His Stoic Mask, Her Bleeding Heart

Chapter 8: Necessary Cruelty

"You know," I said, letting my eyes slip shut now. The sight of her bloody, naked body would only make the craving worse. "The one about whether you really love me or not."

"That's a stupid question," she said as she slipped into the half-full tub, beginning to splash water onto the wounds that weren't yet submerged.

"How is that a stupid question?" I pushed myself off of the doorway and took a step further into the room, watching her eyes though she refused to look at me. "I thought it was a pretty good one, myself."

"Shouldn't you be following Kyrianna?" she asked, sinking lower into the rapidly reddening water of the bathtub. She still wouldn't look at me. "It's dangerous for her to be out alone."

"Do I look like I care about Kyrianna?" I snapped, finding her avoidance to be quite the annoyance. "I wouldn't have said what I did if I cared about her. I wouldn't have sent her out the door if her well-being mattered to me."

Her eyes finally met mine, and I found that their glowing depths held just the slightest hint of surprise. "Why did you take care of her while I was gone, then?"

"I didn't really take care of her," I answered calmly, allowing my anger to cool. We would get back to the original topic eventually, once she was out of subjects with which to dance around it. "Hale did most of it. And what little help I did offer her, I offered because of you, because you cared for her, not because I did."

"Oh, well, thank you," she said softly, allowing her gaze to drift back to the bloody bath water. It had reached a suitable depth, it seemed, and she turned the tap once more to stop the flow of liquid. The scent of blood was stronger now, rising from the water like candy-scented steam. I wanted to take a step away from the tub, to head back into the living room, far away from the scent, but instead, I moved closer.

"Why can you talk about your feelings for Kyrianna, but not about your feelings for me?" I asked quietly after a brief pause. She began to scrub particularly hard at one of the gashes along her arm, once again refusing to look at me, and I knelt beside the bathtub, not caring that I would likely end up soaking wet by the end of this ordeal. "Elyria," I said more sternly, yet still softly, as I took hold of her wrist.

She winced beneath even that light pressure, but none of that pain showed in her tone as she asked, more aggravated than anything, "What?"

"Answer me," I told her gently, gazing intently upon her face while maintaining the gentle hold I had upon her wrist. I felt the sweet stickiness of blood upon my fingertips, but I did my best to ignore the emptiness that stirred within me yet again, begging for my attention.

"It's obvious," she said, now leveling a glare upon me in return for my prying. "What I feel for you is obvious. What I feel for Kyrianna is a mystery. My feelings for her are developing, and I know how she feels toward me; my feelings for you are concrete and have been for months, but I have no idea how you feel."

"What do you feel for me, then?" I asked, my expression and tone remaining soft, gentle, even in spite of the anger she was displaying toward me. I loosened my hold on her wrist to allow her to slip free, to turn away and escape if she so desired, but she didn't move.

"You're an idiot," she muttered after a moment, finally pulling her arm free. "We don't need to be talking about this. You should be looking for Kyrianna."

My arm fell to rest dejectedly on the edge of the tub. "I already told you that I don't care about her," I said calmly, but the mere mention of the girl had me wanting to grind my teeth.

"You just spent months taking care of her," she said, and when I opened my mouth to protest, she added, "It may have been for my sake, but still, you took care of her. Why would you let all of that go to waste now?"