Cold sweat crawled down her spine.
She watched his motionless feet and did nothing but blink. She stopped breathing entirely to keep from making a sound.
“…!”
A pair of crimson eyes, burning with a terrifying light, locked directly onto hers.
“Wanted to play hide-and-seek, did you?”
“‘Eek!'”
Kael reached under the bed to grab her.
She scrambled on hands and knees toward the wall.
“There’s nowhere to go.”
He folded himself down and came in after her, clearly intending to have her.
“D-don’t come any closer!”
She felt like the protagonist in a horror story.
All she’d planned was one simple refusal — and now it had spiraled completely out of control. He was terrifying. This man was genuinely terrifying.
“If I catch you, I won’t go easy.”
He suddenly switched to formal speech. That was somehow worse.
“Don’t — don’t catch me!”
Kael stretched toward her ankles, her wrists, any part of her he could reach.
His hand grazed her ankle. She recoiled with a gasp — the feeling of it, like something tentacled and inexorable closing in.
In her frantic scrambling, her head kept striking the bed frame.
“Ow!”
‘Hit it again.’ She twisted and dodged like a tadpole, evading his hands.
“How did I not think of this.”
His low voice, deliberate and dangerous, cut through her. He had come fully under the bed now.
“‘No!'”
His hand closed around her ankle and pulled steadily. She seized one of the bed posts with both hands and held on with everything she had.
The sheer force of him — every time he pulled, her whole body was wrenched with it. Her hands shook on the post. Sweat soaked her palms. She felt her grip beginning to slip.
“Stop! Stop it!”
She cried out, almost pleading. But Kael took hold of both her ankles.
“Not coming out?”
“‘Please.’ Don’t. Don’t, please. I’m frightened — why are you — what are you—”
She cried. For real this time.
She hadn’t intended it to go this far. But when those red eyes had lit with that particular gleam and he came at her with that kind of intensity, her shock had overtaken everything.
“I only meant to — just try the refusal once, and then — and now—”
She wept, clinging to the bedpost with her whole body heaving, the way a child cries alone on a street. The pulling stopped.
“…I was only joking around a little — it wasn’t supposed to be—”
Her nose was running now.
The slip had been dragged along the floor until all its careful knots had come completely undone.
“Why are you — like you’ve gone completely mad — I was only—”
Tears and snot came together and produced the most undignified sounds. Then his hands withdrew completely.
“…Come out, for now.”
The edge had gone from Kael’s voice. The sharpness had drained away, and something slightly bewildered had replaced it.
She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. Wiped her eyes as well.
The tears kept coming for no useful reason. She sniffled miserably and edged her way out.
She poked just her head out from beneath the bed and looked up.
Kael was standing still in front of it. Even his stillness had a dangerous quality.
“Why are you looking at me like that… it’s frightening… sniff…”
He had been listening in silence. Now he bent one knee and lowered himself to her level.
She startled and reflexively scooted backward.
He extended his hand.
She watched it from under the bed the way a mole watches something from the dark. He moved it gently back and forth.
“Take it and come out.”
It was a command, but by Kael’s standard, a soft one. She placed her hand cautiously over his.
“Come out carefully. You’ll hit your head.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She tried to answer and produced a completely blocked, nasal sound instead.
She took his hand and crawled slowly free.
Her legs were trembling. She patted the slip back into place where it had ridden up.
The tears were still coming on their own, involuntarily. At least she wasn’t drooling. She rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Why were you like that… did I trigger some kind of hunting instinct… sniff…”
“I just — you kept running—”
Kael let his voice trail off. He had never done that before, not once.
“I’m sorry.”
He pulled her close — firmly, but gently. Her body was still trembling, the sobs not quite done.
“I didn’t realize you’d be that frightened. I’m sorry, Ivelina.”
He held her against him and began to pat her back, slowly and lightly.
“I didn’t plan on going that far either — but you came at me so suddenly and it startled me—”
She mumbled into his chest.
He settled her more securely in his arms and sat on the edge of the bed. She ended up on his lap naturally, without quite planning it.
The change in position brought her hands to the back of his neck, and she pressed her face into his shoulder and kept murmuring.
Kael wrapped both hands around her waist. Then he tilted his head to meet her eyes.
“That frightened you, really?”
“…Yes, it did. You kept trying to grab my ankle while I was crawling away — you kept pulling—”
“I was wrong. So stop crying, all right?”
She had no energy left to answer and only nodded.
“You’ll forgive me?”
Another nod. Kael ran his hand slowly down her back. Then he pressed a light, soothing kiss to her shoulder.
“You frighten so easily. What are we going to do with you.”
“……”
“Should I just not do anything?”
‘Nod, nod.’ She nodded firmly and emphatically.
“Pfft.”
The face he had been pressing into her shoulder dissolved into laughter again.
“…Why are you laughing?”
Kael rolled her gently sideways and laid her down, and she found herself under him again in an instant.
She turned her head to the side rather than meet his eyes head-on.
“I asked why you’re laughing. I don’t find any of this funny.”
Her voice came out sharper than she intended, but she was genuinely sulking and couldn’t help it.
At which point Kael pressed his thumb and forefinger into her cheek.
Not a light poke. A slow, deliberate ‘squish.’
“‘Hmph’, honestly—”
She turned her head away in protest. He responded to her lips, pushed out from the pressure, by kissing them lightly.
“Because you’re adorable.”
‘Is this really the time for that?’
She hit his arm with her fist. Several times. He still did not release her cheek.
He kissed her again, still holding her face that way. This time a little longer, a little more intent.
“I’ll behave tonight. I’ll be more careful from now on.”
Another small kiss.
‘When someone apologizes that sincerely, you can’t very well refuse to forgive them.’
She was still irritated with him, but she nodded anyway.
‘But are you planning to let go of my cheek at some point?’
She tapped the hand still pressing her cheek with one finger.
He released it.
She moved her mouth experimentally and gave him a pointed look.
Kael exhaled something almost like a sigh.
“I really am a bastard.”
“…Where did that come from.”
Kael pressed his face into the curve of her neck and kissed her there, slowly, as though in apology.
“Making you cry on our wedding night.”
He moved upward along her throat and pressed his lips to the point of her chin.
“And wanting to keep going even then.”
One last kiss, soft against the corner of her eye.
“I’m a bastard.”
* * *
