Chapter 442: Golden Spiral
The monster waited, poised to received her arm if she wished to allow him the ability to view it. He was challenging her with this request, but she wondered why he even bothered to make it at all. He could easily grab her arm and view it for himself without requesting permission.
August nodded her assent, offering him her arm with the palm facing up. A momentary flash of surprise flitted across his face, but then he smiled and took her hand, pulling her closer to him with one firm tug to gauge her reaction. She was not impressed by this tease of his veiled aggression, and she frowned, glaring at him now with the gold dancing brighter like flames that were secretly wishing to consume him.
"Sorry, I couldn’t help it," he chuckled.
There was something about this female that felt maternal to him, and it wasn’t just the obvious life that was growing in her womb. When she glared at him, it stung like the disapproval of a mother. It was unusual—he couldn’t even recall feeling the disapproval of a mother before, but that was what this was. He was certain of it.
"What is your name?" She asked as he gently turned her arm over, admiring the design that crawled up her skin.
"Can I see the rest?" He asked, glancing back to her without replying to her question.
"If you tell me your name," she replied.
"Well that is the question isn’t it?" The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. "No vampire reveals their true name."
"Then what is your untrue name?" She asked, undeterred.
His smile slowly fell down as he considered her question. "You are unusual," he muttered. "I do not have an untrue name. Why don’t you just consider me that which haunts your nightmares? Do the creatures there have names?"
"Shall I name you, then?" She asked, the seriousness of this question arresting the features that were beginning to twist unnaturally once again on his face.
"What?" He asked, unaware that he was now intertwining his fingers with hers.
"Shall I name you?" She asked with a greater intensity to the words this time and the tone of her voice that dropped.
"Name me?" He repeated, his eyebrows pinching together. "You cannot name me," he sputtered a laugh.
"You are part fae?" She asked, her head tilting in question but the way she said it was such that they both knew it to be a fact. "Do you have a fae name?"
"A fae name? I do not even know what that is," he admitted. Her forearm that he was holding in one hand grew warm, and he glanced down at it, noticing the design light to a golden hue that matched her eyes.
"You do not know that part of yourself? And yet you terrorize others with its abilities?" She asked, her voice taking on an otherworldly echo of itself.
His mouth dropped open, and he slid a hand up her arm, pushing up the sleeve there that covered the rest of this odd design that was now glowing and warm.
"Who are you?" He asked, dropping her arm like it had scalded him. "Are you his mate? Is that his child?" He pointed to her stomach, backing up as he did as if there was something that had terrified him. The royals had not warned him that his mate would be some kind of other creature. They said she was alyko... not—not whatever this female was.
"No," she shook her head. "Zagan is not my mate. But tell me, should the vampires really be threatened by the promise of a new life coming into their world? You are relatively young, so perhaps you have not experienced the dread that comes from an endless future of nothing but the same—the same unliving, undying stretch of time that holds nothing new, because nothing new is allowed. This is what the vampires need—a child from the union of mates is a promise, a glimmer of hope in the darkness. But they keep eliminating it. How many times will the royals eliminate the hope that keeps attempting to be birthed into their world? It is for their benefit as well. It is not a curse but a gift to help alleviate that which is otherwise a curse. Will you not help them see it?"
He stood back, glaring at her with suspicion and disbelief. How did she speak as if she knew where he came from? How did she speak as if she knew the royals?
"No, I will not. What kind of witch are you?" He hissed.
"Witch?" She chuckled. "Do vampires hold such suspicion?"
"You speak as if you know things that you should not know," he glared.
"It is not a trick," she chuckled again. "Nor is it magic. I speak only of what I see, and what I see is you."
"You cannot see all of that from merely looking at me," he hissed.
"If I look AT you, perhaps that is correct. But there is more than that. There is more to you. There is more to all of us—enfolded within ourselves and spiraling out into the universe... each our own unfolding golden spiral just like the patterns within a sunflower or a pinecone or the patterns in a shell. You carry all of that with you. You do not see that in me?"
He shook his head, his eyes growing larger the more she spoke. This one made no sense. This female was terrifying.
"Look," she said, the layers of her voice still echoing in an otherworldly way. She pulled up her sleeve again for him to view. "It is the golden spiral. Are you familiar with Fibonacci?" She asked, glancing back at him.
"I am here to kill the mate and take Zagan back with me," he repeated his orders. "That is all. I do not care about this."
"I know, but you are part of this nonetheless," she said, allowing the sleeve to fall back down. "You have a choice as to how you proceed. No one can make that choice for you but you."
"Then I choose to carry out my orders and take you with me for the royals to judge."
