Stepping Out of the Shadows (Part 2).

"Bewitching view, isn't it?"

Her heart skipped a beat. She closed her eyes and smirked at her own naivety. Still, believing the reality of a one in a billion chance was stupid of her.

The girl slowly turned around, Marcus's eyes in the twilight were like dark ocean depths, dragging her soul into the abyss of hopelessness. The man took a step forward, she took a step back, glass fragments cracked underfoot, for a moment everything froze.

One, two, three - three heartbeats. Breathin in. Amelia rushed to the side, but a stream of invisible energy knocked the girl down and hit her against the wall. She screamed in pain and fell to the floor.

"You do not like my company so much that you are ready to run, knowing that this is pointless?" Marcus gasped and looked at Amelia.

Air temperature dropped by a dozen degrees.

A frosty pattern crawled with curls from the man's feet, covering the floor, the tables and the walls with a snow outgrowth, as if its creator wanted to turn all the living things in the room into the still ice.

"Ready to risk your own life in a dark forest, among wild animals, just not to be near me?"

Amelia got up on her shaking knees and pressed herself against the wall, ice tentacles were crawling up her legs, wrapping her skin around like snakes.

"Do you hate me so much that you decided to seduce another man in the same way?"

Marcus's eyes flashed fire, in the blink of an eye he closed the distance, and the girl felt his palm on her neck. "Who are you to play with me like that?! You think you are the smartest here? I lived in this world three times more than you, you are just a snotty-nosed little girl! You did not change at all. You were a little girl back then, the same little girl now!"

"I did not seduce anyone! And stop insulting me!" Amelia jerked her head, grabbed Marcus's hand and tried to push it away, but the man was motionless, like an ice statue, ready to turn the entire building into the pole of the eternal frost.

"You are saying you did not? Ha!" Marcus took a step back and looked at the girl with malice, "And when did you learn to lie so believably? I'm really starting to think that we are made for each other, Miss Teser. You study enemies in the face, and you hide yours under the mask."

"I don't understand what you mean," the girl answered in an uncertain voice, and looked towards the open door, not knowing why.

Marcus noticed the direction of her gaze, his eyebrows frowned, "What is it? Waiting for help? If you are waiting to see Simon, then I will disappoint you. You and I are the only people within a mile radius."

"Your threats do not scare me, okay? What do you want?" Amelia tried to move, but her legs froze to the floor. A white pattern covered her fingertips; she no longer felt her body. It seemed to her that if Marcus pushed her, she would fall and crumble into small fragments, like an ice sculpture.

"First, my baby, answer the very same question to me. What do YOU want? Your words and actions do not match to each other. First you attract, then you repel. You pursue me day and night, and when we finally met again, you suggest to pretend that we act as if we don't know each other. I can participate in your role-playing games, but every joke has its own limit."

"What are you talking about?" the girl's whisper turned into several puffs of steam, Marcus's gaze lingered on them and moved to Amelia's lips.

The man raised a thumb to the girl's mouth and ran them over her soft lips, which were trembling from the cold. Amelia closed her eyes, the light touch of the man's hot fingers was like a drop of water thrown into boiling oil. The contrast of her frozen skin and his body temperature was too strong.

He slid with his fingertips along her cheek, chin line, down her neck, leaving a trail of fire behind them. It was a battle of ice and flame and her body was the battlefront. Amelia bit her lips so as not to lose her self control which seemed to be hanging by a single thread.

Marcus smirked and leaned over to the girl's face, "Now you understand what I mean?" his breath burned her skin like hot steam from the mouth of a volcano. He leaned lower and bit her earlobe, ripping a loud moan from her lips.

"So responsive," the man murmured, and licked the bite site.

"Oh... Marcus, you are such an asshole! I'll kill you! What the hell are you doing?! This is definitely the beginning of your end!"

The man pulled back and looked with satisfaction at his work - the girl's beaten breath and her cheeks glowing with blush delighted his eye. That's exactly what he needed. He knew how to repay debts, repay them with interest.

"And I don't think so, dearie. In the near future that I see, everything is more than excellent." Amelia swallowed hard, seeing his gaze sliding along her body from the bottom up, making small stops along the way in certain parts. The man raised his hand and loosened the tie around his neck. A devilish smile shone on his face.

"M-Marcus, this is no longer funny. What are you up to?" her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, the heat in her body grew, ready to break out with lava. She began to understand what this situation might be leading to. God, now she really wanted to shatter into pieces from an embracing sense of shame.

"What am I up to? You played with me for eight years. Now it's my turn. Or aren't you glad to see the monster that you have tamed so hard?"

Ding.

The thread on which Amelia kept her self control torn, and a mask of alienation and self-confidence flew off the girl's face, replacing it with shame and confusion.

He knew! Oh gods, he knew it all this time!

"I warned that you have no idea what kind of fire you are playing with, girl," Marcus snapped his fingers, and the classroom door slammed shut, plunging the room into unnatural darkness.

"Let's start, shall we?"

And the monster stepped out of the shadow.