The Timekeeper’s attention remained steadfast on the figure below him, even as his flesh leapt underneath her fingertips enough for him to shudder from the touch. How long had it been since he had been touched by another living thing that was not a small mammal from the forest – or the twisting bush that encased him like a lover scorned? For someone who paid close attention to its passage, time alluded him this time around. Though that might have had something to do with his current condition, or even the enchantment that kept him there.<br/><br/><br/>Danger flared up in the dark pits of his eyes once her lips formed the silent word that spiked against the enchantment that held the thorns in place. He felt it resonate through him, a sweet coercion to lax the ties that bound them against him so brutally. Hers was no crushing force meant to defeat the current enchantment that had him, but more like a quiet seduction to pull the limbs away. As soon as he felt the pressure lax, he sucked a harsh breath and flexed, causing again the marbling of muscle the ripple under the surface of his skin. His shoulders shrugged, rolling back as the thorns only scratched now instead of punctured.<br/><br/><br/>“Has it not occurred to you that I am placed here for a reason?” He answered her question with a question of his own, his voice a dark rumble that matched the flash of his stare as his lids lowered and his chin dipped down to watch the trail of her hand find his thigh and stay there. Dampened now by the water, his hair fell forward with his head in clumps that clung to his high cheekbones. “Or do you have no fear either of myself – or the one that put me here?”<br/><br/><br/>Arrogant as the mask on his face, it seemed. Even vulnerable and under this nymph’s control, his dampened power bucked underneath the heavy enchantment like a wild stag wanting to take off across an open field, only instead it was confined to the stables. She would feel it pulse underneath her hand more powerful than the thrum of his heart. But it was contained just as his physical form was; trapped there, no doubt, by the encompassing bush.<br/><br/><br/>Tentatively, he attempted to lift his hands up from his sides, but unless he wanted to tear himself to shreds, there was no surpassing this still. Rolling his neck back instead, he fought the growing frustration that was budding into fruition past the numb that was being washed away just like his blood.<br/><br/><br/>“Tell me what it is you want.”