The Heartwood heart to heart

As surely as if she'd called him, the pale man came. Alya would know his scent anywhere, and as it thickened around her, heralding his arrival, she took a deep, hungry breath. Even injured, his scent was strong and beguiling. Blood and feathers - evil in her youth, but in womanhood, evil and appealing. As she waited for him to appear, the dark woman wondered if he would be like the rest of the men she'd coveted.

She was so tired of waiting.

He was a ghost in the grayscale wood, and she was merely a shadow. "Almost," she replied, taking slow, measured steps in his direction. He'd seemed to submit to Hydra, but there was no telling where his true allegiences laid, or how he would react to one of his former enemies. "Will you try to hurt me if I come closer?" she asked in a low, toneless voice, drawing nearer all the same. She wore the same Mona Lisa smile as she had before so that he might recognize her.