Tantalizing

[Nhysa]

This was the boring part. Nhysa didn’t watch, but rather found her attention absorbed by the shroud of dark that made power fizzle a temptation through her limbs. She did not care for torture, nor for human suffering. A strange juxtaposition given her occupation perhaps. By the time it was done she was honestly surprised by how much emotion wrapped the word to whisper from his lips. He really hadn’t seemed the type to care. As he shifted her grip retracted and Jaxen fell pathetic to the floor. She peered below to watch the shadow of his shoulders as they heaved, picked out eerily by the glow of the screen, now stilled on the old dead man. Wet sobs soaked the carpet beneath Jaxen’s face. 

Nhysa sighed. Emboldened by the dark, she felt her companion ghost along the back of the chair, its strangely warm weight soft against the bare skin of her arm. A hand lifted to skim along the flick of its tail. “This is why I prefer a clean kill,” she told it lightly as it hopped the back of the chair and began to pool along the floor. Nhysa followed, crouching by Jaxen’s body. His fingers dug and scratched, but he was helpless as a baby. Her hand smoothed through his hair like a mother’s touch. “Learn the lesson, dear one. Or learn to better play the game, I don’t care. That way you won’t have to see me again.”

She stood, then stepped over him to retrieve the bottle of vodka. And then she felt him in the dark, Boda’s lifeless remains the lullaby to sing him to sleep.