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Cleao blushes as the man across from her gives her another compliment. She hadn’t really meant to get so caught up in his obvious interest in her but after another disagreement with Orphen she had decided to do what she wanted, that sorcerer and his apprentice be damned. Focusing again on the man in front of her she took a moment to take in his appearance as he continued to tell her an amusing story about himself and his friends.
His hair was brown. A nice brown and it looked healthy too. His teeth were all still there and remarkably white for someone who worked and lived in such a small area. He obviously practiced good hygiene and looked after himself. His eyes were a soft blue with green flecks in them which danced as he became more and more enthralled in his story. His lips looked soft and not cracked as she would have expected from a farmer. His skin was tan from the sun and all of these individual features put together produced quite an attractive man. An attractive man who was interested in her. He was smiling at her and she returned the gesture. He was so sweet and nice and wanted to get to know her why shouldn’t she take a moment to enjoy the attention?
His hand on hers pulls her from her quiet moment of observation.
“Would you like to dance Cleao?”
Her smile widens a fraction as she sees the nerves in his eyes. “I would love to.”
His grin is instantaneous as he stands and offers her his hand properly. She takes it without hesitation and lets him lead her to the small dance floor. He starts the dance holding her at a respectable distance and immediately she wonders why such a sweet young man is still not married. He twirls her and dips her as they move across the floor and she finds herself wondering when she last had this much fun that didn’t involve battles and injuries.
The single thought reminds her why she is being twirled in the first place and why Shinji just doesn’t quite cut it. Why his eyes look wrong. Why his hair isn’t dark enough. Why she doesn’t feel even the slightest bit attracted to him. The man in front of her isn’t him.
She ignores the sinking feeling in her stomach and decides to enjoy herself before she goes back to her little group. The longer the night goes on the more tired and vague she feels. Immediately she puts it down to not finishing her dinner then having a few drinks. The dancing can’t be helping so she suggests some fresh air. Her companion agrees and helps guide her out of the small establishment into the cool night air. Dimly she notices that Majic and Orphen seem to have gone back to their rooms for the night and a part of her feels sad that they didn’t even stay to make sure she was safe. Of course she has her trusted little pup but Lucky had stayed in the room when they came down for dinner.
When the night air hit her she felt almost reenergized. Unfortunately it did nothing for the increasing fogginess in her head. Alarm bells start ringing in her head but they feel so far away as she sways slightly on her feet. Her date steadies her and looks down at her with fake concern. It’s then that she sees it, the hidden amusement and glee at having her essentially defenseless and alone with him.
She had played straight into his trap. All of a sudden she no longer feels safe. Rather, she feels quite foolish. She’s intoxicated, defenseless and alone with him on the street. The music inside would drown out any screams and Orphen and Majic are nowhere in sight. She’s in trouble and she knows it.
Shinji chuckles at her wide eyed and fear filled look. “Ah, there it is. The sudden realization that no one will save you.”
It’s at this moment that she realizes why he’s on his own and a small part of her brain complains that of course she’s managed to get targeted by a serial killer. The other part of her curses the others for leaving her alone. Really, shouldn’t they know by now that she shouldn’t be left alone.
She takes a second to try to calm herself down and think instead of panic. She looks around for anyone out and about but the street is deserted. The lights upstairs are all off and she’s not even sure she could correctly guess which one belonged to Orphen or Majic any way. She has no weapon and no Lucky. Her chances are looking pretty grim especially when her would be killer grabs her arm and tries to shove her into moving down the street. She tries to resist but it feels like her limbs are made of lead and her brain is so foggy. Her thoughts are fuzzy and she knows that if she doesn’t fight back now she won’t get the chance.
Anger surfaces quickly at the realization that some creep in a tiny town no one’s heard of is going to be the one to kill her. Even worse will Orphen and Majic even know she’s been killed? Or would they assume she’s just fed up with them and gone home? Her blood begins to boil at the idea of being missing for who know’s how long if they think she’s gone home and her family thinks she’s still travelling.
“I will not be a forgotten corpse in this backwater village.” She growls as she yanks her arm back. Absently she notices the sting of a bruise forming from his grip and curses another mark on her skin. “I am not dying tonight.”
“Oh yes you are.” He sneers at her.
Her eyes narrow as she takes a step back and tries to keep her eye sight clear. “You have no idea who you’re messing with. Those guys I was with won’t give up until they find me, or worse, find you.”
Shinji’s face hardens and she knows she pressed a button, mentioning her friends has reminded him that time is short and he needs to get her out of here now before he’s found with her.
“Enough games!” he hisses as he lungs for her.
She stumbles back and loses her footing. Her backside hits the hard street and in the back of her mind she thinks that’s going to suck in the morning if she survives this. As he looms over her Cleao’s blood freezes and tears well in her eyes. This is it, her luck has officially run out. As the first tear breaks free she hopes that the boys will look after Lucky for her.
Before Shinji can make contact with her she hears a familiar voice.
“Breath of an angel, that I let flow.”
Shinji is lifted off the ground and immediately goes pale. Her savior waves a hand and throws him into the wall with enough force to knock him out. Her vision is quickly graying as she watches Orphen crouch down and bind Shinji’s hands together. He murmurs something, or she thinks he does because she can’t hear what he said, and somewhere to her right someone runs off. He’s in front of her then, crouching down to get a good look at her.
He’s frowning and saying something but she can’t understand it. Another tear gets past her lower lid and falls. Her brows furrow and she mumbles to him as she feels herself fall sideways. The last thing she sees is Orphen’s expression turn to something comically worried and before everything goes dark she wonders why he looks so scared.
When she passes out Orphen panics. He thought she was just in shock but she’s not responding to him properly and when she mumbles something to him and falls sideways he quickly pulls her into his arms.
“Cleao! Hey wake up!” he quickly checks her over for injuries before checking her pulse and breathing.
Cursing he realizes she’s been drugged. Majic is arriving with the local authority and he quickly barks his account to the man as he walks towards the door to the inn.
It was pure luck he’d even been there to save her. He had gone to bed not long after their argument when she started talking to the guy currently on the ground. He didn’t like seeing her with another man, especially when she seemed to actually be paying attention to the guy. So he’d finished his food and drink then grumpily told Majic he was going to bed. His apprentice had looked at Cleao for a moment then at him before saying good night.
It wasn’t long after that he heard Majic come up the stairs and realized he must have left Cleao downstairs. He lay there for some time expecting her to stumble into his room and climb into bed as she often did when she had a little too much to drink and got lost on her way to her room but as the minutes ticked on he had gotten more and more irritated. She should have been back and if she was up all night partying then they would all suffer with her whining in the morning. Eventually his patience ran out and he went downstairs ready to have it out with her and send her to bed.
It was to his surprise that she wasn’t even inside the inn any more. When he had asked the barmaid she had told him that Cleao had left a little unsteadily with the guy she’d been talking to. Immediately Orphen became concerned. Cleao never left with anyone apart from him or Majic. She would never soil her reputation that way. Instantly he went after her and it was a damn good thing he had. She’d been on the fast track to being a missing person or worse when he’d gotten there, just in time.
Shaking his head he proceeded up the stairs to their rooms and took her straight into his, placing her on the bed. He noted absently that Majic had followed him when he had basically run off with Cleao unconscious in his arms.
“Master? What’s wrong? Is Cleao okay?”
Orphen kept checking her for other injuries as he responded. “She’s been drugged.”
“Will she-“
“She’ll be fine. She just needs to sleep off the affects. I’m just checking her for other injuries.”
“Looks like you got there just in time. It’s a good thing you came to get her.”
His brain took that moment to register the surprised mumbling before she had passed out.
“You came.”
His expression softened as he gently pushed her hair out of her face. “Stupid girl, of course I came.”
“Uh, Master?”
“Go back to bed Majic, I’ll watch over her.”
“If you’re sure?”
“Just go to bed before I change my mind.”
“Uh right.” Majic left the room with a soft click of the door leaving him alone with Cleao.
He pulled the chair in the room up to the bed so he could monitor her more closely and settled in for a long night. He watched her breathing to pass the time. Each breath steadying and grounding him, stopping him from tracking down the sorry excuse for a human being and wiping him off the Earth for good. Cleao’s stable condition the only thing keeping him in the room, her breathing keeping him calm.
She woke sometime before dawn. Groggy, out of place and panicking. He jumped up and steadied her as she started thrashing.
“Cleao! Hey, it’s me. You’re safe.” Her body slackened at his words and her eyes darted around the room before settling on him.
“Orphen?”
“It’s okay, he’s gone. The authorities have him now.”
She blinked twice before she seemed to understand what he said and relaxed back into the bed. Eyes welling with tears she turned her head to the window. “He-“
“I know.” He took a breath squeezing his hands into fists. “I should have killed him.”
She turned her head to look at him then. “No, you did the right thing. I’m glad you came. For a minute I thought you wouldn’t and then you’d think I was fed up and going back home. That you wouldn’t realize until it was much too late and I’d just be a pile of bones in a shallow grave.”
His hands loosened at the expression on her face and for a moment he didn’t know what to say. For a moment it was silent.
“Never would have happened.” She turned to him with surprise as he elaborated. “You would never leave Lucky behind for one and you wouldn’t just disappear in the middle of the night. You’d wait till morning, yell at me some more then storm off.” she looked away with such a sad expression and he felt guilt dig into his heart. “Cleao, I will always come after you.”
Her head snapped back in his direction and her eyes met his. For a moment he thought she might cry but she didn’t. Instead she turned onto her side and told him to sit. When he lowered himself into the chair she hummed and reached out taking his hand. By the time he had registered her holding his hand she was fast asleep again.
Over the next couple of weeks things became weird between them. Orphen seemed on edge and Cleao seemed to be unable to remember more of the finer details of what happened. She definitely didn’t remember their conversation during the night either. Unsure of how to process his reaction to her and her vulnerability Orphen felt like his world had been knocked off of its axis. Of course he knew about his feelings for their resident brat. He’d come to peace with them and decided to ignore them long ago. Her vulnerability was something else though. It left him feeling like he’d done something wrong by her. Especially if she was questioning him coming to her aid. It was the one silent thing between them. She had never ending faith that he would come for her and he did, always. For her to think he wouldn’t notice her missing let alone go looking for her said something about her current feelings for him.
Almost a month after the incident they were camping in a small clearing. The fire was warm and the sound of flowing water assured them that a creek was nearby for clean drinking water and a place to bathe. He was sitting on a small rock playing with a blade of grass when he felt her approach him. She was hesitant but determined. She must have something on her mind if she was approaching him even though she was second guessing herself. She sat next to him in silence for a moment.
“Where’s Majic?”
He looked at her in the corner of his eye before responding. “Gathering more wood for the fire.”
She nodded. “Why did you look so scared?”
He froze for a moment knowing exactly what she was referring to. “You remember.”
“Some things are still really hazy but I’m starting to remember and put the pieces together. I didn’t really register it that night but right as I started falling sideways you looked so scared, why?”
He took a moment to think before he responded. “Until that moment I didn’t realize you’d been drugged. I thought you were in shock at first. Then you started falling and you lost consciousness. I guess it caught me off guard, so I checked for injuries or injection sites but couldn’t find any. By the time Majic made it into the room you were resting and just needed to sleep it off.”
She nodded. “He told me you sat with me all night to make sure I would be okay. I woke up that night didn’t I.”
He nodded. “You told me I did the right thing letting him live.”
“You did.” She hesitated for just a second before placing her hand on his. “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”
A half smiled appeared as he remembered their talk. “Doesn’t matter.”
Her hold on him tightened briefly. “It does. I remember thinking, when he had me cornered, how stupid I had been and how that stupidity was going to get me killed. You and Majic were so close but I had no way of alerting you. Still you managed to get there just in time though I have no idea how you managed.”
He chuckled quietly. “I was annoyed with you. I knew you were downstairs drinking with that guy. I’d left Majic down there to watch you but he came up eventually when he was tired and you looked like you were having fun. I waited for you to get lost and come in to my room but you never did. I thought you were going to party all night then whine all day when we had to leave. I was going to lecture you and tell you to go to bed but when I got downstairs the barmaid said you’d left, with the guy from before. That’s when I knew you’d somehow landed yourself into more trouble.”
She was giving him her undivided attention now and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “How did you know?”
“You don’t leave bars with men Cleao. No matter how pissed you are at me you wouldn’t risk your reputation or your family’s.”
“That’s when you came after me.” He nodded. “Thank you Orphen.”
He looked at her in astonishment. “Now I’m really glad I saved your ass. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say thank you before.”
The word glad banged around in her head, shaking loose memories of that night. Suddenly her whole conversation with Orphen revealed itself, like a curtain parting and she remembered how wonderfully sweet and caring he had been.
I will always come for you.
It sounded so intimate, the way he had said it, like a confession. Like he was trying to tell her something. She looked at him for a moment at his slightly cocky smile. It was starting to shift though, his lips were turning down towards a frown. He was becoming concerned. Before she could talk herself out of it she leant forward and placed a peck on his lips.
His eyes widened and the tension fell from his face. After a moment his brain kicked back into gear and he finally spoke. “Cleao, what was that for?”
Thinking he didn’t feel the same she tried to pull back. “Nothing, it was nothing.”
His grip tightened on her, keeping her in place. She looked side to side trying to find an escape, not noticing the way he was looking at her, full of affection.
“I should go help Majic.”
“Cleao. No more running off with random guys.” Unable to speak she simply nodded. “Good, you don’t need them. You’ve got me, got it?” he murmured.
Her eyes lit up as a pretty blush settled over her face. One of his hands lifted and his thumb brushed across her cheek.
She’d never heard him use such a soft tone before, never imagined he would be looking at her like she was something so incredibly precious. He leant forward slowly and Cleao found her eye lids lowering as she too leant forward. They met in the middle and Cleao’s world exploded into a thousand pieces. When he pulled away he touched his forehead to hers.
“ Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Pleased with her immediate answer he leant in again to get as many kisses as she would allow before Majic returned.