Please let this not be the blood of who I fear it was.
His gaze flickered back to his hands. The stains were not just on his fingers. They streaked up his wrist, splattered across his forearm, staining his crisp white shirt. And then I noticed thefaint smudges on his cheek, the dark splotches on the lower part of his chest and his collar.
“Y-your h-hands?” My knees pulled up to my chest, my body trembling.
“Oh, the blood?” He gave a slow, deliberate glance down at himself before returning his gaze to me. There was a smile on his lips, but it was Zaghan, so it wasn’t warm, wasn’t kind, just mocking and sinister.
“Don’t worry, it’s not mine.” He gave a lazy shrug of his shoulders.
My stomach twisted. I knew it wasn’t his. My worry was whose?
“Whose?” I asked, ignoring the metallic scent choking the air between us, and that of smoke, like he had been near a fire.
“Whose blood, Zaghan?” My eyes darted over his body, searching for a wound despite his words. Then I caught another stain I missed earlier, a faint print on the other side of his shirt. The blotch was shaped into a hand print the more I looked at it.
Someone’s hand print.
Someone dying and begging for a second chance.
My back stiffened, fear curling around me. But I refused to let my thoughts wander.
“The box.” My gaze locked on the object in his hands. “What’s inside?”
He blinked at first as if the object, despite its size and possible weight, had momentarily skipped his mind. Then, he held it out to me. “It’s a gift,” he said, almost gently. “For you.”
A gift again?
Hesitation laced my movement as I reached out, taking the box from him. It was heavier than I thought. That meant it wasn’t jewelry again, not something delicate.
“I hope you like it,” he murmured, something dark creeping into his voice.
With trembling fingers, I tugged at the neon ribbon, carefully slipping it free. I barely registered the silkiness of the fabric, though a part of me noted absently that I liked the color, and that I may use it again under different circumstances.
Finally, I lifted the lid, and the scent of unfresh blood hit me like a hammer. The cold rush of realisation swept through me, sending a violent tremor coursing through my limbs. My fingers slackened and the lid slipped free from my grasp.
I refused to look. Refused to confirm what I already knew.
“Open your eyes,” he urged, his voice smooth, expectant.
Tears burned at my lashes, and I hesitantly obeyed, my gaze dropping into the box, horror gripping me in its merciless clutches.
In the box was a heart. A human heart; dark, bloody…dead.
A scream clawed at my throat but nothing escaped. Only a choked gasp, strangled by shock.
He sighed, a sound of exaggerated disappointment. “This was not the reaction I was hoping for,” he mused. “Considering all the efforts I put into this.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. My entire body trembled, my pulse a frantic staccato in my ears.
His fingers suddenly clamped around my jaw, forcing my head back and making me look up at him. His grip was bruising, his breath hot against my skin.
“Where’s the fucking gratitude?” he growled, his voice laced with something raw and unhinged, and I whimpered.
“I brought your lover’s heart to your doorstep,” he continued, eyes dark and hollow. “Wrapped it all pretty for you. And you can’t even manage to spare me a ‘thank you?”
Tears spilled over my lashes. My chest heaved, but my voice faltered.
He tilted his head, gaze flickering over my tear-stricken face. Then slowly, his lips curled into a grin that shared resemblance with a blade with jagged edges.
