85

                                    

                                          
MARIA 
Bran caught Elizabeth around the waist and Maria's eyes zoned in on that point of contact, wanting to see if the touch was romantic at all, but he simply extricated her from his body and placed her on the ground next to him. 
Immediately he dropped her, his eyes shot to Maria's and she was sure she saw guilt in them, although she wasn't standing close enough to him to be able to tell properly. 
Her insides felt hot and alien, like her body didn't belong to her anymore. Knowing that the jealously she couldn't hide even if she tried to was showing on her face, she wove on a glamour of utter calmness. When both Bran and his ex saw her, they would think she had no reaction to them touching.
Her powers came in handy sometimes. 
"What are you doing here?" Elizabeth asked him, obviously unhappy that Bran was putting her at arms length.
Maria didn't know whether he had done that simply because she was there and it pissed her off. She hated this, hated not knowing what was going on his head. She hated feeling so insecure and so bloody jealous. 
"I'm just coming back from a run," he told her, his eyes briefly flicking to her before they came back to rest on Maria. 
She didn't know why he kept looking at her like that without coming to her. She would go to him and stake her claim—Maria wasn't shy and this woman brought out a whole new cavewoman part of her that she didn't know existed—but she needed him to give her a signal, eye-twitch, anything to show that he actually wanted to be claimed. That Maria was who he wanted, not Elizabeth. 
But he just continued to stand there like a fucking ass and he was really beginning to piss her the fuck off. 
"Are you stressed?" The imposter asked, gingerly lifting a hand to place on Bran's cheek and using it to turn his head to the side. "You only run when you're stressed."
Oh, was that so? 
Maria didn't know that. In fact, she didn't even know that Bran went for runs. She remembered that day when he'd come into their room, wearing nothing but pants and a t-shirt slung over his neck, sweaty as all fucks, but she hadn't had the chance to ask because he'd distracted her pretty quickly with his mouth. 
Just how much more about Bran did this woman know that Maria didn't?
The thought had Maria's face—her real one—turning sour and she was do thankful that she had her glamour on, else, Elizabeth would be rejoicing over Maria's bitterness. 
Bran leaned back from Elizabeth's touch and Maria felt a swell of hope at the action. Ouch. That had to have stung, being rejected so openely and in front of another woman for that matter. 
Not just another woman—his current lover. 
"I'm fine," Bran grated and put much appreciated space between them. Again, his eyes left Elizabeth's dissapointed face and came to rest on Maria's. 
Why in the worlds was he staring at her like that? Was he waiting for some sort of permission from his ex-lover before he would come to her? 
Or did he not want to come to her at all? 
She would leave, but she wanted to see where this would go. Whether Bran would keep on staring at her like they didn't know each other or whether he would close the distance between them and prove to this woman that whatever the both of them used to have, was gone. In the past. Forever. 
Elizabeth, as if just now remembering that Maria was still there—or maybe it was a deliberate act—turned around slowly and her mouth dropped to form a perfect 'O'. "Oh goodness," she placed her hand on her chest dramatically. "I almost forgot you were there for a moment."