Samantha Cassidy

The instant the words slipped off the tongue of the faerie queen, she regretted letting them be vocalized in the first place. Her boyfriend had just settled into bed beside her, the first inkling of his body relaxing seeming to rest upon his frame. And she had so easily taken that from him as her voice murmured those two syllables of a name she couldn't even begin to fully comprehend. It had only been a glimpse of the man's mind. Her apparent new power something she didn't quite understand, and now was hardly the time to question it. No, now she was entirely preoccupied with the way he had very nearly launched himself out of her sheets to be at the edge of her bed. She could feel the terror so readily creeping back into his body. And as her fingertips reached out to touch his skin, she could still see those glimpses of his thoughts and the very idea that someone out there might wish to cause her harm only because she dared fall for the were king.

She kept her fingers tracking patterns on the skin of his back, careful not to touch the raw flesh that was so burned from the silver. What exactly of the metal had touched him and made those marks she couldn't begin to fathom. All she knew was the bit of rage she felt as she rubbed his skin that someone would dare harm Aiden like this. Her Aiden. She had nothing but hatred for the person that had done this - this Risque person rapidly deserving of Samantha's hatred. She hated how far away she'd made her boyfriend feel. He felt so much like the man she'd first met who was so far within himself that Samantha did almost all of the talking. She hated it, wanted to draw him back out of it and back to her. She was thankful, then, when her lips met his skin and that gesture alone drew the emerald of his gaze back to her. She offered him that gentle smile as she made every attempt to explain how she knew the name that had scared him so.

She hadn't expected him to relax, not really. She knew him far too well to expect that that alone would slow his terror. What she hadn't expected was the onslaught of images that seemed to play out for the two of them. Visions of him killing made the girl's breath falter, but it was that very image of him chained in silver that made her wince, her gaze so abruptly breaking from his lest she show him some semblance of the anger she felt. That had been his life? The very idea of it made the faerie girl feel ill, the desire to protect him only amplifying. Her attempts to coax him to the pillows was met only with the turn of his body, and if he was not yet ready to be within the blankets with her, she would not force him. Instead, she moved once again from the pillows to move herself in front of him, her body sitting close enough that their knees touched. Gently she took his hand, her fingers trailing over his knuckles and fingers as she thought of the words to say to him.

He gave her few details, the faerie queen sure that she would have to draw it out from him in a series of questions, though she had no idea how to begin. How she wished to close the distance between them entirely and curl up within his arms to hold him close. Though, in this moment, she would leave that up to him. His terror was so close to the surface that the girl was nearly afraid to touch him too much. If he wanted her, she was here, though she made absolutely no effort to pull herself into him yet. "How did you... meet her? Or rather, how did you come to be... whatever it was that you were to her?" She kept her questions simple, making sure to use the past tense within her sentences. No, this woman would have to kill Samantha herself before she took Aiden away from her once more, of that she was sure. "I saw... a glimpse. Of what you were thinking about. That was your life there?" She laced her fingertips between his, finally bringing up her sapphire gaze up to his emerald one. "I can't imagine what that could have been like. But you got away from her? How did that happen?"