A Burning Gaze

I was seated in a lavishly decorated room which was shockingly pink, seated on a fluffy white seat with a young bubbly girl I'd just met... And we were playing Fortnite.

The butler from earlier stood at the door with a conflicted expression.

"Lady Isolde, I am sorry to disturb you, but your father is requesting your presence in his study," he announced. The girl—whose name was Isolde Sear—groaned in exasperation.

"So now daddy remembers my existence?"

The elderly butler shifted uncomfortably at the girl's words.

Isolde chuckled softly then held my right hand in between her soft palms—"I bet he wants to steal you from me, Selena, but I won't let him! Daddy always steals my friends and feeds them to the hounds. But you're a princess and I'm your knight in shining armor. So, don't worry, I'll definitely protect you from the evil dragon!"

"I am not a princess, Isolde," I tried to reason, "And your father...I don't think he's an...er, evil dragon. I'm sure he'll be sad to hear what you think of him." I tried to explain, but—deep down in my heart—Isolde's far-fetched fantasies resonated with my strained relationship with my parents.

She giggled. "Sure you're not," she said, rolling her eyes as though she could see through all my lies.

"Then why are you in a castle, if you're not a princess? Plus, you're pretty enough to be my mommy and my mommy is the prettiest woman across the seven seas. Only princesses are as pretty as my mommy!"

Okay, I was a princess. I ended up nodding in resignation to my fate. If Isolde said I was a princess, I was certainly Isolde's princess. If she said I was a pixie, then I was most likely Tinker Bell's adoptive sister. If she claimed I was a gnome, I would quickly find a spot in the castle gardens. How could anyone say no to such a charming knight?

Nonetheless, the girl's words lit up an affectionate part of my soul. I felt that, in the future, I would never be able to deny any of Isolde's words, if she said them with such a blinding smile.

Isolde giggled to herself as she leapt off her chair like a lion's energetic little cub and strode hastily out of the room. The butler shook his head quietly as he followed behind her.

A long while passed as I boredly played Fortnite by myself. The equipment in that room was very high-tech and looked quite exorbitant. Even with my true identity as Aisha Ergot, it would be difficult to afford everything there.

After dying for the second time, I sighed deeply and peeled the headphones from my ears. I shut my eyes. A gentle sigh escaped my lips.

My muscles relaxed against the soft fabric behind my back. I wondered how fate could be so merciful—to have somehow brought me to an unknown castle in the woods when I was at my worst.

Against my will, my suppressed emotions were quietly released from bondage.

Warm tears silently formed and fell from my closed eyes, rolling down my supple cheeks. I whimpered as the emotions made my heart throb painfully.

"Grandpa... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." I whispered to the kind old man who'd lifted me from the grass and bandaged my sore knees after I'd fallen from my bicycle.

'My dear Ash, don't fight the bicycle. It is there to help you reach where you need to be...and with who you're meant to be with. Therefore, all you need to do is trust it,' the old man would say, squatting to gaze genially into the small girl's tear-streaked eyes.

The little, doe-eyed girl would shake her head stubbornly and cling to her grandfather's luxurious robe. She loathed the bicycle and was convinced that it was her arch nemesis.

'But grandpa, I am already where I need to be. And you're the only one I'm meant to be with. I don't want to be with anyone else!' she would complain adamantly, her grasp on the crimson fabric of his raiment tightening.

'Everyone else only wants me to spend more time with Alvin...'

She would be choked by tears as she mentioned 'everyone else'. It was a triggering phrase for her, chilling her to the bone.

'Everyone else' was a liar - a wolf in sheep's clothing, so to speak. They only revealed to her their plastic, factory-bred smiles. The worst of them was the bony woman who was always beside her father...and that woman's haughty son.

'My dear Ash,' the old man would retain his warm smile. His warmth was infectious as it made the girl lean into his embrace, forgetting the throbbing ache at her knees.

'One day, you'll meet someone who's not 'everyone else'. Someone whom you will have no choice but to recognize by their name. But, right now, grandpa would be happy to keep you all to himself and hide you from the rest.'

***

I had been overwhelmed by slumber when I suddenly felt a soft nudge on my cheek.

My brows furrowed and my lashes quivered as someone wiped the tears that had soaked my cheeks. My eyes opened and rested, hazily, on the man towering over me, his back bent to gaze quietly at my wet cheeks.

His stolid grey eyes lifted to my widening, soft ones, and his gaze darkened slightly. He was so tall, standing at least 6 feet, with a brawny and muscular build that seemed packed with boulders.

The sleeves of his black dress shirt were rolled over his bulging arms which further extended to the rough, veiny hands delicately pressing a handkerchief to my tear-soaked eyelids.

My back straightened as I stuttered, lifting my hands to the hanky—my fingertips accidentally grazing his hard knuckles and making electrifying tingles to run through my wrist. His dark, flawless brows wrinkled and a slight smile—a beautiful incision upon his divinely-sculpted features—was plastered on his face.

He retracted his hand and pocketed the handkerchief. "Good morning," he uttered calmly and smilingly, one hand in his pocket while the other was on the armrest of my chair...less than an inch from my trembling fingers.

I stood up instantly, despite the cold perspiration that had speckled my back from the intimidation he rendered with his gaze.

"Good morn—..."- my cheeks flushed as I hurriedly corrected myself -"I mean, good evening, sir, and hello." That was one way to salute someone. My brows crinkled awkwardly but I kept my neck taut with my eyes glittering up to his.

The seemingly older man, smiling slightly as though something had amused him, folded his arms over his chest. My big, golden eyes couldn't help but fixate on how his dark dress shirt seemed to adhere like glue to his drool-worthy muscles.

Not to mention the unsettling manner in which the veins in his rough arms would become more distinct, like they were about to burst. I could only helplessly envision how easily those arms could make me surrender beneath him.

His lustrous, jet-black hair was long and wavy, rimming his wide and bulky shoulders. A white streak ran through the lush waves of his black hair, betraying his age.

As he looked down at me—the mere, 'lost' girl who'd intruded in his castle—I felt more and more like a caged animal quivering before a menacing predator.

"Isolde was right," he murmured hoarsely under his mint-scented breath(though I think he meant to keep these words to himself) after his grey eyes quietly rose and fell up my mute figure, igniting hot and cold shivers over my body.

His gaze lingered over my cleavage, and I wish I hadn't noticed this detail, but I did—and I felt it, a frigid iciness that grasped my lungs and made me hold my breath instinctively. My nipples instinctually perked up against my will, stretching against the thin fabric as though to beckon his touch.

"Bernard, the one whom you met at the entrance, tells me that you want a job and that you lost your way in the forest," he said perusingly, his calm eyes judging my expression.

All he would get from me though, was the frightened-but-moonstruck golden eyes glittering with anxiety. Of course, despite his age, he was inevitably my ideal type - no, I'm certain he would have been a babe magnet regardless of a girl's standards.

I cleared my throat inaudibly, putting aside my flaming skin and the breathlessness that had initially overwhelmed me.

"That's true, sir," I said, my voice softer than I'd intended.

His gaze quietly followed the slight motion at my throat—an inexplicable tendril of emotion slivering into his dark-grey eyes. He inhaled - a momentary action that seemed to suppress any bubbling feelings he had - and said, "Well then, just how honest you're being...I will determine in a matter of seconds." His low voice seeming to resound from the darkest depths of the ocean.

He wordlessly turned his back to me, stepping towards the enormous door that seemingly shrunk in his presence.

"Follow me," he enunciated laconically, glancing at me with a disturbing void in his cold but hot gaze.