Wisps Of Lockhart

•Chapter Four•

To say that Alexander had been crushed would have been an understatement. The following days were marked with vain attempts to survive the hollow void in his soul that had been caused by Odessa's wordless rejection.

Alexander became inattentive to his duties; absorbed in his own pain during important councils held with his family's associates. He could scarcely bring himself to eat, and the notion of a good night's sleep had become something of history for him, so he nodded off during such gatherings as well - earning himself earfuls of admonition from his parents.

He hadn't quite realised how bad his condition was getting until, one day, his butler worriedly pointed out how much thinner he had suddenly become. For two torturous weeks, Alexander attempted the impossible feat of pulling himself together. One day, when he had run out of work to preoccupy himself with, he braved a walk into the forest. Everything - the sights and sounds around him - hurt him to the core. He saw Odessa everywhere; in the orchids and lillies he knew she adored; he saw wraith-like phantasms of her basking in the sunlight near the streams he passed along.

And at last, despite the knowledge that he was rubbing salt into his wounds, Alexander made his way to the waterfall. He sat on the grass and filled his mind with memories of her sweet laughter, of her kind, beautiful face and her timid jade-green eyes. To his shock: the line between reality and his fantasies blurred. He'd been sat there for quite a while, and suddenly: he heard it. He heard Odessa's her sweet voice calling out to him. He turned around and, sure enough, she was there with him, as if he'd conjured her from his longing.

She looked pale, frail and even more starved of several nights of sleep than Alexander felt, but his observations were promptly forgotten a second later, because in the next moment - and so completely unexpected by him - Odessa had crossed the distance between them, leapt into his arms and brought her lips to his.

Alexander never knew that he could feel his soul leave his body, and yet feel like he was coming alive at the same time. The kiss in itself had been modest. However timid - however inexperienced - it was, though, it made Alexander's heart race so fast it almost ploughed itself through his chest.
And to his utter dismay, she broke it off merely seconds later.

"Alexander." Odessa whispered, gazing at him like he was the only thing that existed to her right then. "I...I'm in love with you too."

For a brief moment, he felt the urge to tell her that he wasn't just 'in love' with her, but that he loved her entirely (he was more than just infatuated with her), but he realised that it hardly mattered. Odessa was declaring her very much requited love for him, and Alexander was sure he had never felt happier in his entire twenty-one years of living.

He swept her into his arms and kissed her as though both of their lives depended on it; like he was a man dying of thirst and she was the first drop of water he'd tasted in a long time. Everything, be
it the scenery around them or the several days that they had spent apart, unaware that their hearts were yearning for one another at the same time, melted away at once.

As he lavished her with kisses, Odessa unraveled for him. She shivered and gasped, she sighed and moaned, and her hands sought him out, running along the hardened planes of him. Her soft moans and sighs, along with the feel of her soft curves, were driving him out of his mind. He suddenly realised that he would do more than his love had bargained for if they continued any longer.

"Odessa..." He'd gasped, as he reluctantly inched himself away from her. She looked every bit as drunk with passion as he was.

"Why did you stop?" She'd asked him, and he was stunned.

Surely she knows that things will escalate? He'd asked himself. There was an unnerving glint in her eyes, however, that told him she did not care. He told himself he must have been imagining it; Odessa was too pure to be harboring such lustrous thoughts.