Page 12 of Little Blue

This time, when Misha laughs, I find myself smiling, too.

Five

Irelynn

The scent of winter and flame, of spiced berries and sin accosts me the moment I enter my apartment. Which is ridiculous!

It's my apartment.

I know the mystery wolfman hasn't been here.

I know it.

I know it deep in my bones. It would be ludicrous to assume otherwise. And, still, the scent of him is so strong, I can taste it on my tongue. Just like I tasted it that night at the roulette table. I’d truly felt as though I were playing for my life.

I've been in the presence of many predators in my time. But I've never felt quite so off-kilter, so hunted, as I felt when he looked at me with those shockingly intense eyes.

I've always thought blue eyes were beautiful. But his—they're the kind of blue I'll never forget. Deep, and yet light in the center. Almost like shards of ice, shooting outwards from the despairing pit of an ebony pupil.

They deepen in color, darkening to a deep-sea blue that is fringed by a blue so dark, it almost looks black. They're exquisite, and haunting, and entirely captivating.

Maybe that's why I keep catching his scent. He affected me so deeply, so much more profoundly than somebody I shared at roulette table with, should.

The last time I thought of him should have been when I bid him goodnight.

But I've thought of him every day, multiple times a day.

And, shamefully, even sometimes in the middle of the night.

He creeps into my dreams, and I prefer not to dream at all.

Dreaming leads to disappointment, I should know.

Every day when I wake and I don't see him, I feel disappointed. The crushing weight of it is like a blow to my chest that knocks the air from my lungs.

I don't know why I'm waiting for him to appear in my life. Again, it's ludicrous.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

Like now, for instance. I know for a fact, that aside from Lucy, no man has been in my apartment.

And yet, I smell him. That nameless, wolfman. I smell him as though he's here, standing beside me, close enough to taste.

What is wrong with me?

I'm losing my mind.

It's official.

I'm not sleeping. Not since I started feeling as though I'm being watched, stalked. I’m entertaining dark, shameful fantasies, I have no business entertaining. And yet…

I imagine that he’s there, in my window, watching me. Wanting me.

It’s silly and, quite frankly, impossible. I’m on the fourth floor. No one is peeping in my window.

Still, in my fantasies, in the dark depravity of them, he hungers for me.

I’m not sleeping. When I do sleep, I wake in the middle of the night, my heart pounding, my breaths quick—certain I can feel him. A dangerous presence that lingers in the shadows, untouchable by the light that reaches from my lone window.

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