Private Tales The Pact Made With Bloody Hands

[August Oreno]

And yet she didn't manage to bury the sharp point into bare flesh.

Strong fingers wrapped around her wrist before she could get there. Yanking her hand up and pinning it back into the wall as he gazed down at her.

"Mm, come now, darling. No need to make any of this so ugly..." He murmured as his nose ran along her jaw and breathed her in as August's lips pressed against her neck for a soft kiss. "It's time to drop the act... at least for a night, you can go right back to hating me again."

Another kiss, but now a bit firmer.

"Don't you agree?"

 

[Lale Carvyre]

Lale stiffened as he came closer than he had ever been before. His grasp on her wrist was not enough to hurt her, and the gentle exploration of her neck had her holding a shaky breath. Given her hatred she felt now, her own hand still around the hilt tightened as he was free with his intentions.

How words struck her. Her own body betrayed her mind, for his lips at her neck were incendiary.

She had two men try and coax her to enjoy their attention on her, but to no avail. The mercenary? She found it a betrayal that her own body reacted to him.

"There is no act." She lied to them both. "I hate you. Detest you for thinking I am yours to touch."

 

[August Oreno]

Lale Carvyre

"You know what they say... love and hate are so close to one another." Giving her neck a slow kiss now to hit it home as he pinned her wrist a bit firmer into the wall.

Just to showcase the power he had over her in the moment.

Outside of the room she was Lady Carvyre who could order a dozen guards to rip him to shreds. But in this room, here and now, they were all alone. Everyone else had gone to gawk at the handiwork of August, so nobody could hear her orders if she deigned to scream them.

She had no way of knowing if he'd stop if she really put some force behind her commands either.

"Maybe it's difficult to discern which it is... when I have you like this." His teeth finally sinking into her neck.

 

[Lale Carvyre]

Lale knew what her hatred felt like. Something more all consuming than the pittance of love. She grew up with hate, learned to be strong of her own volition because that was the only way her family would see her for who she truly was. She was no soft thing like her sister Liya. She was no debutante fresh and innocent upon on the societal scene.

She was a Carvyre, a woman that was clever as a fox with her schemes.

August was merely one of those things needed to make her plans go the way she wanted. He was a piece on the board that would listen to her much like a dog was loyal to the one that fed them. Her payments were always high to keep his interests.

But here and now, he did not want her as Lale Carvyre. His bite shocked her, so much that her free hand shot up to fist into his hair but did not pull him away immediately. No, for Lale was momentarily distracted by the sensation that ran through her at the pain.

Slowly, she used her hold on his hair to pull his head back so that their eyes were levelled. He had an interesting stare, and that godsawful smirk on his lips only fueled more hatred into her. "I did not come here for you, Oreno. I came here to see his body bloodied and no longer alive and you are keeping me, stopping me from getting the satisfaction of a job well done."

 

[August Oreno]

He allowed her to draw his head away... licking his lips as his eyes flicked up to meet hers.

"Oh, I know you didn't come here for me." Oreno purred softly as his hand found her wrist... and suddenly yanked it up and pinned it above her head. "But it is as you said... you were going to be here to have plausible deniability... I am just... providing us both with plausible deniability."

Now both her hands were trapped above her head and against the wall.

Clever the fox may be, but once trapped... it had little recourse.

And then he again leaned in, to kiss the spot that he had bit just a moment ago.

 

[Lale Carvyre]

How had he had easily pried her fingers from his hair? To easily move her arm to rest against the wall, held high above her head as the corner got smaller as August leaned back to place a kiss upon her neck. Her reaction was what alluded her to the answer, the hitched breathing and the slight movement of her body arching...

Lale had let it happen. It was a betrayal of her own accord, one she had thought she would respond to differently.

"Stop that." There was less bite to her words now. She steeled herself, closing her eyes as she tried to forget the feeling of his lips...

 

[August Oreno]

"Stop what..." He murmured softly as he laid another kiss right next to the one he had just planted. "I am not doing anything..."

Except for traveling her neck like a map, kiss after kiss, laying a trail.

Lale couldn't have known, of course, that he would have stopped if she had actually responded with murderous or violent intent. The knife hadn't counted. That had been so easily wrenched away from her it had been clear to August her heart hadn't been in it.

But maybe that was part of the spice.

Lale couldn't know for sure... if he would stop.

 

[Lale Carvyre]

"You are being a right prick is what you are doing." And she tried to push him off her, leaning back into the corner and lifting her knee to strike a delicate part of him, but he was smart. He had angled his body a certain way as he leaned to reach down to her neck, so that her knee met with only the brush of the wall she was cornered into. "Get off me." Lale hissed, a touch of ferality escaping her as desperation to be away from him overcame her.

Despite what she may be wanting from him deep down, this night was not for it.

Lale began to thrash, to fight against him that perhaps he may release her finally if he had such a mercy inside him. She knew him enough by now to understand the mercenary was not obedient. He very much liked doing things his way, liked the autonomy he was given with a simple instruction to a job. She had no doubt he delivered on killing the nobleman. No doubt that he stuck the note to the dead body, a warning to his friends that thought they would get away with what they all let happen.

He was nothing but the sword Lale was not to be seen wielding.

"I need to see the body." She seethed. "I need to see that you have done your job right." It was not a question of trusting his work, for he had yet to fail her. Lale wanted distance, a chance to breath and cool down as the heat reached her neck and cheeks. "There is a plan for tonight and you seeking this with me is not part of it, Oreno."