Her eyes were shut, but not too tightly. She focused on the steady drum of her heart and even more intently on her even breathing. It was important to keep her body relaxed and not too tense, otherwise her reflexes would only fail rather than aid her in the upcoming seconds.
Patience, of course, was also key. So she waited. And waited. And waited some more. She did not have to do much else except wait, otherwise she would have only gotten ahead of herself and deterred any chance of enjoying the victory she knew was close.
When she felt the shift in the air, Ellette pulled her outstretched hands, which had been resting comfortably on top of Michael's and basking in their warmth without actually touching, to her chest. For the fifth time in a row, she managed to avoid his hands smacking hers, which was the main objective of the game they had been playing for the past quarter of an hour.
A laugh escaped her when she opened her eyes to see a pouting Michael.
"Even with your eyes closed, you still manage to make a fool out of me." He lifted his eyes to hers, a smile on his face as he held her gaze.
"Here, give me your hands." Even though they were sitting across from each other with their legs crossed, she further closed the bit of space between their bodies by scooting closer.
Ellette could not explain it, but there was something intriguing about Michael. Something pure residing deep within him that she could not help but latch onto. He had been in their care at the cabin for two days, but it did not take Ellette very long to establish a state of comfort around the shifter.
She did not know him any better than he knew her or her three older sisters, but it did not take much effort for her to admit that, in some odd and incomprehensible way, she actually enjoyed his company. That when she left his side to return home, a feeling of reluctance always crept upon her. That when she woke in the morning and when she laid her head down to sleep at night, her thoughts always carried her away to him, and a part of her—a very small but prominent part—wondered if, in those exact moments, he was thinking about her, too.
Doing as instructed, Michael offered Ellette his hands. Though it was not entirely necessary, he also moved his body closer to Ellette.
Next to them, the sound of the crackling fire resonated throughout the dark room. Nightfall had graced the lands over an hour prior, and its arrival should have urged Ellette to return home. She was already on shaky grounds with her Father, and had promised her Mother that she would find it within her to try and eliminate any cause for confrontation. Arriving home late yet again would surely cause the opposite effect, but Ellette just could not bring herself to leave the old cabin—or Michael's side—just yet.
Taking his outstretched hands in her own, she turned them so that his palms faced downwards. She then placed her hands underneath his but with her palms facing up. "Now, relax your fingers," Ellette said as she did the same with her own.
The objective of the game was for the slapper, the person whose hands hovered below the hands of the other person—the slappee—to attempt to hit their opponent's hand. The job of the slappee was to avoid the hit by pulling their hands away before contact could be made.
Up until an hour ago, Ellette had firmly believed that the simple game had been played by every person at some point in their childhood. But when Michael confessed he had not heard of it nor played it, she felt obligated to show him what he had been missing out on for far too many years.
"Now, your problem is that you are anticipating my movements far too early. You keep flinching because you are expecting the hit rather than waiting for it. Now, look at me."
Her eyes were already on him, she just had to wait for his to do the same. Even with the darkness surrounding the room, Ellette could still very clearly make out the light brown colour of his eyes because they were that close.
"Good. Now, keep your eyes on me and wait for me to give myself away." Ellette continued to stare at Michael, who only continued to stare back at her.
Days ago, she would have felt compelled to look away, to settle her gaze anywhere other than on him. But insecurity and unworthiness no longer invaded her as intensely as they did before. They did still have her within their clutches—a couple of days was not nearly enough for Ellette to rid of them entirely—but the reins had loosened. And although she did not know exactly what to do with the bit of control she had been granted, Ellette refused to waste her tiny bit of freedom doing what was expected. If she wanted to look at him, then she was going to take a darn good look. It definitely was not the careful thing to do, but she had never been one to proceed with caution.
Ellette tried not to notice when his eyes strayed from hers, and wandered over her face before settling on her mouth, but that proved impossible as she was, quite literally, staring at him. She did not want to think too much of it, and assumed that it would only be a matter of seconds before they retreated back to hers. But as those very seconds ticked by, those light brown eyes remained fixed upon her mouth.
Not really sure what to make of his actions, Ellette chose in that moment to make her move. She moved her hands, anticipating the moment when hers would make contact with his, but—much too her surprise—all she managed to slap was air. She tore her gaze away from Michael and looked down at her hands, as if confirming it with her own eyes would change the outcome of what she already knew.
Michael had avoided her hit.
"I take it your wolf instincts finally decided to kick in," she joked while placing her hands back in their previous position.
"It is your mouth," Michael said as he, too, moved his hands back to hover over Ellette's hands.
Her eyes flickered back to his as she wondered what he meant. "My mouth?"
He nodded, his intense stare not once faltering. "It gives you away. Just before you get ready to strike, they part just slightly."
She did look away then, casting her gaze downwards, but not out of any feelings of inferiority or anything like that. Ellette simply looked away because she did not wish for him to catch a glimpse of the smile that rushed to her lips.
"Did I make you blush?"
"I suppose that is another gift you possess. You know, along with shifting into a wolf on the night of M—" she stopped herself before blurting out the very word that could quite possibly give her secrets away.
Moonrise.
"On the night of a full moon." Feeling a bit awkward, she dropped her hands and placed them on her lap. "I suspect you make many girls blush."
"Did I offend you?" Michael dropped his hands as well.
"No," Ellette shook her head. "No, you did not."
Realizing that she may have been bringing more attention to herself than she intended—if the look of concern and confusion painted on Michael's face was any indication—she quickly returned her hands, suspending them in the air with her palms facing up and offered him a smile for good measure.
"Shall we go again?" Ellette waited for his hands to move in place over hers, but when they did not, she looked up at him. "Or are you too frightened that it might be proven your victory was only a result of a bit of luck?"
"There are many things I fear," Michael finally placed his hands over hers, "but losing to you, Ellette, I think just might be the greatest of them all."
"The big, bad wolf is terrified of little, old me?" She watched as a smile escaped him, but when he did not answer and pulled his gaze away from hers, Ellette could not help but wonder if there had been some sort of truth, even in the tiniest of measurements, behind her joke.
What possible reason could he have to fear her?
"I do not recall using the word 'terrified'."
Because her eyes were still fixated upon him, she noticed another smile tugging at his lips.
"But you certainly are strange. In a good way, of course."
She moved her hands again, and, that time, managed to slap his. For a brief second, she wondered if he truly had been lucky earlier, but then remembered what he had said about her mouth being her give away. If it was true, then that meant Michael easily could have avoided her hit if he had been looking at her. But since he failed to move his hands out of the way, it must have meant his gaze still had not returned to her or her mouth.
And Ellette just could not understand why that knowledge bothered her.
"Sometimes I find myself intrigued by what most people would deem strange." Once again, she moved her hands into position underneath his, getting far too familiar and comfortable with the heat that grazed her fingers each and every time.
"Then we are alike, you and I," Michael uttered, "for you are probably the strangest creature that I have ever come across, and I am deeply intrigued."
"You get ahead of yourself by comparing us to one another." Her hands slapped his—another victory. "I may be the strangest creature that you have ever met," another hit, "but what makes you so certain that you are the strangest creature that I have ever come across?"
Ellette knew it was unwise to ask such questions. To continue the hasty exploration of the boundaries between her and Michael, with only her hope that luck was venturing along with her down that dark path, was very, very unwise. It was the exact opposite of Freya's warning to be careful. But her mouth seemed to have come to the decision to no longer take orders from her brain, and wished to express itself freely.
Michael still believed Ellette and her sisters were nothing more than plain old humans. The assumption was not entirely far-fetched, as the Woodlands was massive and inhabited by more than just her kind. It was in all of their best interests if he continued to believe his own assumption.
But the more time Ellette spent around him, the more familiar she became with his deep and gentle voice. The more she enjoyed the way his hair fell past his broad shoulders in dark, barely-there waves, the less she wanted to partake in the lie. She may not have created it with her own lips, but it was still a lie that her lips had not denied either.
"I mean, I have seen all sorts of strange birds and all kinds of strange bugs. Tiny bugs, big bugs, bed bugs, fat bugs, skinny bugs, blue bugs and purple bugs—"
"You dare to rank me amongst bugs? Correction, you dare to rank me lower than bugs?"
Ellette laughed then, not so much at what he said, but more so at the look of genuine shock and disbelief plastered all over his face. It had taken a special sort of seriousness for her to deliver her list of insects without cracking a smile. However, it only took one look at the shifter in front of her—who quite literally looked as if his dreams had just been shattered to a million pieces—to abandon her plans of making him squirm.
"With a distaste as strong as that, I can only hope that you do not come back as a bug in your next life."
Michael pulled his hands away and crossed his arms over his chest. Ellette detected the smile on his lips, but knew that, even though he wanted to, he was not going to allow himself to laugh. Instead, he sat there and pouted like a child.
"Did I offend you?" She asked as her smile slowly began to recede. "If I have offended, I apologize."
"I will accept your apology, but only if you say it."
Ellette's eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "Only if I say what?"
"My name."
That had caught Ellette off guard.
She would only be kidding herself if she believed Michael had not noticed that she nor any of her sisters had ever uttered his name whilst in his presence. He called each of them by their names whenever conversation called upon him to address them, but they never said his name in return. To do so would only blur the line between strangers and friends.
Ellette and her sisters might have saved his life, which already made them a bit more than just strangers, but to address him by his name would only invite in possibilities that were not meant to become a reality. Not for them, and certainly not for him.
Ellette looked away from Michael. With one hand, she gathered all of her hair from behind her back and swept it over her shoulder, watching as the ends grazed the waist of her dark blue cloak. "I should go," she said and pulled the hood of her cloak on top of her head as she rose to her feet.
She could not remember if she had come to the cabin with anything other than a bag stuffed with food for Michael, and her staff, which was resting upright against the wall next to the living room's doorway. But if she had, Ellette could not afford to waste any time trying to jolt her memory because it would only interfere with her plan to leave the cabin as quickly as possible.
Without sparing Michael so much as a glance, she turned to leave the room. But she only managed to take a step when she felt his hand close around her wrist in a gentle grip to, first, stop her, then to pull her back to him.
Ellette did not dare to look up because she did not want to fall trap to his gaze. So they both stood there, listening to each other's breathing, greedily sucking up each other's warmth, and waiting for the other to speak first. But silence only continued to pass between them, and when seconds turned into minutes, deciding who was going to speak first had been overthrown on the list as neither of them wanting to be the first to pull away took its place.