Beau
Fear
Year Unknown, The Roman Empire
She was undressing me with her eyes. I smiled gently to her and cupped her pretty little face. Still pretty after all these years, even if there were crease lines from too much worry.
"You shouldn't be looking at me like that," I said sweetly.
"You shouldn't be touching me like this," she responded with that sharp tongue, but a small smile curled on the edges of her imp-ish lips.
Laughing, a comforting feeling washing over me slowly, I scooped her up like old times and she wrapped her willowy arms around my neck, pressing her head to my collarbone. I laid her on my bed and she sighed dreamily.
Watching her as she laid there, staring up at me with that familiar fire in her eyes, a slight uneasy feeling began to mix with my feeling of cherished comfort.
"Don't tease," she mock snapped, raising her arms for me.
Trying to make her think I was indeed teasing her, I carefully climbed onto the bed, my body framing her's as I hovered over her, staring at her face. The oceanic blue eyes. The pale, yet slightly tanned skin. The coal black straight hair framing her face.
As she tried to undress me, my heart began to flutter with unease again. The pinched feeling of guilt. The quavering in my gut of the wrong. The sweat of betrayal.
As her small fingers found my waist, my body went cold.
Before I knew what was happening, my hand had found her wrist and perhaps squeezing it a little too hard. I eased my grip and my breath became too fast. She looked at me with a look of mischievousness, as if I were merely playing, trying to make her wait.
"No, I..." I faltered. I closed my eyes. Even then I could feel her icy blue eyes boaring into me like two icicles.
She didn't speak, but waited, like I am sure he taught her to.
Him, her husband. Her human husband. My mind immediately went to the faces of her five children, the sweet faces. Her with them, giving them hugs, tender kisses. Them over the years, how they had grown, how she had grown. Without me.
With a heavy breath, I got up off her and stood at the foot of the bed. She stared at me from her place, not moving a determined muscle.
"Iulia, I..." I began. My body moved on its own once again, stepping backward, as if in horror.
This caused Iulia to sit up a little bit, perched on her elbows. "What is it?" she asked strongly, her voice soft but commanding. Just as always, her strong spirit, and that is what I loved about her. But this time...this thing...
Her face was becoming displeased now, a small crease inbetween her eyebrows.
I examined her slight form in her night clothes, the soft cotton lovingly bought by her rich husband, a beautiful gift to his unfaithful wife. The thought of this sliced into my brain and the pain stood there, like the axe was still in the wound.
And as I stared at her body, I thought of what my hand had felt as I had gripped her wrist.
"...We can't...do this anymore, Iulia," I faltered, trying to get the whole words out to her this time.
"Oh hush," Iulia decreed, as like one would joke, but by her serious face it didn't look like a joke.
But I didn't move. The crease in her brow deepened. A feeling of darkness seemed to envelope the room, as a tense feeling built up in my throat.
Many moments went by, as we stared at each other. I could see terror rising in her eyes like a slow rising flood. I could see the same choke creeping up in her throat as in mine.
Staring at her sadly, I had to control my breathing or she would see how much this hurt me, too. And she couldn't see that. I had never shown her my human side, and this was not the time to do it. She could never know how human I was. I clenched my fists to try to control myself.
On the bed, I saw her fists clench, too. But I felt through the floor, her trembling carried from the bed to my feet and up my body. Her trembling became mine, too.
Her soft mouth opened slightly, and I could feel my lovesick heart melt. But I could not possibly let it show.
What she would say next began a shattering of my world which would never be fixed.
"Please, I need this," she whispered in the most serious tone I had ever heard her utter. Gone was her usual strict playful manner, replaced now by a scared, vulnerable woman whom I did not know. It sent fear into my bones. "Please, I need you...!"
It took everything I had to fight rushing to her and wrapping my arms around her to comfort. She didn't look like herself at all. She looked ill, suddenly frail.
"Please, he hasn't touched me in weeks, please!" she begged. Her eyes became glassy and she was crying.
A twinge of fear began to form in me. A single burning swirl of smoke.
"Why wouldn't he touch you?" I asked slowly.
Grasping the hope I had just tossed to her, she sat up fully on the edge of the bed and looked me full on, but her eyes were not strong. They were full of desperation, and a sinking feeling fell over me like a net trying to drag me under.
"Because..." she said, her voice dropping to an apprehensive whisper. I could hear her heart pumping quickly, a human sign of nervousness.
My feelings became confused then, a jumbled mess difficult to differentiate, but with the climbing fear wrapping around them.
"Because..." she breathed quick and then looked at me with those scared eyes, a begging look. "Because...I'm pregnant."
My eyes went wide but I blinked immediately, trying to mask my feelings. The words had sent a rush of burning energy through my bones up to my skull. A nervous feeling began to race in me, flying through my blood like fires. A buzzing tingling feeling began to occur in the tips of my fingers and toes. I felt light headed.
I couldn't say anything for many minutes. We just stared at eachother, her eyes were searching me up and down, looking for any answer. She knew what I was thinking before I could say it.
"But, you told me he hadn't touched you for months last time," I said slowly and quietly.
She began to cry more, and this time she crumpled into herself, like a shy child. Like the shy child I had met all those years ago.
The tingling feeling in my fingers rose up my arms and it spread everywhere, a horrible energy.
"But I can't..." I whispered, trying to figure logically, "I can't...I'm a demon--"
She fought for her voice, and with it she interrupted me.
"It is your's," she said quietly. "There is no way it wouldn't be."
With these words, my body shook on the inside dangerously. Like an earthquake, my walls fell down unlike I would have predicted.
Trying to control my breath, my panic, I turned around and quickly walked towards the door.
And as she screamed for me into the night with her begging voice, I made the worst mistake of my entire existence.