“Don’t turn it off!” she hissed venomously. He stopped in his tracks, and turned the lamp up higher as his fingers were already on the switch.
He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t need to be any more certain that she was afraid of something.
“I like it on,” she said far more lightly, blushing.
“Can you sleep with it on?” he asked her.
“No,” she admitted. “But it makes things more… tolerable. Doesn’t the noises outside scare you?” She motioned outside when they both heard a crunching sound.
“Oooh,” he finally said, finally understanding. He imagined that those sounds would take some getting used to by someone more used to hearing highway noises or murmurings of the neighbors in the next door apartment. “No, but I grew up here,” he admitted. “I know what causes the sounds.”
“Which are?”
“Demons and monsters strolling about, feeding.” He shrugged.
Her eyes rounded with horror.
“Charlotte—there are so many protective talismans on the tower and the gardens that nothing can harm you.” She looked less than relaxed, still. He realized that most children have a problem imagining monsters in their closet, but it was a little harder to bring comfort when those monsters actually existed less than a kilometer away from their window. Probably nearly getting killed by one of them also brought her fears into rationality.
He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “You’re not going to sleep again, are you?”
She shook her head apologetically.
He sighed and picked up her book and put it on her bedside table. “Scoot over,” he ordered, pointing towards the other side of the bed. “I sleep on the right.”
“You can’t sleep with me,” Charlotte said. It was lip service, however. She was already scooting over. “You can’t even be trusted.”
“You’re not exactly my type,” he replied crisply, getting in between the covers.
“Your type’s warm-blooded!” she inferred.
“Charlotte, I promise not to ravish you during the night. You obviously need company, and I don’t have a puppy on hand. Now you don’t have to worry about getting eaten or killed during the night. Problem solved.” Though the argument was lame in the water, she snuggled close up to him. “Just don’t tell Ashcroft about this,” he groaned reaching up to turn off the light. “Or anybody else. In fact, don’t even think about this too loudly.”
They listened to the sounds, and he identified the noises until she informed him that it wasn’t helping. “Charlotte—you’re practically on top of me, here,” he complained, realizing that his chest was being used like a pillow. He also realized that in his eight-hundred years, he had never let a girl sleep the night on him.
She didn’t respond. She had finally fallen asleep.
“This isn’t a good habit,” he realized aloud, feeling his own lids drape heavily over his eyes.
Mmm. A warm body. Soft skin… Cinnamon… Vanilla… Moriarty breathed in deeply. I think I finally see the appeal in this. It sort of brings a soothing sort of connection to—
Wait—no! This is Charlotte! Bad, bad, bad! What if Ashcroft—
Moriarty’s eyes popped open at first light and he heard the thundering of a large horse’s hooves loom near. He looked down and saw Charlotte still pinned against his chest in deep sleep, but didn’t waste a second before jumping out of the bed and rousing her.
She grunted angrily as she woke up. “What’s wrong?”
Moriarty was looking out over the balcony, and then ran towards the door. “The master’s back,” he told her, quickly walking out of the room even as she let her head wearily rest back against the pillow.
Moriarty dressed with nervous hands. In the light of day, what had transpired over the night made him nervous. What was he thinking? Ashcroft was never going to allow Moriarty to sleep with Charlotte. And he had good reason—because history has proved time and again that Moriarty couldn’t be trusted in close proximity to women. There were no innocent friendships with the other sex, were there? At least there hadn’t been in the past.
Unless he was actually beginning to get more friendly; and he didn’t want to be friendly. He was a Huxian—he was supposed to live by excitement and pleasure, not by connections to others. He liked to think the only reason he worked under Ashcroft is because it normally led to adventure and riches. Besides—if he was going to start becoming friendly, as innocent as the notion seemed to be—it wasn’t best to start with the object of his master’s affections.
No, he and Charlotte were going to have to resume hating each other. He couldn’t be burdened with Ashcroft’s jealousy or paranoia.
He hoped he had time to explain all this to Charlotte before Ashcroft came up the main stairs. Moriarty opened his door and actually gasped—a gesture that he hadn’t done in some centuries—when he bumped into Ashcroft, who was in the process of raising his hand to knock on the door.
“Jesus, Moriarty!” Ashcroft said, sounding just as startled as Moriarty. “You nearly gave me a bad heart!”
Moriarty looked down and found his hand covering his own heart, as if that would still its beating. He dropped his hand. If he was trying to bury a body, he would have dropped his shovel. “Sorry,” he replied. “Didn’t… Um. See you, obviously. Back so soon?”
“I’m two days late, actually,” Ashcroft said, narrowing his eyebrows.
“Right, right,” Moriarty grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Your… tie is undone,” Ashcroft mentioned, almost in awe. His eyes instantly darkened with suspicion. “What did you do?”
Moriarty’s cheeks blanched of all color. “What do you mean? Nothing. I’ve done absolutely nothing. I’m fine, I…” he quickly denied, flabbergasted.
“Ashcroft!” said a voice behind them. It was Charlotte, coming to the rescue as a distraction. She was in her nightgown and bare feet, but she looked actually happy to see the man. She even wrapped her arms around him, which seemed to frighten Ashcroft. The man didn’t seem to know what to do with his own arms and hands. “You’re late! I thought something horrible and cliché had happened to you!”
“Did you?” Ashcroft asked, and Moriarty could see that the man actually blushed. “Well… I… Cliché?” he asked.
“You know,” Charlotte said, pulling away from him and waving her wrist around. “Eaten by a dragon or something ridiculous. I was getting worried, actually.”
“Really?”
She shrugged. “Well, yes. I mean, we don’t mesh well, but that doesn’t mean I want something to happen to you.” She reached over, and without another word, started to tie Moriarty’s tie for him, getting up on her tiptoes to do it. “I mean, I would have read that crazy-boring book for nothing, for starters. That’s a horrifying prospect.” She patted Moriarty’s tie, turned towards Ashcroft to grin at him, but then turned back and tugged at Moriarty’s tie again. “Sorry—you like tie dimples. Almost forgot. You’re picky.”
Ashcroft looked her up and down, seeming little shell-shocked by his expression. “You… did your assignment? Really?” He raised a dubious eyebrow. “Who are you and what have you done with Charlotte?” and he meant it, too. Stranger things have happened in the Otherworld.
She put her hands on her hips and returned the dubious look. “I can read, you know. Why is it so surprising? Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
Ashcroft swallowed. “Well, no. I—”
“Were you looking forward to beating me?”
His brows narrowed defensively. “No, but—”
“Then quit your bitching, Ashcroft. I don’t need to be ragged on yet. I haven’t even had my coffee.” She looked at Moriarty, and then down at his vest. “You got red on you.”
Moriarty looked down, and she playfully flicked his nose. She walked away giggling, “Oldest trick in the book…”
Moriarty put his hand over his eyes until he heard Charlotte’s door close. When he looked a
t Ashcroft, the accusing look he expected to be on Ashcroft’s face was. “Nothing happened,” he quickly defended. “We just holed up in my room—played chess and watched movies. That’s all.”
Ashcroft’s expression only got darker. “Why was she in your room?”
“I… I was injured saving her life? Remember?” he stepped backwards. “And she was trying to be not useless.” Still, Ashcroft’s expression could heat metal. “Look, there’s no claim on her, anyway. You said so yourself that you didn’t want her in that way.”
Wrong thing to say. Moriarty even winced as he said it—it came out horribly. He watched Ashcroft close the door ominously behind him. “Nothing happened!” Moriarty assured, beginning to pant.
Moriarty had fought many battles alongside of Ashcroft over the centuries, but never against him. Moriarty didn’t think he’d fair well—Ashcroft was as good at wielding the sword as he was with wielding magic. “We didn’t even hold hands. I don’t like her in that way! She’s not my type.”
“Warm blooded is your type,” Ashcroft growled, his word almost Charlotte’s word-from-word, taking a step forward for every step Moriarty took backwards until Moriarty was pressing his body against the far wall. Ashcroft’s thick finger poked up against his chest threateningly. “If it comes to my knowledge that you took her—if you even cause me to rouse suspicion — I swear by God and Sunny Heaven that I will horsewhip you and toss you out of this house, be damned your years of service. Am I perfectly clear?”
Moriarty gulped and nodded. “Yes, Master. Of course,” he wheezed.
Ashcroft finally stepped back and combed his fingers through his short brown hair. “Damn it all. I’m sorry if I’m paranoid, Moriarty. But I haven’t been sleeping at night thinking about it—leaving her all alone in this place with a few sniveling servants and you—no offense. But you know how you are. I nearly got charred by a dragon yesterday because of it.” He showed Moriarty his coat, which had a burned-away hem. “And they’re not a challenge regularly. But my head’s not where it should be.
“And I need to get my head on straight. There is a chance that the dragons are coming through the Western Gate. They certainly were not from the South Realm…”
Moriarty cleared his throat, trying not to seem shaken from his encounter with Ashcroft. He had to digest what Ashcroft was telling him, although normally it wouldn’t have taken him more than a blink of time to remember which wizard was most prominent around the Western Gate. “Do you think Lachlan sent them?” He watched Ashcroft give him a wary eye, admitting the affirmative. “Damn. I hate dealing with him. He doesn’t have the common decency to die.”
Ashcroft agreed with a hum. “Well, good of us to keep our eyes open. When he stirs up trouble, he stirs up a lot of it. And he still has not completely alienated himself from the Wizard’s Circle, to my disdain... I cannot just go hunt him down and kill him, yet.” He turned around to the door, and then spun back, his eyebrow cocked. “So you did nothing with her?”
“No,” Moriarty promised. “And I promise you that I never will. Although—Master,” he said breezily, “I tell you—one trip to Earthside, just one, will relieve you of your ailment of her.”
“I have no ailment,” Ashcroft denied firmly.
“You lust for her, come now. You can’t tell me that you don’t,” Moriarty replied simply. “You were neigh close to throwing me out the window just now for taking something you’ve obviously claimed as your own.”
“Do not do anything with her,” Ashcroft repeated, his voice somewhere between threatening and a plea. “Nothing. She IS my own. She’s my ward—she’s under my protection.”
Moriarty pursed his lips, looking like he wanted to argue, but was thinking better of it. “I’m not arguing with your rule, Master,” he assured. “I just think you wouldn’t be quite so… Brassy as you’ve been if you simply let me find some nice trollop for you to tup. Just to get it out of your system, as it were…”
“Completely unnecessary. There is nothing in my system that needs extracting,” Ashcroft assured, and stomped out of the room.
“Okay, then. I’ll just get threatened for the rest of my tenure…” Moriarty muttered to himself, crunching his hands into his pockets. “She’s not good for our health, for certain,” he said, plying his back away from the wall, and kicking at the floor like he was kicking dust from his boot.”Mine especially.”
* * *
Three weeks. Charlotte had now been there for three whole weeks. She pulled her shawl closer to her body and she looked up ruefully towards Ashcroft’s study’s window. And she knew three things for sure:
Firstly, she could only sleep about three hours a night before waking up to screaming and crunching, which she was never going to get used to.
Secondly, Ashcroft did not issue idle threats. She felt like she was constantly covering her bottom with her hands, afraid of an attack, especially when she was ‘talking over him’. It was hard to change—she talked over everybody.
Lastly, Ashcroft Medwin was positively gorgeous when he was angry. And he was angry with her as often as she was angry with him—which was all the time.
She was angry at everyone, and she knew it was because of ‘the sleep issue’. One that she knew Moriarty could resolve if he’d just let her sleep with him. But he hadn’t since that night before Ashcroft came home; he was very angry with her for trying to sneak into his bedroom one night, moving quietly and settling slowly into his bed to sleep next to him. He threw her out of his room by her ear, not even letting her beg.
And what was her other options? To snuggle in with Ashcroft? Unlikely. He’d probably be just as angry with her, too. Moriarty was absolutely wrong; that man did not like her one iota. He tolerated her at best.
Although there had definitely been moments of tenderness, where she and Ashcroft had actually gotten on famously since he’d returned from the Southern Realm. Never during the daytime when he was trying to teach, of course. She still couldn’t stand being told what to do.
Yet one of her favorite parts of the day was their after-supper ritual where they’d sit in front of the fire. Moriarty would smoke his cigars, Ashcroft would read his books; both of the men sitting on chairs. And she would sit on the floor on a cushion, her back against Ashcroft’s boots as if she was his leg warmer, playing a hand-held Nintendo game or reading a romance novel.
And they would have the best conversations—especially since Moriarty and Ashcroft had such a tightly knit history that their story telling was hilarious; every time one would try to boast about something they did during a battle or amidst an adventure, the other would interrupt, “My ass. You didn’t say that at all! You looked like you were nigh about to piss yourself when they attacked,” or “You only tried that because you were drunk,” even, “No. No, that never happened, you lying bastard.” She would sometimes giggle herself to exhaustion, but she would still pull herself to bed, wake up at the first howl coming from outside, and then stare bleary-eyed and trembling at the shadow-covered ceiling for the rest of the night.
She knew that she couldn’t sleep without feeling that she was protected, and she simply didn’t feel that way. Not just because of the noise, but because of the way the small hairs on her neck stood up on end as soon as the light went off, leaving her alone in the Otherworldly darkness, feeling like something was coming her way. The night Moriarty had slept with her, she had slept a whole seven hours straight, and they felt like the best seven hours of her life. She felt like she could bounce off the walls with energy the next morning.
Now she felt sluggish and surly, ready to snap at anybody and everything that even looked at her wrong. She had to perform a small spell on her eyes to keep back the bruises that she’d climb out of bed with, or the redness covering the white of her eyes; both markers that she had failed to sleep the night through. But she couldn’t allow Ashcroft to know—she couldn’t help being embarrassed over her fears; she felt like she was a child who needed to sleep with the light on, and
knew that if he’d found out, he’d simply treat her even more so. And she so wanted him to view her more as a peer than as his ward...
But her weariness was probably why she nearly threw a tantrum when Ashcroft grabbed her arm tightly in the middle of studies, stomped downstairs with her, and sent her outside with a rake to do lawn work, telling her to work off her horrid attitude.
Of course it got her in an even more ‘horrid’ mood—especially when the trees tried in avertedly to ‘help her out’ by releasing the rest of the dead leaves from their branches so she wouldn’t have to come out again. It was a kind gesture that she didn’t really appreciate. But then, she was sure trees weren’t known for their smarts.
When a sudden wind blew her shawl out of the garden, she swore and took off after it.
And then the burning started—the incessant burning by her ankle. It wasn’t just unpleasant, it was unbearable. The pain was sharp, and very real. She reached down and pulled upon the dragon crystal cuff, trying to pluck it away from her skin, but it started to burn at her fingers. She limped pathetically back into the garden, panting from the pain.
It was beginning to finally die down a little, but her skin was still tender there, and it was also tender at her fingers, which were still a bright pink color. Angry, she began to shed hot tears, pulling her knees up to her chest as she sat on the cold ground.
“Now what would a Byndian have to cry about?” a voice asked from over her head.
Her head snapped up. Right in front of her was a very tall, lean, blond man with a very handsome face with a pronounced cleft chin and very white teeth. “I—I’m not crying,” she denied, rubbing the tears off her face. “Who are you?” she demanded hotly, and sniffled.
“A wizard.”
She was unsurprised by this. He looked like a wizard—something in the way he pulled back his shoulders like he fancied himself incredibly important, or maybe something about the wear on his dragon-skin boots. “Welcome to the club. Ashcroft’s that-a-way. Have at. See if you can get him out of my hair.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the tower.
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