you're too young & eager to love

I shouldn't write after drinking three martinis! But alcohol inspires me. I must stop consuming character-inspired drinks.

--



“The secret, Radomir, is that all it takes is one woman clever enough to make a desperate man feel special. The world breaks for such an arrangement.”

“Are we still discussing Harrow and his swan?”

She smiles at him, and it is an expression that is all teeth. When she pushes her glass into his hands, he lets his fingers linger on hers.

-

Maximus is a traditionalist. He does not keep beasts because he does not trust them. He moves in a more conservative fashion, and so his grounds are flocked with dogs – wolfhounds and coonhounds. Canines meant for the hunt.

Augusta surprises the men when she kneels for the recently littered pups. She opens her hands willingly, lets them tongue the length of her fingers, presses her face into the soft coat of their necks. Against the shock of orders being tossed in the air, her laugh catches on the wind.

She keeps a blue nosed pup in her arms, stroking its tender ears, until the call for lunch sounds. When she passes Radomir, she places the dog in his wide arms.

“A meal,” she quips, and the hint of a smirk twists her red mouth.

-

She does not smoke, not like her father or her younger brother. She talks, instead, of the thick pollution of the wasted air and longs for the freshness of the mountains. His steps are surer there as it is, and the brisk wind flatters her cream skin, flushes it pink. But she smells like cigars when she returns from meetings, so he washes her hair with a softness that is unprepossessing of his stature.

-

The crack of Kim’s whip is sharper than lightning.

Augusta does not flinch. She watches placidly, noting the streaks of blood that blossom against his skin.

-

Roman pours her a drink that is red and orange, the sleeves of his silk shirt rolled up to show the shape of his arms. She touches his wrist when she accepts it, and Radomir’s feels the growl thicken inside of his chest.