This was no Accident

Guinevere Haze just made a joke.

It happened so quickly that Lochlann thought he'd imagined it at first, some strange alternate version where she made jokes and laughed, and the image was so out of sync with his understanding of Guin that he realized for the first time that something might be wrong.

The moment she broke contact with him, the pain started to intensify. He'd been fighting it off with her body, using her to numb himself, but now that she was gone he was totally, completely, desperately, alone.

He was handcuffed, he realized, and the sudden realization made his heart monitor spike. A bead of sweat rolled down his face. His hands clenched and unclenched into fists, and then he forced himself to sit up even though the pain was so bad that for a moment, it blinded him.

When Guin would come back, he was tearing desperately at his hand like an animal, using his other hand and his teeth and drawing blood fast.

"Guinevere," he said, completely deadpan when she came back in and sat down. He licked his lips, swallowing his own blood, and continued.

"Let's get out of here," he said. "And I don't just mean...here. Let's get off the whole damned island. Let's go somewhere no one knows our names. Let's go, just you and me, tonight, we can get out, we can get out of this prison and, and--"

He was gasping for breath now, not believing her that it was going to be okay because jesus christ he was handcuffed and was he in the hospital?

Whatever they'd been using to sedate him was wearing off quickly.

"Guinevere," he said, reaching out with his free hand and putting it on her knee. His voice had the desperate whinny of a frightened horse trying to find safety in a burning building. "Please, come with me. I can't..I can't stay here. I just need you, Guin, wherever you say, that's where we can go. I can get us off here tonight we just need to leave."

The familiar sound of nurses moving about in the hallway seemed to spike something in him because he strained and squirmed and writhed.

He smelled like saltwater now, like the crisp ocean breeze that hit you in the face mid morning. Something in his eyes seemed less human, too, and Lochlann was trying to figure out how he could get from here to the window.

"Please Guin," he begged again. "Please."

She was--

What was she doing?

Lochlann's eyes glanced from the nurses' and then to Guinevere Haze, where they remained fixated on her eyes. His heart was still racing and at first, Lochlann actually backed away from her but the chain on his wrist clacked as it went taut and Lochlann was out of room.

And then she was on top of him, and Lochlann was painfully aware that the only thing separating her from him was the horrible hospital gown and the thin sheets covering him.

Her body was warm and soft and Lochlann yielded to her, even though he was shaking and whispering please under his breath to her.

And then she was kissing him.

It was stronger than any sedative they could have given him, although they probably did add something else to the bag pumping poison into him, but Lochlann was only focused on the feel of her hands in his hair and her mouth against his.

He was parched and kissing her was a welcome respite, even if it did drain his energy. She didn't seem like a succubi, Lochlann mused for a moment. But....maybe she was some kind of demon, or some kind of witch.

When the nurses left and she was looking at him with that emotionless face, he could only look back and hope she was ignoring the very physical way his body had responded to her.

He tugged again at the cuff and looked at her with half-lidded eyes.

"Guin," he said, and her name was a question, but he wasn't sure what he was asking. Do it again or why or please.

Instead, he kept thinking about that single word.

We.

The way she'd said it sounded like she'd never said we before, and Lochlann felt a strange feeling in his chest that might have been the drugs working or might have been heartbreak.

"Come away with me," he tried again, but he couldn't get his head up off the pillow. He could only look at her and beg. "And let me kiss you awake."

"Where did you live before you came here?" Lochlann asked. "We could go there. Or..."

He closed his eyes and for some reason, kissed the top of her head. It was nice holding her, and it helped him pretend he wasn't cuffed to the bed. He twitched his arm and the chain clanged and reminded him, and Lochlann curled his lips back in something between a snarl and a grimace.

"We could go anywhere," he said. "I don't think I have a home anymore. There is nothing keeping us here. We can go."

Well, there were a lot of things keeping them here, and specifically a thing of handcuffs for him.

"I don't know anything about you Guin," Lochlann said. "I don't know what you want from life. But That wouldn't matter. We could find out together. Let's go."

"London," Lochlann repeated, and he sounded a little surprised. He'd never been there, but it was strange to think that he and Guinevere were once only a small ocean apart from each other.

He nestled closer and made a small, horse-like noise in the back of his throat.

Stay here.

They could stay here.

"We can't stay here," he said. He was literal in this moment; he couldn't stay cuffed like this. But, then, slowly, his thoughts expanded enough to give her a serious answer. "We can't stay on this island. It's too small. Do you really want to stay here?"

He was curious now, the tilt in his voice asking for more from her. It was the sound a horse made before stepping onto uneven terrain, looking for an indication of where to step.

He had never considered an after because Lochlann was fairly certain he was supposed to be dead.

Lochlann shook his head.

”My country was the water,” Lochlann said. His voice had taken on a quiet, hushed tone, like he was telling her a story, and maybe it was only a story now. ”My country was the bottom of a lake, a creek bed, the shallows of the ocean. The world there is quiet.”

He shifted so his mouth was closer to his ear, and he said, “shhhhh….shhhh……shhhhhhh…….That’s the sound of the water at sunrise, when it is whispering to you the half-forgotten secrets of the night, when it is swallowing the moon and spitting up the sun. The ocean, it will touch you like this—“

He ran his fingers of his free hand down her arm and then back up, drawing the feel of the tide against her skin. He was picturing what it had been like when he was traveling across the Atlantic, literally swimming his way to America, and his herd had breached the surface right at daybreak and the brilliant dazzling sunrise stretched across the horizon turned the ocean brilliant reds and yellows so it seemed like he’d been swimming in liquid fire.

“People, the humans, they say that the ocean is a cruel mistress, but that is not true, because the ocean is not like a human woman. The ocean is indifferent to your needs, wants, and feelings. The ocean just is. The ocean does not think about the past or the future, but it is full of all of these things.”

Without realizing it, Lochlann had pressed his face into the hand she’d placed on his cheek, nuzzling up against it. His eyes were half-closed and he regarded her through his long lashes. His voice was a whisper and he gave to her the next lines like a soft kiss.

”This island is small, but my world is big with you in it. If you promise, then I promise, too.”

It was the voice he used to read poetry when he was alone. Right now, Lochlann wanted to read the poetry written across Guinevere Haze’s lips. He thought she was going to kiss him, but instead, she dropped her arms to her sides.

"I don't know what to do."

The admission from the impenetrable Guinevere Haze was enough to sober him slightly, drawing him out from the memory of the ocean and into the hospital room where he laid, handcuffed to a bed, with the woman who had been systematically destroying his life.

He had just made a promise to her.

He wondered if that had been part of her plan. Did she know what promises meant to a fae? Did she know that she’d not only branded his body with her knife, but now his soul—if he had one—with her words?

And he’d walked right into it. He’d willing walked into a trap, and now he couldn’t escape, even if he wanted to. Did he want to?

“I don’t know what to do either,” Lochlann admitted. His voice was starting to sound awake, like he was coming out of a dream. He reached over her to press his free hand to his side. He felt raw and aching. His movements were becoming more sure now, and with it, so was his inclination that he had to get out of here before they took him back there.

“We’re in the hospital,” Lochlann said, plainly. He was waiting for her to contradict him, to tell him that no, they were still back in that horrible place.

"You can, you know," Lochlann said, a few seconds before he'd started to sober. "Join me there."

Now, he pulled his fingers away from the hospital gown and looked at them like he expected to see something on them. His head tilted around the room, taking in the surroundings, and he breathed heavily through his nostrils like an animal might.

His gestures where somewhere half between human and animal and right now, Lochlann could not firmly remember which one he was supposed to be.

His eyes flickered down to his cuffed wrist, which was starting to chafe from where he'd been rubbing it, and at the bite marks along the skin. He looked at it like it was separate from him, and then Lochlann made a slight downward motion of his lips that wasn't quite a frown but ultimately ended up matching the concerned furl of his eyebrows.

"Just the hospital then," Lochlann said, and the wheels in his mind where turning. If they where here, there was a chance the windows weren't warded. he was labeled a flight risk for a reason, and the power of flight wasn't it.

"There is a lot to be afraid of," Lochlann's voice was hushed, like he was telling her a secret. Again, he pressed his hand to his side, and again he blinked at the pain it left him.

"Everytime I have come to a hospital, I have been hurt," Lochlann reasoned. "Therefore, I need to leave the hospital before something worse happens."

He was in a human shape with an animal mind. His dark eyes trailed to Guinevere's face. THere was recognition there, and of the words he'd just been sharing, but they were somewhere distant now.

"Do you have the key?" Lochlann asked her.

"I have never gone to the hospital," Lochlann said. "I have only been taken. It is not my will to be here."

But his eyes were on hers and a mixture of things flashed across them like ripples on the surface of a pond. Darting away like a tadpole was confusion, quickly replaced with arousal, and then a persistent flicker of fear.

"I can't," he said, but he probably could. The truth of the matter was that Lochlann would be paralyzed with fear if she where not in the room with him.

He wanted to push her away but he couldn't.

Her body was stirring up against his and it responded against his will, betraying him, and Lochlann felt horribly and impossibly trapped. When he was like this, when she was doing this to him, he couldn't even transform, or even attempt to, for Lochlann couldn't feel the cold metal bracelet bolted around his ankle.

"Guin," he whispered, and it was a plea, but unlike all the other pleas he'd ever given her, this one was not begging her for more. It was begging her to stop, even as his lips pressed against hers and he tasted her and kissed her with even strokes of his hungry tongue.

He didn't want to hurt her, but he did, and he didn't want to be here, but he did, and the contradicting thoughts where strangling him.

"Guin please," Lochlann whispered, and then he said the one word he couldn't believe would ever escape his lips. "No."

But he didn't pull away or try to escape because he was hers and he was helpless. He touched her greedily, his hand seizing her breast and groping at it. It felt wrong this way, doing it here, with one hand bound. In many ways, Lochlann preferred it when she held him at knife point.

But he was helpless as he let out a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and slid his hand down her body and then back up beneath her shirt, cupping her over her bra.

The heat from her was enough to sear him even on his own fevered body and he tried to lay perfectly still, tried not to press himself against her, but he was too hard and her body was too soft over him. He made the faintest of movements and tried to ignore the small surge of pleasure it brought him and, he hoped against his will, her.

His eyes were on her mouth and he was hungry for her lips on his, but he drug his eyes to hers with every ounce of his willpower.

"Someone could walk in," he said, which might be true, because his heart monitor was racing. "Wouldn't it be better if we went somewhere else? It's beautiful out. Imagine what it'd be like, doing this on the beach."

Lochlann's mind could not catch up with his body. There was mostly confusion towards what she was saying, but he couldn't think because his eyes were glued to her body as she undressed.

He took in the bruises and for a moment, Lochlann wondered if he'd left them there, but they were fingerprints that didn't match his own. It stirred a weird feeling in him, one that made him want to fuck her just to erase the idea that anyone else had touched where he touched.

Lochlann was not exactly a jealous lover; he'd had many partners, and he was not naive to think that a woman like Guinevere would stop after him. He'd seen--and ate--the evidence of that in her apartment.

The idea of someone hurting her bothered him.

Again, this was at odds, because Lochlann had wanted to hurt her, too, but this was...different.

He hadn't realized his uncuffed hand had moved back to her now-exposed body and began to touch her, moving from her hips to her butt to force her again his cock while she moved herself over him, then to move back up her body to again touch her breasts, tugging and teasing the buds.

She didn't want him to act like an animal, but she wanted him to rip her apart. Right now, the only thing Lochlann wanted to rip off where these cuffs.

How the hell was he supposed to touch her properly with only one hand?

He made a small noise and strained against them, but he then looked down at the metal locked around his hands, and then back up at her.

Lochlann gasped when the cool air hit his fevered skin and he felt strangely vulnerable like this, restrained, powerless under the beautiful assault of Guinevere Haze.

There was almost nothing between them now and Lochlann's breath was coming in short, hungry pants. There was almost nothing but there was still something, and Lochlann wanted it gone.

Her whole body was against him and Lochlann thrust into her as she ground against him, feeling something close to shame with how she knew exactly what to do to keep him compliant, but he couldn't help but gasp her name.

Pressed up against him like this, Guinevere had taken herself away from him, and he couldn't do much with his free hand besides run it down her spine and grasp at her hips.

She was commanding him to look at her and Lochlann couldn't tear his eyes from her body now. His cock was hot and throbbing beneath her, and he wanted to be touching her cunt, priming it with his mouth and hands so he could taste her cum before he fucked her, but Lochlann was bound and helpless and the only thing he could do was whisper her name.

"Guin," he said, and it was still pleading, but he was obeying her, his eyes searing into her skin, trying to memorize every detail that he was so afraid he might have forgotten, but Lochlann could never forget. He dreamed of her.