The trees whispered like old gods.
Ancient limbs twisted towards the pale sky, their bark slick with mist, their roots thick as serpents. Beneath them, a boy ran-barefoot, bloodied, breathless. His legs moved like cracked branches, each step slower than the last. The forest floor was damp with decay, and his small frame left a trail of broken leaves and muddy prints.
He didn't know where he was
Only that he had to keep moving
Blood pulsed from a wound at his neck, warm and wet, staining the threadbare fabric of his collar. His hands, mud cakes and shaking, pressed uselessly against it. It gushed between his fingers anyway, thick and dark like spilled wine.
"M-mama..."
But no one answered. Only the crows above, shifting in the branches, watching.
He stumbled over a root, fell hard, cheek striking cold earth. The sky spun above him, grey and endless. His chest rose in shuddering gasps. He tried again.
"Help...me...."
The wind stole his voice, somewhere , deeper in the woods, something moved slow, deliberate. A shadow, long and lean, dragging across bark.
He turned his head. Eyes wide, pupils blown, vision blurring at the edges.
It wasn't human but it saw him.
He opened his mouth to scream, but only blood came out. He clawed at the dirt, trying to pull himself forward, but his arms gave way. His body trembling once...then went still.
A crow landed near him, cawed once
And then the forest swallowed him whole.
******************
The room was silent, expect for the soft crackle of wax dripping from a dying candle.
Alexander sat in the corner, unmoving. The shadows cast by the flame clung to his features, dancing like ghosts across the hollows of his face. His gaze never left the girl on the bed.
Margaret
She lay beneath worn linen, her breathing slow but steady now. A fresh gash marked her collar bone, already stitched and cleaned. She'd cried in her sleep earlier, murmuring names, places, fragments of memory. He hadn't looked away once.
Not since he brought her inside.
His eyes, normally Sharp and calculating, now held something quieter , almost mournful.
She still had those grey eyes. Even beneath layers of dirt and bruises, even half conscious, she was beautiful. The same beauty that had struck him the first time he saw her.
It was raining the day he visited the black market.
The sky above Eldhame's slums had been nothing but ash and smoke, and the scent of burning meat and rot clung to the air. Shouting echoed across the muddy lanes, buyers barking numbers, handlers cracking whips. Slaves were dragged out in chains, young girls, old men, some limping, some glassy-eyed.
He wasn't supposed to be there. Not in plain clothes, not at all, but something had drawn him in.
And then he saw her
She wasn't standing in the bargaining line like the others. She say on a wooden crate, wrists bound, eyes vacant and dazed but not broken. Her hair was matted with straw and blood, but her face....
It stopped him cold
Grey eyes, not dull like the rest, alert, awake. Alive.
She didn't look away when their eyes met. For a moment, the crowd disappeared. The noise dulled, the rain fell slower.
He waited, hovering near the edge of the ring, ready to step in. He had money, he would pay triple. He would take her, free her, protect her.
But she was never offered.
Instead, a handler whispered to another man, a tall one in inspector's black and exchange was done in secret, a slip of paper, a seal, just like that.
Sir Fairleigh turned without a glance and walked away. The girl was taken with him.
Alexander's chest had aches with helplessness. Of all people.....him?
He couldn't challenge Fairleigh. Not then, not without suspicion, not with the rumors already stirring about his past.
So he came instead, to the mansion. On official visits, to consult on missing persons cases...But always, always, his eyes searched for her.
At first, she flinched whenever he passed. Kept her head bowed, spoke in short, terrified breaths. But with time , her fear dulled, she stopped hiding her bruises when he noticed, started speaking, softly, when he asked if she was alright.
He had slipped her food. Covered for her when she burned a noble woman's shawl, stood between her and a lash.
He thought it was enough. That watching over her was enough until duty called him away. Years of travel, reports, blood, silence.
When he returned, he found her almost flogged to death.
The candle flickered low
Alexander's jaw clenched as Margaret stirred on the bed, her brow furrowing against the haze of pain. Her lashes fluttered, she gasped softly, sitting up in a flash of panic before collapsing again with a sharp cry
He stood at once , moving to her side but slowly, carefully, like approaching a wounded animal.
Her eyes opened
Grey, wide, terrified. They locked on his
And for the second time in life.... Alexander forgot to breathe.
Henrietta couldn't believe her eyes. Alexander Blackwood
The man who once haunted her thoughts in secret, long before Albert ever held her hand. She blinked slowly, her breathe catching in her throat.
It has been years since she last saw him up close. Years since she was a girl of fifteen, still wrapped in innocence, clinging to forbidden daydreams. She had loved him once, not with the fire of passion, but with the ache of youth. And even though he was much older, that never stopped her heart from fluttering when he walked past.
But he has never looked at her that way. Not since
Not then
Not now
Yet here he stood tall, still as stone, watching her like a puzzle he couldn't solve.
His face was sharper than she remembered. Cut from shadow and moonlight, angular jaw, a high bridged nose and piercing eyes the color of winter frost. His long black hair, once neatly bound, now hung loose, brushing the curve of his neck. He looked older, heavier with silence, and somehow larger than the room itself.
Henrietta stirred where she layed, barely breathing
Why was her heart racing?.
Why did she still remember the way he used to tease her. Always brushing past her like a ghost in the hallways, laughing at the way she clutched her poetry books, mocking the way she stammered when she lied.
And why is he stirring at her like an hungry lion.
The room was so still the candles flame seemed afraid to breathe.
Alexander and the girl on the bed, stirring wildly at each other yet not a single word from anyone of them.
Some where far in the manor a clock chimes, a single note that slid between them like a blade, but neither moved.
A gentle knock. The door eased open.
"Dinner is ready, my lord" Clara announced, voice polished yet trembling at the edges.
Alexander's shoulders shifted, breaking the spell. He glanced down at Margaret one last time, an unreadable flick of concern, suspicion, something deeper and turned away, dark hair brushing the collar of his coat as he vanished into the corridor.