“She has to die,” Julio tells him, his voice patient. “One way or another.”
Before Sol can respond, Julio turns to leave him in the company of those last words.
16
Moira is seated on the small bed in the windowless room when she senses a presence. With the light on, it’s easier to catch the pieces of the dark when it comes to visit.
Sol stays in the doorway, silent, perhaps pondering over his own thoughts. The tightness of his jaw, the way he stands there with his back against the door’s hinges, it all reminds Moira that she doesn’t know this man. She doesn’t know what his pensive side will birth; whether she will be benefited or punished.
And the lack of knowledge makes her silent as well.
“Are you a liar?” he asks, his hand on the doorframe, his eyes on his hand. The other is on his hip and those fingers hold on tight to his flesh.
“I have lied,” she tells him as she looks away. And she has. In ways that’ve hurt, in ways that have kept.
But the lies that placed her in a constant purgatory—lies told against her—always felt altogether worse than anything she’d done. She could chalk these up to bias, to self-preservation and the human need to not feel quite as villainous as the ones who’d created her and raised her.
Sol remains there quietly and from the corner of her eye, she can see him glance at her before looking away once more.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer a question you don’t know how to ask,” she tells his silence.
“Not even the girl who swallowed the sun can help me, eh?”
“Aye. I did’nay ken you were looking for help.”
He chuckles to himself before he takes a deep breath and leans his head back against the frame. “You relax into that accent of yours when you feign ignorance.”
His soft s’s remind her of a snake in this moment and she wonders when he’ll strike. If his strike will be venomous this time.
“Does this mean you do not believe me?”
He shakes his head and steps inside the room, favoring his left leg ever so slightly.
But Moira knows to look for it now.
“Not necessarily.” He catches her staring at his leg and smirks. “I know, girasol, you think you’re learning me. But I am learning you, as well.”
Not knowing what this means, Moira stands, her borrowed clothes not strengthening her confidence. Still, if she is going to argue her case, she’ll do so with as much strength as she can muster.
“You’re going to keep me locked away until you can prove that I am not a liar?” The question rolls off her tongue and she tries to keep the chill from causing her to shiver. The floors are cold, and her feet haven’t known warmth since she left her home.
“I will not keep you locked up,” he answers, his gaze scaling the walls. “I’ll keep my men at your side at all times.”
“What an unproductive use of your resources.” Her voice sounds bored, but her heart makes up for it, pattering with life and an ache to understand the unknown.
“Your life depends upon it.”
And Moira, for all of her fervor, deigns to be his prisoner once more. “Will you ever tire of threatening it?”
“No more than I’ll tire of defending it,” he answers.
She doesn’t know where his previous passion has retreated to, or whether she prefers it over his current passiveness. Either way, she is curious. “From whom?”
His smirk turns into a full smile, the idea of her curiosity feeding the empty-bellied beast in him. “You’re a foolish woman if you think I’m the only one who wants to see every filthy MacQuarrie dead.” He spits the words as if he’s forgotten the blood that runs through her veins.
People Moira do not know would care to see the end of her days come to fruition.
“Why?” Moira knows of her own terror; of her mother’s reign over her own life. Outside of their walls, she knew nothing. No whisper of enemies had reached her ears. No sight of exterior violence had clouded her vision.
“I was not the first to strike.”
She doesn’t say anything, not knowing what he means and realizing he has no intention of imparting his knowledge. His first words ring true in her mind.
Knowledge makes you arrogant.
“I find great pleasure in the notion that your parents rotted in their sacred palace.”
There is a smirk in her tone when she answers; a haughtiness that she hopes will poke at his own. “In town, they knew of the massacre.”
Sol’s tsk causes Moira to look at him.
“A pity. A great pity, indeed,” is all he says.
There are no more words shared between them for a moment. Just his black eyes and her gray ones.
In a room so small, with two people filled to the rim with their own vision of their existence, it’s no wonder the walls don’t curve and stretch to fit them.
“You will sleep in my bedroom with me, every night.”
Something tightens in Moira’s chest at the thought of sharing the sumptuous quarters with him. More than that, at the image of what lying with him would look like.
Swirls of black and red, of sin and rebellion, come to mind.
The bed would catch fire. No one would survive it.
“I once hated your creamy skin. It reminded me too much of an empty canvas. But the splash of red across your cheeks is the most honesty I’ve seen from you, girasol,” Sol confesses, his jaw working and his eyes assessing her own as he steps forward, closer, until he stands just before her.
He reaches out, touching her face for the second time today, his thumb smudging over her blush as if to see if the color would stain his own skin.
“Fire licks at you…like it knows how delicious you are,” he murmurs, thumb still stroking. “I’d like to know.”
She turns her face into his touch and her body begins to take part in a song and dance that’s lived in many lives before her own. It betrays her in his presence, when he is so subdued but somehow still enigmatic.
Moira may not know fear in other forms, she may not scream when he attempts to break her, but in the arena of lust and affection toward the sinful man before her, she acknowledges her fear. She respects it.
“Your man would not approve,” she whispers to him before wetting her lower lip with her tongue.
His other hand reaches up and rests against the base of her neck. “He thinks I am weak for you,” he confesses with a sigh. “I often wonder if he’s right.”
A light squeeze, his thumb pressing into her pulse, has her gasping. He is not subdued.
He is near breaking.
“But there are other forms of torture, Moira. And I’m not opposed to using unorthodox methods.” His smile is quick and razor-sharp. “I think I’d rather enjoy it.”
Fear, indeed, crawls from her heart into her throat where his hand still lies. Her lips part and tremble, the need to speak quarrelling with the notion that she wouldn’t know what to say in this moment.
Would she beg to be freed? Or would she desire to experience this new brand of torture? There is a pull, low in her belly, that answers for her. It mingles with fear and they dance, twirling beautifully inside of her.
“Come to me tonight,” he instructs, removing his palm from her cheek. He steps back just as he places his thumb between his lips.