“I do not sound like that.” He said and I threw my hands up saying to myself,
“And of course that’s the bit he focuses on!”
“And besides, if you’d had this warning would you have still let me do it…um?”
“Oh, Hell no! I would have taken the stairs and met you up here in say an hour…” I paused and looked down the stairs and added,
“…maybe two…but that is beside the point, I would have done it without the chance of a heart attack or feeling like a bloody pebble in a slingshot!”
“I dunno, you don’t look as fit to me as the last time I saw you.” He said and then laughed when I hit him on the arm.
“Yeah, just what I thought, turned into a weakling.” He said pretending to flick some lint off the arm I hit.
“Don’t make me push you off this bell tower and wave at you all the way down!” To which he laughed.
“Yeah let’s see how far you get with that one, Honey.” He said walking over to the lattice of bars across each rounded arch. Then he waved his hand out and I watched fascinated as the tattooed skin on his hands started to spin. The Ouroboros almost looked like they were vibrating just beneath the surface and the quicker they moved the closer together they got until his hand was consumed by black ink.
I sucked in a quick breath as the shadows seeped out of him and broke off into streams of smoke that each wrapped themselves around the bars. This all happened in less than a minute and I don’t know how they did it but when the smoke started to disappear there were bars no more.
“It makes a better view.” Sigurd said nodding for me to step closer to see for myself.
“Wow, that’s amazing.” I said taking in not only the sight of the party below but mainly the incredible view of Venice’s lights twinkling like fallen stars against the night.
“So you gonna tell me why you were running like that dog Cerberus was yapping at your heels?” Sigurd said coming over to stand next to me and leaning his forearms on the ledge.
“You do know me and him are kind of friends…right?” At this he laughed and pushed his hood from his face. The sight had me instantly biting my lip just so I wouldn’t gasp at how beautiful he was. You would have expected such a hard and gigantic man to be rough and rugged in all his features and I suppose some aspects of him were. But it was also combined with a classical sculpted look that artists would weep at the chance to paint. The high cheek bones and the square jaw that was always speckled with tawny stubble. But really it was all down to his eyes.
They were the eyes any girl could get lost in after making love and finding themselves almost drunk with delight but they were also the eyes that could burn like the sun, telling you he could destroy you with little effort.
“So no mask for you then?” I said looking sideways at his perfect profile.
“Yeah, fuck no! I don’t go in for all that dramatic bollocks…no offense.” He said with a smirk.
“So talk to me øjesten.” He said softly after we silently looked out at a supernatural world he obviously didn’t want to accept. In that way we weren’t so very different. Two people struggling with something we always considered a curse. So did that mean all he needed was to find his girl and take that last step as I had done? I often thought about that young girl on the plane I met that day. I wondered what the Fates had in store for her and what the man next to me would one day mean to her.
“I must say, I’m not bitchin’ here but I don’t think I have ever heard you this quiet…shit girl but I remember you saying more when I had to save your ass in that alleyway.” I had to smile at this and I shook my head as he grinned at me.
“Yeah well I wasn’t a weakling back then and still held my bad ass badge.” I said dryly making him throw his head back and laugh.
“Ok I will give you that, you did know how to kick ass back then…for a chick that is.” He added with a wink making me groan and him laugh again.
“Right, now spill it.” He said turning a hip to the side and looking at me head on. I looked out at the party knowing Draven was down there somewhere looking for me and knowing him, probably going frantic. I tried not to feel guilty and knowing the reason I ran it helped in some sense but it was that damn promise I had made!
“Let’s just say I saw and heard something I didn’t like.” I said bringing my head forward on a sigh and resting it on my gloved hands. I knew he was looking at me with that raised eyebrow of his.
“Okay, so this something you didn’t like, were his reasons for it not something you could trust in?”