistance of the fork sinking through flesh but I only feel the smallest prick of pain.

When I open my eyes Wulfric is leaning across the table toward me, his hand covering mine with a fork stuck in the back. My hand is shaking as I try to grab the silver handle of the fork to remove it and he gently pushes my hand away. I can hear the burn of the silver against his skin, confirming he’s at least a halfbreed from Orthoire like me..

He pulls the fork free and drops it on the table. My hand is covered in his blood, enough that I don’t think I’d be about to see where my own palm is bleeding from the very tips of the fork tines that made it through to me. He goes to move away, neither of us speaking, but I curl my fingers between his, keeping our palms together.I pull him across the table and bring his hand over to my mouth.His blood smells like candy.

Gently I lick the blood off the back of his hand to find the wound, then I bite into my tongue with my fangs and press my lips over the holes, letting my blood and spit seep in like I did with the plant. I pull away enough to watch it heal and then flip his hand over to confirm it worked. Once I’m satisfied that we’re even I look up to meet his eyes but it doesn’t look like they ever left my face.

His eyes look feral and I feel like he could be staring through me if his pupils didn’t grow under my watch. I flex my fingers away from his hand so he can pull it back but he doesn’t, instead turning his hand around mine so he can check my palm. It’s covered in blood and he takes my napkin to wipe it clean, revealing the four small holes from the tines.

“You didn’t need to do that,” he says softly, continuing to wipe his blood off my hand.

“Neither did you,” I return.

We’re both standing, somewhat awkwardly leaning across the long thin table, and his body casts a shadow over mine. Still, I feel like I could curl up in his shadow safely. His eyes are focused on my hand for a minute and I can’t resist reaching over to touch his hair. He startles for a second, but continues what he’s doing and let’s me pet him, gently running my fingers through the soft strands.

As my hand turns to move behind his ear his hand shoots up to grab my wrist. “Please, don’t torture me like this. I’d take a hundred forks through my hand to you petting me with this table between us.”

I mean to pull my hand away but instead I move my other hand in his. His fingers are hooked around mine and I pull his hand up to my face again. I slide my tongue between two of his fingers and lick the blood that gathered there, enjoying how he physically shivers at the sensation.

“Theo,” he groans and I hear it, the anguish.

I’m already closing my eyes as he starts pulling my hand over to his own pursed lips. I expect a kiss against my fingers but I feel it on my palm. His lips part and I feel his tongue tease the centre of my hand in a way that has me squeezing my legs together tightly.

He never left me hanging, except for the last time. My fault though.

Someone clears their throat and we both look toward the door to see Noryth. The doors are closed and he’s standing in front of them with a smirk on his face. I can hear others knocking on it in the hall and mortification throws a bucket of cold water over my thoughts.

“I stabbed him,” I blurt out, trying to let go of his hand.

He refuses to let go, twisting my hand in his to hold it strongly in his. I manage to break my other hand from his grip on my wrist and hover it above the knife, giving him a serious warning with my eye brows. Finally he lets me go and we both look back towards Noryth who hasn’t moved.

He starts to chuckle, looking at both of us. “How all great romances start.”

I don’t blush, because it’s Noryth, but I hear Wulfric hiss and smirk at him. “You’re brother may have a thought or two about me, but I doubt highly that any of them are romantic.” Wulfric’s eyes dart to mine and I think I see panic but I’m still smirking at him. “Men like Wulfric have enough pull with the fine ladies in court that they don’t need toromancesomeone like me with my finite life expectancy.”

I chuckle but hear Wulfric say ‘what’ just as Noryth let’s everyone else into the dinning room. I wipe the remaining blood off the table before I ball up the linen napkin and drain the energy until it’s dust I can scatter on the floor under the table. Wulfric is still watching me and I glance at the fork with his blood. I’m a second from grabbing it and licking it clean, but I know what will happen when I touch it and we’d be right back where we started.

Tiago is the first to sit beside me and sniffs the air with the increased sense of smell common in his people. He spots the fork as well and looks at both of us conspiratorially. It surprises me when he grabbed the fork and hides it beneath his own napkin, but more surprised when he takes my dominant hand and turns it over to look at my palm.

I didn’t siphon any energy, but the blood I ingested from Wulfric was enough to speed the healing in my palm from the silver. His palm however will still sport the burn for a little while, but when I look over to him I see him holding his cutlery and eating.

Polished steal. Clever.

I thought it was odd no one brought up him not using the cutlery the first day, but he probably mentioned Tiago and I, and chalked it off as being kind until he could retrieve his own. I glance at him and Noryth knowingly.

Three with blood from Orthoire at the same table, and nobody knows.

I’m suddenly glad Kheliq wouldn’t bring his silver cutlery to torture me with. The problem with our power is this easily discernible weakness, but I suppose that, and the fact that our affinities are somewhat a separate entity inside us, is the balance the universe thought up.

Wulfric notices Tiago looking at my hand and twitches like he means to do something but stops when he sees no mark. His eyes move to me and narrow but I quirk my head towards him like I don’t know what he means. I’m not sure if he saw the burn before I healed it, or if something else I’ve done around him has already confirmed his suspicions, but there’s no sense in making it easy if he hasn’t. Tiago looks to him as well and he makes it look casual as he returns the questioning look while fixing his hair, flashing the palm of his hand.

When he licked my hand.

I completely forgot he licked my wound right before we noticed Noryth. There is no trace of what we are on our bodies now, and that makes me want to laugh. My little mistake could have reveal us both but we’re safe for another day. It makes me wonder what their affinities are that no one has discovered their truth, but I know that will be something for me to question later.Later?Perhaps I will go to training with Wulfric. Nothing like an empty sound proof room and some close contact to loosen someone’s lips.