34: Maskless confrontations

Maskless confrontations

With a man his size, Adela would have thought it impossible. But the feather-like pressure his gloved hand applied as it held hers did not pressure the tip of the arrow deeper inside her neck. 1

"Let go of that arrow right away,"

His beseeching tone was husky and alien with a gut-wrenching aftereffect on her. She found herself on the verge of freefalling, his dark eyes that quivered were back to pulling her into that bottomless pit. 

Adela's disobeying fingers grabbed the tip tighter in response, blood gushed out as the sharp edges cut through them. Acting as an accomplice to her crime, the rain took a tint of pink as it kept on mixing with her blood, diluting the red liquid and sliding down the wooden part of Egon's arrow.

Appalled beyond his limits, Egon let go of her hand only to shrug off his bow and arrows then grabbed her by the wrist of her bleeding hand, she felt him increasing the pressure to the degree that she struggled to keep her grip on his arrow.

Battling the brutal force that she knew he reluctantly used on her was easier than battling two confrontational black eyes, they carried fear for her safety, a world of disdain, and what appeared to be an equal amount of passion.

She had never been more terrified of him as much as she was at that moment.

"Let go damn it!"

It was her decision to listen to him having sufficiently communicated her idea, her fingers loosened from around the tip of the arrow that painfully slid down and then fell on the ground.

Beyond her wildest imagination, Egon pulled her by her injured hand into his embrace.

At first, he nestled his head on the hollow of her neck, but he lifted it soon after with a sniffle and pressed the side of his cheek against hers.

Touching him, being engulfed by him, feeling and hearing his insanely fast beating heart close to her chest as if it belonged to her body... All of that was just what her tired soul needed.

It was almost impossible, but she managed not to wrap her arms around him.

"If only we could stay like this. If only we could stop the clock right now," 

It was beyond her control, the way she closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against his, her ear eager to hear more of his soft-spoken words that traveled straight to her fluttering heart.

Adela wanted to tell him that they could stop time in a sense, that she would do everything she could to make sure he got over all the pain he lived through in his past.

"But we cannot…" he breathed out so close to her ear, his cold words and the temptation of their proximity sending opposite shivers up and down her spine.

With the utmost difficulty, she forced her body to marginally pull away from his, he did not allow her to go far though, securing his grip on her wrist with his gloved hand.

They exchanged a long look, miserable black eyes to shimmering green ones, his switched into longing as they focused on her wet lips but became fierce once again when they finally landed on the wound on her neck.

She cared not for fierce right now.

"…Do you regret stopping me?"

Ignoring her foolish question, he momentarily let go of her hand to reach over his head and grab his shirt from the back, he yanked it off and looked down at her reaction.

She held her breath seeing the large scars at very close range and firmly held herself from touching them, then she marveled at how beautiful his skin looked wet with rain under the silver moonlight.

Egon shredded the shirt with excessive ease, his talented moves belonging to much smaller hands. He bandaged her neck first then her injured hand followed, securing the end of both the bandages.

"Have you done this before?" She asked.

"I have seen you doing it," 

She blushed remembering that scene, and they stared into each other's eyes again.

"I don't wish harm upon you, I do not wish to part ways with you," came his sincere declaration.

Adela's eyelids slid down swiftly, an idiotic attempt of putting unreal space between them. She could not deny what his words did to her heart — she had thoroughly fallen for her father's greatest enemy. 

Her eyes snapped open after that thought sank in, she pushed herself away from him with her good hand.

"Then leave us alone! Go back where you came from and never show me your face again!" was the order of a flushed Adela who turned her head away from him and then ran a very short distance before a dark figure stopped her in her tracks.

"…Father?"

The lightning that broke out in Lanark's sky uncovered the Archduke's face, his eyes were on Adela, an unfathomable emotion veiling them.

"I am listening," came Egon's call, as glorious as the thundering sky.

Kaiser unwillingly peeled his eyes off of his daughter's tortured face.

"I remember you..."

"Is that so?"

"Yes...I remember that you lived in one of the three cottages by the eastern entrance to the forest,"

"The one on the left, closest to the eastern entrance," Egon corrected.

Adela gasped as she looked over her shoulder, then shuddered to see the hate on Egon's face as he glowered at her father.

"That is right," Kaiser accepted. "My recollection is not perfect, and neither am I," 

"Understandable, it matters little to the you who was so keen on tearing down the three huts before I owned them... But to me, those wretched piles of wood were the first thing I came back to… Seeing how the people inside were still treated like bugs, I realized how little things change when people in charge of things remain the same,"

Adela shook her head, her eyes darted between the two men fearing the worst now.

"Treason… Is an accusation that a respectful merchant such as yourself would want to steer clear of," the Archduke threatened.

"How about using a noble lady as a pawn? is that not something noblemen should avoid as well?"

Kaiser's grip shook clutching the hilt of Extremizer, the sword he never wears at this hour, "The King is naturally protective of his niece!"

Egon's dark eyes iced, "Does his protectiveness entitle him to negotiate over her?"

Kaiser scoffed, "That is rich coming from the commoner who is trying to enslave her!"

Adela's head throbbed, she was the center of the conversation, but none of what they were saying made sense to her.

"Enslave, you say... What about sending her armed with that ring then?"

Kaiser launched himself at Egon, stopping only when Adela threw herself in the middle between them.

"Father! I beg you!"

"I shall not tolerate lessons on how to protect my own daughter!"

the corners of Egon's shapely lips slightly lifted.

"Protect? With an artifact that repels mediocre monsters? How about protecting her from what is far worse than that?"

The Archduke flinched.

"You and I both know what lurks in that forest, those armed men who attacked her are no shapeshifters, they are your kind," he spat the last two words out. 

"Father!"

Adela exclaimed forgetting her wounds and grabbing the Archduke's arm with both of her hands. Alas, Extremizer was already looming over her head, and a disaster that's been years in the making was about to take place right before her stunned eyes. 

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