Blasius, Menas, Silva, and I sat in the living room of the blacksmith's house far past midnight. I was beyond tired at this point, but I couldn't sleep yet.
Weeks went by of intense training with no hiccups. But of course, after some time, we ran into a problem. The blacksmith's family had confided in my parents that they had also started receiving threatening letters, as I had. They were signed off by an 'Unknown,' just as mine had been.
With all that had been going on, the four of us felt more empowered with everyone behind us, so we conjured a plan. Once and for all, we would figure out who had been sending the letters and why. We had been in the blacksmith's house for two nights already, waiting for them to deliver a note, to no avail.
Around 3am, when the knock finally sounds, all four of us scramble up from where we were patiently seated. Blasius and Menas took the time to subdue the deliverer while Silva and I prepared a chair and some rope. After a few minutes, a human older male was sitting in front of us in the blacksmith's workshop.
Blasius had grabbed the note from the door and read it aloud. It was indeed threatening, speaking of how any form of helping the opposition was treason, and they would be executed for it.
"Who is sending these letters? Do you write them yourself?" Blasius was the first to question the man.
"I-I-I don't write them," he stuttered, "I watch as the King tells one of his servants to write it, then she closes it up and hands it off to me."
"They come directly from the King?" Blasius asked again.
"Yes. At first he wanted to threaten you guys, but when that wasn't working and he got word of the plane here, he found another target."
"How does the King know where we are and what we're doing?" Silva questioned.
The messenger flinched and as she asked, I could see a flash of fear appear within his eyes. It quickly went away though, and he redeemed himself. "T-t-the giant eye."
"The giant eye?" We all simultaneously asked.
"It's b-big and round, it watches whatever he says."
The four of us exchange confused glances. The giant eye. He couldn't be referring to a real eye. Could it be a crystal ball he was referring to? But if the King had the use of magic on his side, that would only mean that a magic-wielding race had been working against all of the rest of the non-human races. We're they promised something in return? Safety, perhaps?
I snapped out of my thoughts as Blasius asked the next question, "Why doesn't he just come get us if he has all of our information?"
"I ... don't k-kn-now."
♕♕♕
We left the man, still tied up, to sit in the blacksmith's workshop while we talked through our dilemma. If the King knew what we were doing, was there any point in continuing? He could be training his men ten times as hard as we were being trained.
"We're in danger," Menas stated.
"We always were," Blasius stood, running a hand through his hair that had grown slightly shaggy.
"But now, it's not just only us. We've put everyone from my parent's town at risk too ..."
Silva wore a perplexed expression, "There's still something I don't understand."
"Me too. Why wouldn't he just come after us if he knew all of our information?" Blasius questioned.
We all sat in silence. There was no way any of us I es the answer to that, but I knew that we all had millions of ideas running through our heads. On one hand, this could all be one big bluff coming from the man in the chair, but on the other hand, if it really was the King's doing, then we may have put so many more people in danger.
♕♕♕
That night, I was sitting in my bed. It wasn't quite time to sleep yet, but my mind couldn't stop running through the events from a few weeks ago. The bed began to feel surprisingly similar to that familiar window sill and I swear I could almost feel Blasius's sharp teeth scraping against my neck.
"Blasius?" I whispered, looking over to him on the bed across the room. "Y-you never did mark me ..."
"Is that an invitation?"
I didn't even have to answer as he already began crawling out of his bed and onto mine. He hovered over me slightly as his mouth dove for my neck. He took minimal time working up to it this time, and I was wondering if he was worried about being interrupted again.
When I finally felt his teeth sink in, it only stung a little. But as they went deeper into my flesh, it started to hurt more and more. I clenched my eyes shut and grabbed ahold of his shoulder, attempting to lessen the pain even a little.
After a few minutes, he finally withdrew from my neck, using one hand as he stroked my hair while he used his tongue on the area, cleaning up any blood.
"You okay?" He murmured from within the crook of my neck, making the hair stand up on my arms from the feeling of his breath on the sensitive area. I hummed in response.
"Good," he whispered out, moving his mouth from where he marked up to my own lips. He started working his lips on mine and I momentarily forgot about the pain on my neck.
Blasius's hands trailed his way down to my waist, pulling me down further on the bed so that now I was laying directly underneath him. For a split second, our lips detached as he adjusted his positioning, but his lips were back on mine in no time.
With one of his hands still on my waist, he used the other to snake around to my back and started unzipping my dress. I removed my lips from his and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
"Blaze ..."
"You don't want this?" He asked breathily.
"I ... I do, believe me but," I hesitated, feeling embarrassed, "it's just, I feel guilty. In my culture, this is seen as wrong. I-I-I know we're mates and all! But ..."
Blasius propped himself back up with both arms, swinging his body over mine as he sat on the edge of the bed. "It's fine, I understand."
He stood up and went to exit the room. "Wait,"
"I'm just going to cool off," he explained. Blasius disappeared from the doorway and I could hear his footsteps creaking down the stairs. Without bothering to fix the slightly opened zipper on my back, I followed after him.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, "for not doing that."
"Please," he breathed out, "don't apologize for stopping me. You've been so accepting of my culture, so I can accept this one rule of yours. I understand, completely."
I nodded, feeling slightly better about the situation, but still bad. As much as I knew this was my decision to make too, I didn't want to let him down. I bit my lip as I watched him make his way down the rest of the stairs. Before climbing back up the stairs to bed, I watched him disappear out of the front door.