"Miss Lenny?"
I closed my eyes and prayed for the nightmare to end.
This can't be happening.
"Miss Lenny? Is that you?"
"Yes," I croaked, hoping she could hear despite the coarseness evident in my voice. "Don't come inside."
"What are you doing out here? It's so dark and creepy. I'm...I'm a little scared."
"It's okay," I forced myself to speak up, noting how dry my throat felt. "Just don't come into the shed, okay? Go into the house, I'll be right there."
"But Miss Lenny-"
"Go!"
I could feel Ellie hesitate before I heard her reluctantly stutter out, "O-Okay."
Taking her reply as a positive sign, I listened for the fading scrunches of her footsteps to die down before I slowly opened my eyes and focused on the giant male still glaring on top of me.
Getting him off wouldn't be easy, but it would be worth the try.
But as if he'd read my thoughts, the grip he had on me tightened so abruptly that I winced at the amount of pressure.
"You are not going anywhere without me."
I groaned aloud, frustration overriding the discomfort I'd been feeling. "What the hell do you want from me?"
"You'll know soon enough," he said, finally lifting himself off me, and I could've sworn that a ridiculously high amount of energy drained from me in that instant.
I collapsed my head on the ground and fought to control my breathing, not bothering to try and escape yet. My body felt spent and my head span wildly just as my heart rate refused to return to its normal pace.
I didn't know why the hell his nearness did that to me, but I'd be damned if I let him get that close to my body again. Although, I was pretty positive that I'd be of no use to prevent that from happening.
"Get up," he ordered when I still laid on the ground, not moving an inch.
He growled in response to my reluctance. "I said get up."
"Don't touch me!" I scrambled to my feet in an attempt to pull away from his reach. "Don't you ever touch me."
When he merely stood there - his broad shoulders slouched to contain his full height within this small shed - with his silver eyes glowing menacingly in the dark, I glared at him hard. My breathing slowed just as my temperature drastically reduced at the absence of his body, but for some inexplicable reason, my heartbeat still refused to return to normal.
"Look. I don't know what the hell you are and why the hell you aren't affected by the sight of my eyes, but you're going to get out of my way this instant and leave me the hell alone!"
His gaze darkened. "That is not possible."
"I don't care! Just get out of my way." I made a move to exit the shed but his big body immediately shielded the doorway from my view.
The action caused my eyes to narrow. "I'm not afraid of you, you know."
"You don't have to be." He took a step closer. "You may be immortal and may not be wholly afraid, but I can still hear your heart race each time I come near you."
And as if to prove his damn point, I felt my breathing grow uneven in accordance with a continuous fluttery feeling within my chest.
Choosing to ignore those blatant facts, I raised my chin and stood my ground even when the need to dash out of there as fast as I could ate greedily at my conscience. "Fine. Then just tell me what are you and what you're doing here in my backyard. Shouldn't you be out rather hurting people?"
His nostrils flared. "Not tonight." He then took another step closer. "I was waiting for the right moment to finally approach you. Making a name for myself was only to pass the time, but that's not the real reason I came here. To this town."
My pride refused to allow my body to retreat at his approaching frame, and I was somewhat glad for that. "Then what's the real reason you're here?"
"The real reason," the stranger repeated in a less questioning tone than I, "I don't think you're ready for."
My eyes narrowed. "Don't play with me."
"Believe it or not, I don't intend to." For the second time that night, he closed the remaining distance between us and raised a finger to twirl it around a strand of my hair.
Wrong move.
His body centimetres away from mine had caused my temperature to rise twice before, but when he'd raised his finger to lean it closer to my face, the amount of heat and awareness that washed over me was enough to make me gasp and grab at anything behind that could steady my suddenly swaying feet.
However, when my palms came into contact with a flat and painfully steep wooden surface, I knew that I was trapped and doomed.
"Don't touch me," I snapped once again, but surprisingly, a little less forceful than before. "I mean it."
"You're so weak," he said suddenly with mild curiosity, as if that revelation somehow surprised him.
I brushed the comment aside. "I said stay away."
"So human." He sniffed my scent again, completely ignoring my protests. "So clearly...untouched."
My eyes widened. But before I could even ask myself how the hell he had conjured up that notion, the stranger trailed his fingers away from my hair to slowly caress them along my jawline, making my thoughts promptly snap to a halt and jumble in my brain.
The hell am I just standing there for?!
Frankly, I wasn't even sure why I didn't reach for the shotgun just lying idle a few inches from my right and dumbly let him continue his "examining" of me.
Call me stupid, but there was just something eerie about him that piqued my curiosity. And although he had threatened to kill the only friend I had in this town, that particular something didn't fail to make me gradually lose my senses. Didn't fail to make my body temperature rise once again as if a furnace inside had been awakened from being dormant for a millennium prior.
His eyes, his scar and his...touch, all made me forget how to breathe. Literally.
Especially with the way his hands proceeded to glide down my jawline, pausing their movements at my exposed neck.
Noticing the involuntary shiver that coursed through me that moment, a small smile - almost undetectable - appeared at the left corner of his lips.
"Believe me when I say no mortal would be able to make you even feel the way I just did, let alone see you in this darkness." When he leaned extremely closer and used those same lips to brush against my cheek - moving dangerously close to my earlobe - I couldn't help the tiny surprised gasp that escaped me.
At the unfamiliar sound, his pupils dilated. "You were meant for me alone."
I was already feeling ridiculously hot all over again, and now my heart had swung on a parachute ready to jump out of my chest.
I couldn't exactly blame it. Because being honest, I'd never had to fight for so much oxygen in my life. Not even when some idiot had attempted to finish me off by strangling. Though truthfully he hadn't gotten far before I'd broken the bastard's arm and twisted his head without thinking twice.
But this stranger didn't even have to touch me in order to gain such a reaction. Hell, he'd just have to look at me with his searing gaze for me to become utterly speechless.
"What are you doing to me?" Was that my voice? I wasn't so sure as it sounded nothing like me at all.
And embarrassingly enough, I'd never felt so breathless before.
"You ask too many questions to which you now know I won't provide answers." He raised his head to meet my gaze. "Yet."
When I didn't respond - couldn't respond - he tilted his head and studied me intently, a mocking smile trailing across his lips. A smile that, although meant to taunt, shocked me to the core as it transformed - if only slightly - his entire gloomy face.
"You aren't ready, obviously, so I'll do you a favour."
"I'll spare you for tonight," he spoke again before I could snap out of my state of shock. "But get rid of the child and meet me in this shed tomorrow night."
I blinked at his words, confused for a second. But when they finally dawned, I lifted my chin and glared into his eyes.
"Like hell I will do anything you-"
"It wasn't a request," he cut in, not bothering to listen anymore before turning and walking out the shed's door.
No way.
"Stop!" I didn't know what had possessed me to run out after him when I should've been relieved that he was at least leaving. Regardless, I couldn't let him go just like that.
Surprisingly, the stranger had managed to cross my backyard within the span of three seconds. So in order to catch up, I had to jog after him, calling not-so-loudly once more for him to root his feet into the ground.
Resisting the urge to grab his large shoulder with both hands and haul him back to face me when I'd gotten nearer, I took one step closer after he'd stopped.
For some reason, I couldn't hold myself back.
"If you claim to have been watching me all this time," I began, though not knowing where the hell the words were coming from, "why are you now revealing yourself to me?"
This stranger had been the subject of fear amongst the town's people for almost three months, I just had to know why he'd chosen this particular night to show himself to the town's outcast.
He didn't answer right away, but instead stiffened when I took yet another step closer.
What is wrong with me?!
I didn't know the answer, but I didn't dwell on it either.
"Well?" I probed when he still didn't speak. "Why?"
His body proceeded to remain rigid at my subtle approach. However, when his shoulder muscles suddenly flexed and he turned about to face me, I was the one who stiffened in turn.
Not at the abruptness of his movements, but by the way his eyes had transformed to the blazing red I'd seen earlier before he'd attacked me.
"Coming here was a mistake."
My eyebrows scrunched before I could help it. The tone of his voice had changed, though slightly, but definitely gruffer than before.
When I didn't say a word, he took a dangerous step closer - basically narrowing the distance between us - and gripped his hand at the small of my back.
My breath hitched at the uncomfortable contact and I would've pushed him away if it weren't for the abnormal strength in his grip.
I then sucked in my feeble attempt to escape and looked him dead in the eye, trying to dislodge the weird heat sensation that was suffocating me all over again.
I am not afraid of you. I forced myself to chant inwardly, despite the frantic flutter within my chest.
"You tell anyone about this, you'll regret it."
I almost snorted, flutter in chest forgotten momentarily. Was he serious? "Sorry to burst your pride, but there's nothing you can make me regret." I shrugged. "Can't harm or hurt me either."
"You think?" The stranger tightened his grip and - not wasting his breath on words - roughly twisted my body around to face the back of my house.
I stood utterly confused for a moment. He's going to what? Burn it to the ground? That's the worst he could do? I almost snorted again in amusement.
However, when he leaned in and I felt his lips graze my ear, I thought twice about his intentions.
"Are you sure?" he inquired, as if he could read my thoughts - damn him - and I was too late to suppress a shiver. "Nothing?" he pressed.
Of course nothing! I'm a sore loser. The only real thing or human being that I care about is-
Abruptly, my words came back to haunt me.
Go into the house, Ellie. I'll be right there.
My eyes widened. Ellie.
A soft rustle of wind brushed against my neck and when I hastily looked back, I wasn't really surprised to find out that the stranger had disappeared.
But my mind was barely centred on him as I ran towards the back door with only one person's name and face occupying my line of sight.
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A/N:
Just to see how darkly dangerous our stranger looks from the back😚
Too bad the hair doesn't much my description of him. Still love this picture though😆
~TBK✌
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