Lament of the Traitor King (Complete)

Chapter 60 - Will You Let Me Be Your Man?

Someone coughed, and when Netta made to pull away, she found that she was immediately brought back to Ash's mouth, not by the suction of swollen lips, but by the needle-sharp protrusion of teeth latching around the curve of her lower lip. 

Netta gasped, swatted at his chest ineffectually, until Ash pulled away.

Ash smirked at her, the sharp teeth that he had used to clench onto her lip revealed, the bright stain of a small smear of her blood on his lower lip until Ash rolled his tongue over it. He winked at her.

Netta turned, raising a hand to her throbbing lip, feeling the little marks where Ash's sharp teeth had broken her skin. More than any sort of pain, Netta felt embarrassed by the brazen over-stepping of their roles. Her face felt like it was glowing from the heat of her embarrassment.  And, secretly, the boiling sense of lust that threatened to overwhelm her.

Lucia looked, with her arms crossed, as though she had been waiting patiently for Netta to acknowledge her. In spite of the almost polite, slight upturn of her lips, the look in the woman's eyes seemed to bely good humor, a light almost dancing freely in them. "If you two are done for the moment, me and the gentleman have come to an agreement. We have plans to induct Winnie into our family, tonight, in the woods. If you want to, you can accompany us to the clearing before the ceremony, and then -"

Ash interrupted, taking a gentle hold onto Netta's upper arm, making her jolt at the sensation of the magic and warmth flooding through the touch. "She must go beyond the clearing, walk down the path to the woods, on her own."

Lucia gazed at Ash, even at her greater height in comparison to Netta, she had to gently crane her neck up. The look of good humor had not faded from her eyes. "Is that so, ancient one?"

Netta felt her heart leap. The woman knew that Ash was an old soul, and Netta was mortified as she considered what else she knew. Perhaps, even, things Netta did not.

Ash spoke, his voice even, formal. "It must be done in such a way. She must decide for herself how far she's willing to go to satiate her curiosity, of her own volition."

The way he said satiate, this time in a way that seemed to have no double entendre meant, left Netta with a pathetic shudder. He had perhaps succeeded, finally, in cueing her very emotions to the merest thought, memory of his touch, sometimes simply at the sound of his rasping voice that betrayed a lack of smoothness that was indicative of the fact that he was not quite Human enough, even, to not cause the small hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end at the sound of it.

If Ash sensed her distress, he gave no indication of it, blessedly.

Lucia turned her gaze to Netta, seemed to not take heed of what must have looked like increasing distress on Netta's face. Her smile turned sympathetic, warm. "If it is her will, then I have no desire to meddle with the personal affairs of a family member, unless she is in... danger." She tilted her head to the side, regarded Netta with a look that suggested that she was trying to judge just how dangerous the situation set in front of her was.

Whatever it was that she thought she was witnessing, with Netta gently kept close to Ash by his hand on her shoulder, Lucia was stopped by Ash speaking, his voice never wavering from an almost eerie feeling of formality. "So will you consent to allow her to do this thing of her free will, without trouble from you?"

Lucia tightened her hold on her upper arms, tilted her head back up to gaze at Ash in a manner that suggested that she was examining him like he were a safely caged tiger. "I can do no more than ask you, inasmuch as a Witch can treat one of your kind with dignity and respect, if your motives are pure .  In comparison to what they have been in the past."