「mush’s corner」

Crimson staining the concrete under you, and splattered on your husband’s sleeves. The juxtaposition of your husband and Simon solidifies itself then. Something that made your mouth water and heart race with desire when it came to Simon is repulsive on your husband. Something that lodges a lump deep in your throat, makes it difficult to swallow the tears running down your cheeks. 

Your hands shake as you reach out to the bunny lying there motionless. Fear runs through your body, raging anger, but the guilt is the heaviest. 

It’s your fault. It’s all your fault. 

The bunny was innocent. A sweet, pure thing that had nothing to do with you and Simon or your deceit. And still, your husband took his anger out on it, snapped its neck in two like it was the one coercing you to Simon's doorstep. The poisoned apple. 

He’s too narcissistic to realize it was him. Too much of a coward to confess he was the one who forced you down this dark and moldered path. One that made you lose your wedding ring somewhere in the backroom of Simon’s butcher shop when you left your dignity on your knees. 

Your husband had hardly noticed really, it’s not like he paid attention to detail when it came to you. You were shocked when he did notice, stuttering over your words, and you offered a weak apology, saying you had lost it while washing the dishes.

It was a lie, he knew it. A part of you thinks you didn’t try to convince him on purpose. That you lost it on purpose because you didn’t know how to end this any other way. It’d be easier if he was the one.

Everything else after that is black, a flurry of running after him as he storms to the backyard shed. You had screamed so loud when he picked the bunny up, the poor thing kicking its hind legs in the toughest fight it could muster. It looked so tiny in his palm, trapped in his confines.

“Been letting you feed this damn pest in my backyard and this is how you repay me?” He spat it out with fury, globs of saliva landing on your cheeks.

“Put it down, please." You spoke calmly, masking the way your chest was vibrating with anxiety. "I don't even know what you're talking about, sweetheart.” 

Sweetheart. There's that damn word you trickle in. A front. Appeasement of sorts to show you still care, that this is a marriage you want. 

“I should’ve known, marrying a whore like you.”

Whore. He says it so often you don't even bat an eye. Sweetheart, whore, the words have become analogous at this point.   

You were too late after that. The sound of its cracking neck came first. Its thrown limp body on the floor. Its head makes a thud as it lands hard on the gray cement at your feet, blood splashed underneath it.

It all happened so fast you didn't have time to react besides falling to your knees next to it. The worst part is you didn't even name it. A part of you afraid of the attachment you would've grown when you knew it would eventually lead to this. Afraid of what it would mean when he finally did.

You think you black out for a few seconds, coming to in short fuzzy bursts as reality dawns on you. It's funny the way raw meat did not affect you, not when Simon was the one meticulously handling it. Funny how you were willing to lie on the butcher block next to it all, be the sacrificial lamb instead, but this draws a vizierial reaction. 

You stay still, despite your quivering fingers, until the fog clears, until your hands stop and your heart calms. Everything clashes together then, morphing into this ugly, angry monster in your chest that takes over. Years of just burying it down, pretending you were okay, boil over and your pretty bow that sealed it all together unravels. Tears in two for the first time since you've laid eyes on your coward of a husband. 

You look up at him then, at the ugly figure that has the audacity to call himself a man. You won’t be too late this time.

“You’re right.” You stand, saying it with the same conviction he spat at you, except yours has reason, a deeper meaning than insecurity. "It’s the butcher. Had me on my knees last week.”

He storms across the distance then, an anger in his eyes you're not quite used to. You don't move though, not even a flinch when he wraps his hands around your throat and slams you against the wall of the shed. Your head throbs from the impact, a panging tightness radiating from your skull down your spine. Your hands find purchase on his forearm, dragging your nails along his skin until it draws blood, legs kicking out as the bunny had in his grasp too. 

“Right on top of the meat you eat for dinner every night.” You say it between your strangled breaths and stinging lash line with tears you try your best to hold back.

His fingers tighten around your neck after that and the edges of your vision go dark, hands losing their grip on him when you physically can't fill your lungs with air. You see your mom at the edges, the abuse she endured when you were young. When she wasn’t brave enough to do something about it and leave. When she put her faith above reality. Above you.

You think maybe you should be thinking about your faith instead of hers. Muttering a prayer you were forced to memorize growing up, but none of them come to mind. None of them could help you now. This God should’ve saved you years ago.

The rest is a blur, you don’t know what you grab, or how you even manage to, but it’s heavy, and you can barely wrap your fingers around it. All you know is it makes your husband’s hands fall from your throat, falling back after repeatedly bashing his head with it.

Your cross necklace follows him, silver jewelry ricocheting off the floor. You think it has to be a metaphor, a sign from this God. Being set free from the expectations of religion, set free of the shackles that weighed you down for so long. The cross scalded on your skin melted off.

There’s blood dripping from his forehead when you finally stop, and he’s looking at you in shock, fingers dabbing at the wound like he hadn't just had his hands around your jugular. It makes you laugh, a sound that comes out half broken from your strained throat. 

“We’re done.” It's raspy, but final.

You don't look back as you walk back inside the house you've lived in for years. Don't even give him a shred of acknowledgement when you pack a duffel bag. 

You find you don't have much of importance in this house besides Simon's jacket. 

You don't even realize you've got blood on your shirt and under your finger nails until you're outside Simon's door and he looks at you concerned.

You’re not even surprised when you see your ring glimmer out of the corner of your eye, pinned to the wall like a trophy he’s won.

──────────────

They don't expect you to come back. Why would they? Ghost's human blood reserves have never returned alive. Rumor has it he's usually given more than one human blood reserve because at least one always dies.

This is confirmed when, at the end of the Task Force 141 mission briefing, you're sent into the room with three other people. The other's blood donors are already there. A woman for Soap, a man for Gaz, and a man for Captain Price.

A woman to your left is standing upright, her hands behind her back, as if she is a soldier herself. She doesn't show any fear. The man next to her is doing the same. You don't understand how they manage to hide their fear until you notice the order in which you're standing.

"We thank you for your service," Price begins. You've long since stopped listening. You're standing at the front—you're Ghost's first human blood reserve. The two people behind you are just your backup.

It's said that Ghost uses his blood donors three times. No one has ever survived the third time. Your room has already been given to someone else, your life insurance policy cashed in, and your death certificate is already prepared at your notary.

Price explains all this while trying hard to make eye contact with you. He ultimately blames it on the fact that it's a "high-risk mission." You don't believe a word of it and don't return his gaze.

Instead, your fear-filled eyes meet those of the man who is supposed to mean your death. Ghost's dark eyes are already fixed on you. Intense and definitely hungry. Your heart rate immediately increases, and small wrinkles form around his eyes, as if he's grinning beneath the terrifying mask.

When the mission briefing ends, you're the first to leave the room. You can't escape; it's already too late. And the employment contract you signed contains a clear clause that makes it impossible to terminate it mid-year.

Instead, you're using the little time before your deployment starts to make preparations. You will survive Ghost. That's your final goal before your military contract expires at the end of the year.

---<>---

They call it "the feast" when they return to the safe house for the first time, where you, as their blood reserves, are kept for the duration of their deployment. Everyone has their own room. You're mostly in Ghost's room, barely moving. Your replacements spend their time in the run-down living room. Their jokes don't make it through the walls for you to hear, but you're not in the mood for laughing anyway.

So far, the plan is for Task Force 141 to return to the safe house once a week to satisfy their blood hunger. Your daily routine consists of drinking a lot, eating iron-rich food, and experiencing several nervous breakdowns.

That Ghost will eventually appear in the doorway of your room is expected, yet it still startles you when he does.

You swallow hard. Your heart rate automatically increases, and Ghost takes another step into the room, closing the door behind him. "This heartbeat isn't exactly helping my self-control, honey."

You back away as he approaches. "Relax," he murmurs.

Controlling your breathing is virtually impossible, and instead of calming your heartbeat, your limbs only began to tremble. Your head felt far too light compared to the sensation in your legs. Your circulation nearly stopped with fear.

"Calm down. You'll pass out before I've even started." He's mocking you. You can hear it in Ghost's voice.

Not a word escapes your lips. Instead, you slump down on the bed behind you. With trembling fingers, you pull up your sleeve and offer your arm to the soldier.

He makes a sound that reflects either disappointment or outrage. "No fight at all?"

You look away, your arm still raised, speechless.

"Such a good girl," Ghost purrs, kneeling before you. He takes your arm and holds it in a surprisingly gentle grip. With his free hand, he pulls his mask up a little, exposing his mouth. The sharp fangs flash between his lips as he opens them slightly.

Every muscle in your body tenses as he guides your arm to his face. His mouth rests on your pulse point at your wrist. You can feel his lips against your skin and squeeze your eyes shut, as if that might lessen the pain that follows as his sharp fangs sink into your skin.

A whimper escapes your throat. At first, you feel only pressure, then the tearing of your skin and the sharp fangs sliding beneath it. The pain intensifies into an almost unbearable sting. Instinctively, you try to pull your arm away, but Ghost's grip tightens around your wrist, causing the first tears to stream down your face.

His teeth disappear after a short time, replaced by his tongue licking the open wound from which your blood is flowing. You lose all sense of time. He must have been kneeling there in front of you for quite a while. When he finally releases you, you're so dizzy you can barely see.

All feeling has deserted your body, and you're unsure how you're even managing to sit upright.

You register that Ghost is moving around the room. He takes your arm again when he stops in front of you. You want to scream, to pull away, to stop him from touching you again, but your body is in shock and won't allow any movement.

You don't feel pain again, but instead a bandage being wrapped around your wrist. With enough pressure to prevent further blood loss from the open wound. "Still there, bunny?"

No reaction, just your arm falling from his hand when he lets go. Your eyes roll back, and then your body topples backward. The mattress cushions your fall.

---<>---

Even days later, you're still struggling with the blood loss.

It's time to start your life support measures. One out of every three times Ghost has used you as live food. Only two left.

Your packed backpack doesn't contain the items you're supposed to carry as a walking blood supply. Instead, it's filled with ways to prevent Ghost from killing you in a blood haze next time.

Task Force 141's arrival is announced over the radio this time. Minor injuries among the soldiers, so you're to prepare for a larger blood donation. You do—in your own way.

When Ghost enters the safe house, everything smells of death. He immediately notices it and sniffs. "Did anyone die?" he asks no one in particular. His two backup blood supplies are sitting at a table, shrugging their shoulders, unconcerned.

"It can't be mine. I can hear Bonnie's heartbeat," Soap replies and heads straight upstairs to his room.

"The smell is coming from upstairs, so it's yours or Capt's," Gaz explains, turning the corner to the only room on the ground floor.

Ghost knows Price is the last person who would kill his blood supply. An annoyed breath escapes Ghost, and he follows Soap upstairs. As Gaz said, the smell gets worse and more intense the closer he gets to his door. But there's a heartbeat. Much too fast to belong to someone dead.

When Ghost opens the door, he wants to turn right around and go back out. But his eyes stay fixed on you. You're standing in a corner of the room. A sheet of plastic is spread out beneath you to protect the floor from the blood that's covering you. A dead man's blood—from head to toe. You left only one arm clean; the one without a bandage.

You look like you're the one coming from a battlefield, not him. Thick drops trickle down your body, over your top and shorts, down your bare legs. The blood is old enough to look brown, slightly clotted, and—that smell...

"Hell, girl." Ghost slams the door behind him, the rage in his eyes unmistakable.

You say nothing—why would you? Your presence speaks volumes. You simply raise your clean arm, almost as if you're offering yourself willingly this time. Your heartbeat is still fast, but calmer than last time.

Ghost's hunger outweights the aversion to the smell of old blood, which overpowers the sweet scent of your living body.

With a few steps, Ghost is at your side, roughly grabbing your arm. He's not as gentle as last time, sinking his teeth into your skin the second his mask is pulled up.

You're prepared for the pain this time, yet a pained sound escapes your mouth. Ghost drinks quickly. This time, the pain doesn't come from his teeth, but from the sucking on your skin. You can practically feel the blood being drained from your veins.

Just as dizziness begins to set in, Ghost abruptly releases you. He goes straight to the door, taking deeper breaths as he moves further away. "Not again," he warns, and then leaves the room.

And you celebrate your success. You're still alive.

---<>---

The third time follows. You're even more nervous this time, but better prepared. With something actively keeping him at bay.

He enters the room, relieved not to have been greeted by the acrid smell of death in the doorway. But then he sees what you're wearing. Silver armor. You look like a knight, only your head and neck are bare. Everything else is covered in plates of silver with crosses welded onto them.

"Are you kidding me?!" Ghost growls. The door slams even harder behind him this time as he enters the room.

The missions are getting tougher, his healing powers weakened by the meager amount of blood he consumes. Missions are always a diet for him anyway. And you're only provoking him and his control even more.

You say nothing. As always. But you tilt your head to the side, offering him your neck. And this time, Ghost can detect your scent and the pulse in your carotid artery. His teeth immediately sink into his lower lip, even though he'd just been debating whether to use one of his spare human blood reserves today.

With a few steps, he's at your side, but there's no surface he can touch without getting burned. He bends his head down, his lips lingering at ear level. "You think this will save you." His words are barely a whisper, and beneath his armor, the hairs on your skin stand on end. "It won't."

Then his teeth are at your neck, digging in deep, his jaws linger longer than necessary. This time, the pain is entirely deliberate; Ghost bites harder and harder. Your shoulders tense up, the armor against your body clanking.

You raise your hands to push him away, but then stop for two reasons. First, if you push him away, his firm bite on your neck will likely tear out far too much flesh, and you'll bleed to death. Second, you're not strong enough to push him away anyway.

So you decide to use your words. "Please..." You don't know exactly what you're asking him for. That he'll stop? That he won't kill you? Or perhaps that if he does kill you, he'll do it quickly?

His teeth pull from your skin, his tongue licks the bloody wound, then his lips briefly leave your body. "Bunny can talk," he says mockingly. You can hear the grin in his voice. "Please what?"

"Please..." you start again, swallowing against the pain in your throat. "...don't hurt me." It's the only thing you can ask him for.

"Oh, sweetheart, so soft and scared." Again his tongue licks your throat, catching every drop that flows in a small river from the two open wounds left by his canines. "Take off the armor," he demands then.

You shake your head. Your throat feels constricted. You can't say anything more to him.

Ghost lowers his head back to your throat and his open mouth over the bleeding wounds. Like before, he sucks at the spot, almost greedily. His hands rise frequently, trying to grab a hold of you, but always end up pulling back. Every now and then, his skin hisses where it touches you. His fingers against the armor on your arms, the side of his jaw against the silver on your shoulder, or his chin touching the edge of your chest armor. Yet he doesn't stop.

He's so close, you can hear him swallow. And you feel his breath brushing your neck. What you hadn't considered is that your head is completely unprotected. Ghost's hand finds the back of your head, grabbing a handful of your hair and yanking your head back further. Your neck is now even more exposed, and he doesn't waste a second shifting his teeth to another spot, biting down hard, further increasing the blood flow.

Your skin is warmed by your own blood, which flows down your neck and throat. You whimper and whine like an injured animal.

Because of the angle at which he holds your head, you can barely breathe properly. And now, in addition to the blood loss, comes the oxygen deprivation, which instantly causes you to collapse.

Ghost doesn't catch you. But he doesn't take any more blood from you either. He just looks down at you as you gasp for air, clutching your bleeding neck. The silver armor reflects his silhouette. "Your tricks will run out eventually. And when that happens, I'll be there to take everything you've denied me."

With that, he leaves.

---<>---

You've broken the record. You've survived Ghost three times.

Standing in the doorway to his room are the two people who are supposed to replace you after your death, staring at you in utter surprise.

"You're still alive," the man says dryly.

The woman examines the bandages on your body. A thick one around your neck, one on one wrist, and a plaster on the other. You're pale, but alive enough to play blood donor once more. "That'll do for today."

"Who's next?" They're not having the conversation with you, but about you. The fate of the next living meal is sealed with a game of rock, paper, scissors. Next will be the woman, who now wears a sour expression and gives the man the cold shoulder as she leaves.

The man's gaze meets yours again. You're sitting at the foot of the bed—your body pitifully slumped and exhausted. "Nice to have known you. You were very brave," he tells you. You don't reply, but lower your gaze to the floor. The man closes the door behind him as he leaves.

You open your hand. Two different pills stare back at you. You swallow them without another thought and then, with great difficulty, peel yourself out of your clothes as the pills slowly take effect.

Task Force 141 is on their way back. Soap's living blood bank informed you an hour ago—the only one who actually talks to you once the soldiers are gone. The only one who convinced you to actually make your last attempt at survival and not give up. She winked at you when you finally agreed and took the pills out of your backpack, along with the lingerie set you're now wearing.

You hear the front door open and the quiet voices as the soldiers head off to their blood banks. Then Ghost's footsteps in the hallway. And finally, the door to your room opens.

You don't dare look up. He would see your dilated pupils and the flush on your cheeks, caused by the heat coursing through your body. You're already feeling dizzy, so you avoid getting up and stay put on the corner of the bed. You're not sure if the wet patch between your legs is from the hot flashes or the intense arousal. But you know the headache and fatigue are signs the pills are taking effect.

The door closes quietly. "That trick... I like it," Ghost murmurs. He approaches you, more slowly. His eyes take in your barely covered body. And then you look up, meeting his gaze.

Your lips are slightly parted, as if you were about to say something, but you immediately forget it at the sight of him. Your pupils are so dilated your eyes look almost completely black. The whole room smells of your sweet blood and the unmistakable scent of desire.

"Beautiful parting gift, bunny." His hand finds your jaw. Fingertips trace your face, lifting your chin a little higher. The wound on your neck should be hurting, but you don't make a sound.

Your fingers tremble as you slowly lift them and remove the bandage from your neck. Of course you're cooperating. You have been the whole time.

You tilt your head to the side as Ghost's hand falls from your face, offering him the uninjured side of your neck.

"Such a good girl," Ghost praises you. "So good."

He kneels in front of you, getting down to face level. "I'll do this slowly and painlessly, okay, birdie?" In response, you simply close your eyes and await the final bite.

It comes after a few moments. Ghost's hand finds the back of your neck, holding you in place. Then his mouth is on your throat, his teeth scraping at your skin. "You smell heavenly," he whispers against your skin. Then comes the bite.

It doesn't hurt this time. Just like he promised. His teeth slowly break through your skin and withdraw instantly as the blood begins to flow.

Your skin feels even more sensitive from the pills. The sound creeping from your throat is a full moan. Your fingers dig so tightly into the sheets beneath you that your knuckles turn white. Your chest curves forward further, tilting your head to the side to give Ghost better access. "Jesus, babe," Ghost breathes against your neck and starts to drink more. Each time he sucks on your throat or traces his tongue over the wound, your vocal cords vibrate with a new moan.

Ghost can smell how wet you're getting. He can practically hear the hormones coursing through your blood. Your heart is racing, but this time not with fear, but with arousal.

His free hand moves to your thigh, pulling your leg to the side, and he shifts his kneeling position from beside you to in between your legs. Your thighs are now pressed against his sides, one on each side. You try to squeeze your legs together to create friction, but Ghost's body is in the way.

Ghost's lips pull away from your neck. He licks a few drops of blood from his lips and swallows. He looks at you intently, and you wonder if the pills will finally take effect and save you, or if you'll be lying dead on the bed in the next hour, your corpse likely dragged out of the house by Price and set on fire.

It takes exactly two heartbeats before Ghost's gaze darkens. "What have you done?"

The dizziness intensifies, as does your desire, as your gaze slowly travels down his body to the clearly visible bulge in his tactical pants—definitely affected by the pills; the effects he's also absorbed through your blood.

It takes you several attempts to answer, your voice breaking with a low moan. "Viagra and Addyi," you explain honestly. In your state, a lie isn't even possible.

Ghost snorts. "You only had to ask, bunny" His hands find your thighs and he pulls you closer to the foot of the bed until you can barely sit on it. "Now we have to deal with what you've done."

You close your eyes again and let your head fall back. His hands on the bare skin of your thighs are almost enough to bring you to your climax. And Ghost can clearly smell it. "Fuck, baby. With that trick, you've sealed your own fate."

His lips find the skin on your breast not covered by the lace bra. The skin is immediately sliced ​​open by his teeth.

Blood trickles from the scratch, down between your breasts, across your stomach, and into the thin panties.

He's no longer focused on your blood. Instead, he's sucking on every inch of skin he can get hold of. You can only respond with a shamefully loud moan. Your trick is working, but the price is high.

Your hands leave their place on the edge of the bed and find Ghost's body instead. The hard muscles beneath your fingers and the cold skin extinguish any remaining semblance of common sense. You find the rolled-up balaclava and reach under the fabric. With one swift movement, you lift it over his face until it's completely removed and you can let it fall to the floor. He looks at you. Not angry or furious, but not with understanding either. "Dangerous, sweetheart," he warns, but it's too late. You see every detail of his face and every tense muscle.

And then, without hesitation, you press your lips to his. His teeth immediately catch on your lips, and you bleed into the kiss. Ghost responds instantly, harder, more demanding. He forces your mouth open, shoves his tongue inside, licks your lips and the bleeding spots, while his hands tighten around your thighs, pulling you so close that you're no longer sitting on the end of the bed, but completely in his grasp. You wrap your legs around his hips to keep from falling backward, and your hands dig into his shoulders.

Then Ghost stands up, with you in his arms, pressed tightly against him. You don't break the kiss or his tight grip. Your arms wrap around his neck, preventing him from pulling away. He takes a few steps, places his hands on your ass and back, and then leans forward. You remain pressed against him until your back hits the mattress. Only then do Ghost's hands release you, and you allow it.

Ghost follows you onto the bed, not directly above you, but along your legs. He leans forward, presses a kiss to your thigh, and bites down hard. You hiss in pain, but at the same time, your back arches with pleasure coursing through your body.

You barely feel the blood loss. Ghost drinks in large gulps, almost without stopping. Only the scent of your far too close pussy makes him pause. Instead, he presses several kisses to your skin, up your thigh, and then a kiss to your clothed center. "Ghost," you moan at the contact of his lips with your middle.

Your fingers grasp his hair and grip the back of his head, pinning it in place. "Oh, sweetheart, don't worry, I'm not leaving. You deserve this."

His fingers reach for your panties and pull them down in an excruciatingly slow movement. Just enough to expose your pussy without him having to get up from his position between your legs. And then, without warning, he licks from your entrance all the way up to your clit, collecting the traces of your slick on his tongue. "Fuck, this is better than your blood, darling," he raves, pressing his lips to your clitoris and sucking hard. You almost scream. The increased blood flow from the pills makes your entire genitals way too sensitive.

You're already way too close to an orgasm, and Ghost hasn't even really started yet. "Oh God, Ghost, I-I..." you begin, your voice trembling.

"Mmm, bunny. Come for me. We have all night for more." His breath brushes against your wet center and, after his words, immediately returns to where you need him most. His tongue finds your entrance, licking several times at a spot you didn't know was that sensitive. You come with a loud, high-pitched moan on his tongue, and a growl escapes Ghost's throat, as if someone was trying to take food away from a hungry animal.

He doesn't give you a second to recover from your first orgasm. His tongue rubs against your clit. Your muscles tremble, and with each movement, you involuntarily slide a little further up the bed. "Where are you going?" Ghost asks, grabbing your hips and pulling you back towards him with a jerk.

"Wait... please." Your voice is just a faint whisper, a pathetic attempt to get a moment to let your body adjust to the heightened sensitivity.

"What should I wait for? For the pills to wear off? Sweetheart, that'll take a few more hours," he teases. One of his hands leaves your hips and brushes against your skin until his fingers are between your legs. He inserts a finger inside you, slowly and deliberately. "Like this?" he asks provocatively.

You moan uncontrollably as he presses his finger against your G-spot. He rubs and presses the area repeatedly. His eyes never leave your face. He watches as your hands clutch the sheets beneath you for support and how your chest rises and falls rapidly in short, sharp breaths.

"Beautiful." His sweet words reach right to your throbbing core. Your muscles tense, the knot in your lower abdomen tightens with every movement of his digit. His code name slips from your lips, like a prayer. And then the knot breaks, white arousal rushes through your body in liberating waves.

Ghost doesn't remove his finger from your pussy; instead, he pushes a second finger in until he's knuckle-deep inside you. You gasp so sharply, as if you've been shot, not having the best sex of your life.

"Too–ah!" The movement of Ghost's fingers as he slides in and out makes you shudder and interrupts your sentence. "Too much!" Now you deliberately try to flee from him, but Ghost won't let you. He only stops the movement of his fingers when he pushes them back inside you to the hilt.

"That's what you wanted, bunny, isn't it? For me to be busy with something other than biting you." He growls each word in a voice that's too rough.

You swallow. Even without the movement of his fingers, your pussy throbs with the aftereffects of your second orgasm. The muscles are so engorged with blood and all the nerve endings so sensitive that it hurts.

You shake your head, but without the strength to start an argument. "I just wanted to live," you confess. Deep laughter follows from Ghost. He doesn't give you a real answer. His mouth returns to your pussy, over your clit, rubbing the bundle of nerves in circular motions. Your back arches, and you moan in a sound that could have been a whimper.

Then his fingers begin to move again—in and out. First slowly and aimlessly, then deep, his fingertips pressing against your walls each time he withdraws.

"Oh-oh God. Ghost, I-I can't!" you try, but this time your climax comes so quickly that your statement is instantly proven a lie.

Your sight completely deserts you. Your eyes roll back, leaving only the whites visible. Your back muscles protest. Everything hurts, every cell feels like it's on fire. You're sure your leg muscles are about to cramp completely.

"Such a good girl," Ghost compliments you. "All for me." He finally pulls away and completely removes your half-pushed-down panties from your legs.

You immediately squeeze your thighs together, unconsciously, as protection against anything that might come next. Ghost clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "Baby, we're just getting started." With rough hands, he grabs your knees and pushes them apart again. Then he positions himself between your thighs.

Every spot he bit is still bleeding, and small red streams seep from the wounds onto the sheets beneath you. Your skin glistens with a delicate layer of sweat. Your cheeks are flushed, evidence of the life still within you.

Ghost crawls over you until his face is leveled with yours. The moisture of your arousal glistens on his chin. He grins down at you—the kind of grin that brings a wicked glint to his eyes. His tongue traces his lips, and then he lowers himself, pressing his lips to yours.

You taste your own arousal on his lips. It eliminates the entire taste of blood, which was still very noticeable on Ghost's tongue during your first kiss. Ghost pulls away after only a short time, kisses his way down your neck to the side he used to drink a week ago, and bites down again. Your hip flinches at the sensation of pain. Ghost immediately responds by pressing his pelvis against yours, practically pinning you to the mattress. He sucks and drinks without shame, without thought.

You're dizzy, you haven't been able to see properly since your third orgasm anyway, and the nerves in your body are so hypersensitive that you don't even notice the numbness. "You're making me addicted," Ghost confesses, perhaps revealing his greatest weakness.

You can't answer, at least not with words. But your hands reach for his body. You run your fingernails down his back, pulling his shirt further and further up until you can feel his cold skin beneath your hands.

"For someone who says you can't anymore, you're pretty eager." There's a hint of amusement in his voice. He sits up and removes his shirt in one fluid motion. It lands somewhere on the floor; you don't track where. Your attention is on his toned chest.

You bite your broken lower lip, a trickle of blood starts flowing again, and Ghost's eyes focus on it. Then you answer slowly and hesitantly. "I... take it back."

"Of course, Princess." Ghost's lips curl into a crooked grin. His hands find his pants, undoing the button and the zipper. He pulls them down just enough for his dick to spring free. It springs hard against his lower abdomen. The veins are clearly visible, the tip a dark red. A drop is already running down his length.

You swallow. Like everything about him, his dick is enormous. But your mind won't let you worry about it.

You reach for his dick, and even without moving your hand, a deep rumble escapes Ghost's throat. He's so sensitive from the passive effect of the Viagra that he could come at the slightest touch.

He grabs your wrist and pulls your hand away. "Don't spoil the fun, sweetheart." Was it a warning? Or a promise? You don't know, but you listen to him.

Ghost lowers himself onto you again, positioning himself between your legs, which you open even wider for him. "Such a good little thing, you listen even without instructions. So good for me." By now you're sure that Ghost's praise isn't just for you, but also to ground himself – to remind himself that you're cooperating with him and that he doesn't need to force control over you.

You lick your lips, unaware that you're still bleeding. The taste of iron makes you grunt in distaste. Ghost laughs. "Not to your liking, huh? Let me do this." He leans towards you, licking your chin, where a drop of blood has already trickled down, all the way to your lips. He sucks on your lower lip, reigniting your moans, which had subsided in the meantime of him removing his clothes.

He supports himself with one hand beside you, positioning his tip at your entrance with the other. You're wet enough for him to slide in easily. But he doesn't. Instead, he rubs his dick a few times between your folds, up to your clit, and back down again. You're already trembling and moaning as if your fourth orgasm is about to wash over you.

"Not yet, bunny," Ghost whispers in your ear as he leans down towards you. The muscles in his arm and his abs tremble from the tension he maintains to avoid crushing you. Or from the control he maintains.

You nod, a sign that you understand.

"Fuck. Of course you're listening, baby." He doesn't let his satisfaction with your cooperation go unnoticed. He rewards you by entering you. Slowly, but with a fluid motion.

You let your head fall back and close your eyes. The moan from your throat is the hottest thing Ghost has ever heard. His face immediately lands in the crook of your neck, and he licks and sucks at your skin. This time, he doesn't let his teeth sink into your already damaged and broken skin. He only licks up the remaining blood that still seeps from the wounds and clings to your skin.

The muscles of your pussy clench around his dick, perhaps in an attempt to adjust to his size, or probably in an attempt to push him out from the overstimulation.

In a slow rhythm, Ghost moves his hips back. Every inch that his tip slides along your wall almost throws you over the edge again. "Ah, Ghost!" escapes your lips, though you don't want to say it aloud. It comes out anyway. "I can't take it much longer," you confess.

Ghost slides back inside you until his dick is fully submerged once more. He presses directly against you A-spot, and your body tenses with stimulation.

"O-oh yes!" Your breath mingles with your words, and you're unsure whether you're still speaking or just moaning. You press your hips against his, managing to push the head of his dick against that spot again.

Your heart nearly leaps from your chest as Ghost grabs your hip with one hand, pushes you down, and presses his hips against yours in small but powerful movements. He doesn't slide in and out; he just presses his dick into that one spot that makes you see stars. "Come for me, baby, we've still got a few hours for more."

With the speed at which he works your sweet spot, you instantly waver on the brink of ecstasy. Your fourth orgasm is so intense that your muscles tighten around Ghost's dick, and he reaches his own climax with the sheer force of the sensation.

But the Viagra keeps his dick erect. Even though Ghost's nerve endings are just as overstimulated as yours, he moves on to the next movement. He helps you through the afterglow of your orgasm by withdrawing his dick until only the head remains inside you, then he slides back in over your G-spot.

The sounds you make are sounds of victory to Ghost. He pushes his sperm and your fluids back inside you with every movement. Your entire body trembles beneath him. He knows that for you, as a simple human being, there's a limit. Especially with the medication you've taken and the side effects that can be unpleasant for a woman's body. His movements become correspondingly slow and careful.

"You're so good to me, my sweet girl." Ghost lowers his head onto your shoulder, and you use his closeness to slide your hands down the back of his neck. "Mine," he repeats.

This time, it takes longer for both of you to reach climax. The overstimulation, the frayed nerve endings, and clearly your exhaustion slow everything down. Ghost comes first, but he doesn't stop. He maintains his pace, with a halting rhythm. With one hand, he finds your clit and circles the nerves with his fingertips. You whimper more than you moan. Everything is too much; every sensation in your body is numb, and every circle of his index finger hurts, as if someone was holding a stun gun between your legs.

"Almost there, sweetheart. Just one more time." Ghost tries to encourage you. Tears stream from your tightly squeezed eyes. Your grip on Ghost's neck is so tight, as if he's the only thing keeping you in the world of the living. It's paradoxical—he's the very thing that should have killed you.

You reach your climax with a soft sob. Ghost stills, his head dropping in the crook of your neck, breathing you in, listening to your slowing heartbeat. His doesn't move. Doesn't bite.

He stays like that for a few seconds. When he pulls out of you, your juices trickle down your thighs. Before he pulls away completely, his lips brush yours, slow almost absent, but deliberate. He picks up your panties from the floor and pulls them back up your legs.

You're certain you've lost all ability to move. Exhaustion washes over you so quickly that falling asleep just moments after Ghost pulls you from the wet patch on the bed feels more like passing out.

---<>---

You're still alive. In more pain than you expected, but your heart is still beating in your chest, and your newly set record for staying alive has risen once again.

No one speaks to you when Task Force 141 heads off on to their next mission. But the air is thick with the knowledge that everyone heard what you and Ghost were up to. Soap's Bonnie winked at you in the hallway. You had to lean against the wall just to make it to the bathroom on your own.

Even days later, you're still restricted. And that's exactly what will later be your death sentence.

Enemy soldiers storm the safe house. You have no weapons; none of you, as living blood banks, have any training or combat experience. You are completely at the mercy of the enemy.

When two soldiers burst into your room, you barely stand a chance. You manage to take a few steps before two bullets hit you. One in your lower abdomen, the other pierces your right lung.

You lie on the ground for a while, breathing heavily. One hand on your stomach, the other on your chest. Your sense of time fades, your eyes close a few times, but you haven't given up the fight.

This isn't how you want to die. If you could still choose, you would have preferred to die at Ghost's hands. But you can't anymore.

Ghost can already smell your blood from afar. No one responds to Price's message that the mission is being aborted and Task Force 141 is heading back early. There are no lights on in the safe house. Not like usual when they return from a mission.

"Something's wrong," Soap mutters, but Ghost has already broken into a sprint. He practically slams the door off its hinges and runs past the bodies in the living room without even glancing at them. If he still had a heart, it would have burst from his chest as he stumbles through the door into your room. There you lie, half-dead. Your breathing is far too loud, and with each exhale, blood drips from your mouth.

"Bunny." Ghost whispers. You turn your head toward him, your eyes wide open.

"N-n-no." gurgles from your throat. "A-a-amb-b-bush..." Your information comes too late. The enemies are throwing molotov cocktails through the shattered windows. The entire safe house is engulfed in flames. The thin walls are riddled with machine gun fire. Bullets strike Ghost, piercing skin, flesh, and muscle unprotected by his vest.

You can only watch as he falls to the ground, the fire creeping closer and closer to his body. With your last ounce of strength, you drag yourself across the floor. Your lungs give out. You barely get any oxygen, and your body begins to shut down.

When you're close enough to Ghost, you extend your wrist and press it against his lips. You have enough of your own blood on your hands to instantly smear the red fluid onto his lips, awakening his instinct. The sharp fangs emerge, and you press your wrist against the tips. The skin tears—more messily than Ghost would have done, but it's enough to draw the last amount of blood from your body into his mouth. He swallows reflexively. With each swallow, his wounds slowly heal.

You close your eyes in relief. It's time to let go. You can't endure any more pain.

You feel another grip on your wrist. A mouth desiring your blood. Sharp fangs raking against your skin. And then a completely different sensation.

A bite. But not one that drains your blood. One that pumps something into your body.

Poison flows through your veins. Hot and burning, like a corrosive liquid, incinerating you from the inside out. A pain so profound you're incapable of any reaction.

"Come on." His voice is distant. "I can hear your heartbeat. It's not too late." There's a strange echo in his voice.

The heat around you becomes unbearable. Is this what being burned alive feels like?

The darkness you're in is terrifying. You desperately want to cling to Ghost's voice, but there's nothing. Silence.

He's just sitting beside your body, in an empty, cold warehouse, far from the place where you saved his pathetic, undeserved life—waiting for your last heartbeat.

Your husband’s there, on the couch, some show blaring on the TV that you hate. You pause behind the couch, eyes trained on the back of his head, the shape of something you’ve grown to despise. You try to steady your breath, grasp onto any control before it shifts entirely, but you sound louder than the TV speakers.

You cross the distance, counting each step you take like a ticking time bomb. One. Two. Three. You turn to face him, prepare for the look of disgust he must wear. Prepare for the way your world is about to crumble underneath you.

Except when you lift your eyes, he’s dead asleep, passed out from drinks at the pub, and a twisted part in you wants to laugh. An ugly maniacal cackle, one that will make you keel over and make it hard to breathe.

You think it’s the only time this God has looked out for you. The only time you’ve believed in fate.

It becomes a routine every week after that, laid out on the butcher block like you’re the raw poultry Simon slices into.

You feel like you are.

He rakes his eyes down your frame, slowly, calculated like he’s thinking of every reference point to press his knife into your flesh. Drags his knuckles over your throat so he can feel you gulp, count how many breaths you manage to wheeze between your lungs. Digs his fingers into your breasts and presses his palm against your heartbeat like he’s measuring your pulse and imagining all the blood thrashing under your skin. Strokes your ribs with feather-light touches, counting each one down to the fat of your hips.

That's when he really grips, dimpling your flesh and watching as it gives under his fingertips. He does the same to your thighs, reverence only a butcher could have for warm flesh and fat. And when he parts your legs, he takes his time, like he’s committed to touching every part of your body, split you in two, and make you bleed.

You should hate it. A sacrificial lamb on the altar. But you don’t. Can’t really when it’s the first time anyone’s looked at you, all your sins and broken promises pushed aside, stripped you bare until all that was left was your bleeding layers, heartbeat, and quivering lungs that barely fill with air.

And he never asks for more, gives you his tongue and fingers without having to ask. Eats you out like you are a feast to be had, lingering between your folds like you are delectable. Two, three orgasms before your clit is so swollen and throbbing and you have to push weakly at his shoulders to stop.

He always comes back up with a smirk, lips and chin glimmering with your slick. Makes you taste it too, kissing you breathless like you weren’t already dizzy. Sends you home with a dazed smile on your lips, knees wobbly, thighs raw from hid stubble, and a pussy so drenched from his torment.

You use your mother as an excuse for your late-night returns, and it works, by some metric. Your husband believes it too.

It’s enough. It should be enough. It’s not. Not when you come home wanting more. Gluttony is a sin, but isn’t infidelity?

It takes weeks of coming home and hiding in your closet, burying your face into his coat, and imagining the taste of his cock before you act on it. Pressing your fingers to your tongue and picturing the weight of him in your mouth. You haven’t even seen it, just felt it through the seams of his jeans when he grinds it against the back of your thigh.

And it feels big. God, does it feel big.

You’re sure it drives you crazy more than it does him to be tightly confined, throbbing and leaking for attention. You think you want it more than he does because he doesn’t even touch it, doesn’t even palm himself when he’s got your thighs on either side of his cheeks.

Disciplined and controlled just for your pleasure. He even pauses when you finally work up the courage to ask, an expression on his face you can’t read because you can never quite read him. You think you overstepped your boundaries when you fall to your knees and he just walks away without a word, dragging a chair, so the legs scrape loudly against the floor.

You gulp when he sits and spreads his thighs wide before patting his lap twice.

“Come ‘ere.”

It’s unfair the way the sentence, the command, goes straight between your legs. And for some awful reason, you crawl your way over. Knees and palms hitting the concrete floor as you inch closer.

You should feel like the predator in this situation, stalking your prey with hunter eyes, except you feel like much less. An animal trapped in a cage, crawling towards the danger instead of running away in fear like you should. Towards the danger that wants to eat you whole, the danger that’s so fucking big that his thighs dwarf your shoulders with eyes so heavy as he watches you.

Possessive. Covetous. You’re not his to be had.

You look up at him through your lashes, lips parted as you glide your palms up the inside of his thighs. He cups your jaw, thumb running along your bottom lip as his face turns nasty when he sees silver glimmer on your finger.

“Take tha’ fuckin’ ring off if yer gonna suck my cock.”

You move so quickly your knuckles hit his balls and he grits his teeth, fingers tensing at your jaw. You stammer out an apology, face warming as you rush to stuff your ring in your pocket. It’s the first time he’s sounded jealous about it, and not just amused by the fact that your husband’s not meeting your needs.

He pushes his thumb into your mouth a little angry, stamping down onto your tongue until your mouth opens wide. He unbuttons his jeans with his other hand, pushes his boxers down just enough to free his already hard cock.

He’s big. Awfully big.

It’s the first thing you thought when you initially saw him and it rings true down to the girth of his cock. Thick and fat and veiny and red and so fucking big it makes your mouth water. Curly tufts of blonde hair peek through the base and something in your gut almost makes you groan at the sight. It’s a little ugly, and a little crooked, but you like that. It’s him.

You hate doing this for your husband, all you can taste is disgust when he has you on your knees, but Simon, Simon has you salivating like a dog, crawling across the floor like his pet, eager to be sat on your heels with a promise of something more.

And you must be taking a long time, sitting there staring wide-eyed at his angry tip because his hand curls around your hair and tugs you forward lightly. He tilts his head expectantly, jutting his chin up and then down as a silent command to go on.

He guides you forward with the thumb in your mouth, hooking in your cheek, and pulling you until your lips brush the tip, replacing it with his cock instead.

You breathe on it first, panting softly to catch your breath, and you haven’t even had it in the back of your throat yet. You’re hesitant, despite how badly you wanted this, licking from base to tip before swirling around the fattened tip. Your lips follow, dragging along slowly as your ring-free hand wraps around the base, pressed against his blonde pubes.

Your restraint slips away when a bead of precum dribbles from his tip and you catch it with your tongue. You moan as you taste it, salty and a little bitter, but all Simon. It ignites something hot and searing in your core, animalistic pride or maybe it’s possession that this is Simon’s cock on your tongue, his hands in your hair and digging into your chin.

Your lips wrap around him then, sliding just slightly past the tip. His grip tightens in your hair at that, but his face remains still, a silent tell. It’s a tight fit, lips spread wide around his girth so much so that it stings, but you push further. Until you can’t anymore and your throat starts to constrict.

You come back up for air, and he tsks like he’s disappointed you didn’t take him whole.

You try again, tears welling in your lash line as you take him deeper, and you attempt to bob back up, but his hand are quicker, pushing you deeper until his head notches against the back of your throat. You gag, nails digging crescents into the hair in his thighs, but he forces you down, somehow by some miracle, until your nose presses into the blonde hair.

It hurts, and you’re gurgling around him, saliva dripping down his length, but it’s not enough for him.

“Jesus, bird, jus’ gotta breathe through yer nose.”

He says it like it’s so easy, and you’re trying really, but his shaft is so heavy against your tongue, and you like it, god, you like how suffocating it feels to have him stuffed between your cheeks. Your eyes roll to the back of your skull, and you groan obscenely around him.

He chuffs a laugh, “You like tha’?”

You nod, brows pinched as you look pathetically up at him. He just blinks, a smirk on his face like he isn’t buried to the hilt in your mouth.

Then, he rolls his hips, once, and you scratch at his thighs, tears spilling onto your cheeks, but the sick part that takes over when you’re around Simon makes you moan again like your body likes having him there, that deep, pressing into places your husband hasn’t even touched.

When he finally releases you, you scramble for air, lungs filling so rapidly it burns. And you’re a little dizzy from the mixture of tasting him and the lack of oxygen. Then he starts talking and all you can do is press your thighs together weakly at the deep cadence.

“Act all innocent, don’t you? Whole time yer moanin’ while someone fucks yer mouth.”

He guides you down again, tongue gliding along, but he lifts you back up, repeating it once, twice, again and again, until there’s a steady rhythm of bobbing. He lets up on your head when you follow the pace he sets, coating him in so much of your saliva that it collects at the base of his cock and makes his hair wet.

It’s a mess, you’re a mess of tears and saliva, and a neglected pussy that’s throbbing around nothing, but he doesn’t understand. Doesn’t understand that you only like because it’s him. Because it’s his cock in your throat making it near impossible to breathe.

“Suck yer husband off like thi’?”

And his voice sounds so steady, no inflection to it like he isn’t getting his dick sucked. The sentence hurts, landing somewhere hard in your chest. A reminder. Something permanently burned into your skin like a scarlet letter.

He pulls you off, “Huh? Can’t hear you.”

The words scald even more because you don’t and he knows that, knows that this version of you is reserved just for him. And he wants to hear it, some form of jealousy twisted in his own chest. But you don’t even get the chance because he pulls you back down and your response is just a choked noise.

All you can do is shake your head, and he smiles, scars on his lips and cheeks straining at the tug.

“That’s my girl.”

He draws it out like he means it, patting your cheek twice, thumb pressing into your cheek to feel the curve of his cock in your mouth. Eyes dilated and heavy. And you feel that, tuck it into the cavity of your chest to chew on later.

It’s a few more pumps before he presses deep again, before he groans low and guttural, holding you tight, and finishes in your throat. You swallow it, as best you can, gulping it down, and taking it for your own as he stays put in your throat.

When he finally pulls out, he’s gone soft, and there’s a sticky amount of saliva and spunk beading from your lips and his tip. You lick it clean, greedy, and maybe a little filthy, but you can’t find it in yourself to care.

“That’s myyy girl.”

He says it again, a little breathless this time. Repeating it like he’s hammering it into your chest, so you don’t forget.

It’s the first time you’ve felt proud to be someone’s.

──────────────

Still smiling, the deputy loosens the noose around your neck before raising it over your head as if it's nothing but a mere necklace rather than the item that, until moments ago, was supposed to bring about your demise. It doesn't make it any easier to breathe. You're still choking on your terror as the man offers you a gloved hand. You don't have the capacity within your mind to deny him, so you accept his help as he assists you down the stairs on your lubberly legs.

The world spins as you feel the tangible suffocation of the divergence of time—of what should have happened to you. In another universe, you are swinging from that rope with all eyes on your corpse, left to hang and rot as a warning to others to not cross The Law in Blackpeak. Knowing your luck, you wouldn't have died right away. You'd be left strangling, legs kicking helplessly in a pitiful attempt to release the pressure around your throat, blood shunting away from your brain until your life fades just as meaningless as it began. Maybe someone would have taken pity on you. Maybe some brave or stupid person would have pulled on your legs until you stopped squirming.

Instead, you're slicing through the crowd that was so eager to witness your demise. Their gazes haven't changed much. They're more sour now, like dough left to rise for too long. The deputy keeps a sharp hold of your hand like you're his wallet, a valuable he can't afford to lose. You suppose that you are of some importance to this man; a tool turned into a weapon to be aimed and fired at John Price, though you're not sure what the nature of your destruction might be.

As you have learned, lawmen aren't always above the law.

"On behalf of my men, I apologize for their actions," the deputy says once you're out of eavesdropping distance of the crowd. His drawl is thick like honey but there is something about his tone that leaves your tongue dry and not at all interested in the faux sweetness he attempts to sell you. "You must understand that any mention of John Price has everyone up in arms. I'm sure you're aware of what him and his boys did in the mines. Such a tragedy. So many lives lost for such a selfish reason."

It's easy for his words to flow into your skull and directly out again. Every thought that attempts to spark in your brain fizzles out before you have the moment to fully grasp it. Pain throbs in your bones, burrowing deeper than you can cradle in your arms.

You forget that the deputy is holding your hand until he's pulling you to a stop next to a lean horse. Pressure builds behind your eyes as you stare up at him with his flaring nostrils and beady eyes. This horse lacks the quiet stupidity Jester had. A tall, stupid brute that knew how to do nothing other than eat things he shouldn't and make a fool out of you, but he was your fool of a horse.

Was.

"Climb on up, miss," he prompts. "We've got a walk before we reach the sheriff's."

Getting up on the horse feels like second nature to you now, but the deputy refuses to allow you to hold the reins. Wary of your instability, he guides the horse for you, spurs jingling with each step he takes. All you can do is hold onto the saddle horn and keep your head low in what you tell yourself is to keep the sun out of your eyes, but it feels more like shame.

You hold onto the saddle horn as you're paraded through the streets of Blackpeak like an oddity for everyone to behold. You expect to see another mob staring at you, waiting for the perfect moment to strike you, already bloodied and wounded, except there is no one. Insignificant, you're a speck of dirt. Flickering eyes search for someone still, despite the pain. Eyes of blue like a cooling lake for you to dive into, to ease each scrape and swelling mound that plagues your skin and body—John Price is nowhere to be found.

Buildings begin to thin until—much like Penmosa—farm land crosshatches with private town dwellings like a dusty chessboard. Cows moo in verdant pastures while geese honk overhead as they soar through the air in the burning light of the sunset. All beauty is lost on you as the deputy guides you to a dark timbered home with a fat porch and the redolence of cooked meat wafting around it. It's a home that looks like a God-made structure against the backdrop of mountains behind it, blending into the faraway trees and carved stone.

The deputy offers you his hand to help you off of his horse but you refuse to take it in a silent sort of revolution. You climb off without aid, but everything moves beneath you as your feet hit the ground, earth tearing right out from the treads of your shoes.

"Now, now," the man chuckles. When he catches your unsteady frame, he pulls your back against his chest, bracing your body against his. It feels wrong. Not because Daddy would disapprove, but because he's not John. "Take it easy."

"M-My head," you whine, back arching, arms flailing in an attempt to push him away, but your body is broken, and the deputy is having too much fun to let go. "Please."

"What do you think I'm trying to do, sugar? Quit your fussing and I'll take care of that head of yours," he goads.

Though you're released from the confines of his body, the deputy ensures you stay close by with his hand resting on your lower back while a gentle amount of pressure leads you towards the porch and up the steps to the door. He knocks on the door and shushes you when you wince at the sudden sound, noise reverberating in your brain until you're certain more of your skull has cracked.

A woman with pale lips and greying hair answers the door with a huff, and her gaze only grows more severe as she wipes her hands on her apron. "Phillip Graves, what have I told you about badgering my husband while he's at home?"

"Sorry Mrs. Shepherd. You know I try and keep my nose clean, but I think I've managed to wrangle someone who likes to get into trouble more often than I do," the deputy—this Phillip Graves—humors. "This sweet thing here seems to have gotten herself involved with John Price."

The woman's gaze lands on you and something overcomes the frustration that she held for Phillip Graves. If you didn't know any better, you'd confuse it for concern with the way her eyes soften and brows raise at the sight of you, blouse stained with your own blood, skirt tattered from the brawl, body littered with scrapes you can't soothe.

"Well, alright. You might as well stay for dinner, too," she begrudgingly accepts.

Phillip Graves keeps his hand on your back as you're led inside, but he ensures that he takes his hat off at the door and sets it on one of various pegs nailed into the wall for such a purpose. Though the outside of the house is rough-hewn with raw wood and sun bleached material, the inside is neatly polished with smooth walls painted a delicate cream. The brightness only makes the pounding in your head worse and you find your eyes focusing on the floor as you're brought to the dining room.

Mrs. Shepherd instructs you to grab a seat while she fetches the rest of dinner and her husband. The table is intimate with only enough room for four people to sit comfortably along the round perimeter. Various food items already sprawl out. Ham, a bowl of beans and bread rolls. Phillip Graves pulls a chair out for you before taking the seat next to you.

It's as if you've been transported back in time, shrinking inside of yourself until your body has no choice but to follow, leaving you as nothing but a pitiful girl once again trying to make it through the violence of another meal with your father. Tight lips, only speaking when spoken to, eyes never wandering where they shouldn't lest you inadvertently poke the beast waiting to roar within his throat.

The silence doesn't save you here. Phillip Graves leans back in his chair, wood creaking beneath him in time with his spurs ringing as he stretches his legs with a groan. You note the distinct glint of his six shooter resting on his hip and you can't help but think of the one John gave you to protect yourself—the one that's now sitting in the middle of the street, or more likely, in the possession of one of the men who beat you.

"I'll get you cleaned up after supper," he tells you. "I know it's more proper to wash up before a meal, but I think the sheriff will forgive us given the circumstances."

"That's fine." You sound like your mother, voice even and unwavering yet tinged with that underline whisper of pain that you can't quite get rid of.

In an attempt to comfort yourself, you reach for your neck in search for her necklace only to be met with your own feverish skin.

"If you wanted a free meal, you could have just asked, Phillip."

A new voice bleeds into the room. With slow movements, you look up from your lap and into the doorway to find a sickly looking man with white hair cropped so short he nearly looks bald. His leather vest looks freshly polished and his feet hit heavy on the floor as he approaches the table. The aura of authority wafting off of him is enough for you to know exactly who he is. The man of the house, the keeper of the peace—Sheriff Shepherd of Blackpeak.

"You know me, sheriff. Always here to keep things interesting," Phillip shrugs.

"Interesting, and a pain in my rear."

Mrs. Shepherd sneaks out from behind her husband with one hand occupied with plates, cups and cutlery and the other with a pitcher of water. The men dive into quaint conversation while she sets everything up, even going as far as to ask you what you'd like and serving up your plate when you can only offer pitiful nods and thank yous in response.

Once everyone is settled, the conversation dies and you find that there are more eyes on you than you'd care to have ever perceive you. When you meet Sheriff Shepherd's gaze you note the hue of his eyes—pale blue—and how they're sickly like the rest of him. Withered away and moments away from shattering. They lack the youth and vigor of John's. A pale imitation of a man he could only ever hope to be a fraction of.

"And who do we have the pleasure of welcoming to our table tonight?" he asks.

Knowing that there's no use in lying, you give him your true name, though the nickname Lamb is truly growing on you. Or rather, perhaps it's just the man who coined it in the first place.

"Very good," he hums, somehow pleased with himself. "Let's pray."

It's the first time that you have ever neglected to bow your head and fold your hands at the dinner table before a meal, especially after those words have been muttered. You watch as they all lower themselves, make themselves smaller, near cower as they're lead through quiet mutterings of praise and thanks. The sheriff speaks with such reverence you're almost convinced he's a true man of God until he opens his eyes to look at you before the prayer has even finished.

Once done, Mrs. Shepherd and Phillip Graves waste no time diving into their food, and while the sheriff does begin to eat, he seems much more interested in something else. "Not one for praying?"

You swallow the lead weight in your throat. "I don't know."

"She has been spending time with John Price," Phillip Graves reasons. "He's always been something of an atheist."

"Corrupted the poor girl's mind, no doubt," Shepherd agrees. "Is that how you found yourself here, girl?"

You nod. "Yes."

Quiet deliberation clouds the man's mind as he takes a few more bites of his food. You consider doing the same, but the pain that ripples throughout your body forces you to rethink. Instead, you go for a sip of water.

"And what business was he having you conduct here on his behalf?"

Your head spins. Vision swirling like a whirl pool, you dig the pad of your thumb briefly into the apple of your cheek, allowing the pain to ground you. "He needed money from the bank."

Phillip Grave's chuckle is warm but sharp. "Must be hard finding an honest job when you're such a criminal like he is."

You bite your tongue so hard it bleeds, but it tastes no different from the ichor that's already stained your mouth after the abuse you were subjected to today. Instead, you keep your head lowered and mouth sewn shut, just like you always have.

"What did he need this money for?" Shepherd questions.

"I don't know," you say.

He raises a brow. "You don't know?" he asks incredulously.

"He didn't say. I just… I just do what he tells me."

Something of a pained sigh leaves Mrs. Shepherd as she places her palm over her chest as if to quell an aching heart. When you glance at her, you note the pity in her gaze. It's comforting to know you're fooling someone at least. You're in too much pain to put together anything more complex.

He allows silence to settle over the table to give himself the opportunity to at least marginally enjoy his meal. You allow yourself to try a bit of the beans, but there's too much salt and it nearly causes your tongue to shrivel up. The bread is the only thing you can truly get yourself to stomach. Plain enough to not upset the unstable balance of your stomach, yet still filling at the same time, you eat your roll then leave your hands folded in your lap, done with what you think is the most violent meal you've experienced since you left Penmosa.

"Are you not enjoying your food, girl?" Shepherd asks. As you meet his gaze, you wonder why he even bothered to learn your name if he was going to demean you with such a term—verbiage he shares with your father.

"I'm not hungry," you truthfully admit.

He scoffs as he sets his silverware on his emptied plate. "You insult my wife."

"Oh, Herschel, look at her!" Mrs. Shepherd says. "Poor thing, can you blame her for not being hungry? Getting beaten over something John Price coerced her into doing? It's no insult at all. The poor girl needs help and a place to rest."

Washing his dinner down with a healthy gulp of water, Phillip Graves gives a thoughtful hum as his cup hits the table. "There's a few free cells open down at the jail we could keep her in."

Mrs. Shepherd's eyes go wider than the plate she's eaten off of. "You would keep her in the jail?"

Sheriff Shepherd's patience wears thin. You see it in the deepening creases on his forehead and the dusting of pink that begins in his cheeks and spreads to the tips of his ears. His ovular head looks as if it's an egg ready to crack open due to heat and pressure alone.

"Dear," he says almost as if it's a warning. "Why don't you tidy up our guest room? She can stay there for the night under Phillip's supervision."

Content with the compromise, she nods before clearing the plates from the table and vanishing back into the kitchen to clean up. You're left alone with the two men and you find yourself scrambling for something else to look at. Anything else. The wallpaper, a knick in the side of the table, the sunset burning up through the window. A part of you wishes you'd see John riding over the hill through the glass, hat set low as he speeds towards the house with a pistol in hand.

You get nothing but the squeak of Shepherd's chair as he stands. "Get her cleaned up once the room is ready," he orders. "I'll get everything at the jail in order for her."

It doesn't take Mrs. Shepherd long to tidy up the bedroom-turned-cell that is to be yours for the foreseeable future. She fetches you immediately once it's finished, bringing both you and Phillip Graves down two short hallways to a room that has a single twin-sized bed with a lily patterned quilt smothering the mattress. You don't realize that the house has electricity until you note the sconces on the inside of the door. They sport the same glass covering as candles would, but they lack the signature flicker of warm flame that you're used to.

She brings your attention to a makeshift vanity. Really, it's an old worn desk with a mirror nailed to the wall, but for all intents and purposes, it works just fine with a freshly filled water bowl, clean rags, and a jar of something that Mrs. Shepherd says is a salve meant to help your cuts and scrapes. She leaves you after telling you that if you need anything else to find her and ask for it. The door is open.

Phillip Graves closes it.

"Alright sugar," he prompts. His head tilts to the side as he sucks on his teeth, chin jutting out towards the bed. "Grab a seat."

His order makes the contents of your stomach curdle but you know you're not in a position to argue or reason. It's as if that noose is around your neck again, pulling tight around your throat, eager to cut into your skin as you march to the bed and sink into the rocky mattress. The jingling of his spurs sound too akin to church bells, or perhaps the toll of a death march.

Rag into water, he turns to you with glistening hands and wordlessly presses it to your skin without prompt or warning. It's frigid, freshly pumped from the well, biting into your skin like the mountain air John kept you warm through. Your bottom lip begins to tremble at the thought of it while Phillip Graves wipes the space above your lip, scratching away the dried blood around your nostrils as if you are a child incapable of cleaning herself.

With each pass he makes, you watch as the rag comes away from your skin tinged pink and brown, body marred with the earth and the demise you were supposed to face. He wipes everywhere, but when he gets to the bridge of your nose you gasp enough to make him recoil. Instead of leaving you be, he pokes and prods the area until you're hissing with tears in your eyes.

"Got some mighty fine swelling, sugar," he tells you, finally no longer subjugating you to his torturous interest. "Wouldn't be surprised if you broke something in there."

Furiously blinking, you wipe at the stray tears but keep your eyes cast towards the floor. "What am I to do with that?"

"Wait and pray it doesn't heal crooked," he chuckles.

Huffing at his response, you keep quiet as he continues. He moves down to your chin and jaw where you feel the stale blood pull at the hair of your skin, pinching like you've got your finger caught in the door again. He doesn't sit next to you as he cleans you, he stands in front of you towering over you like a human does an ant, belittling you until you feel just as small as he wants you to feel.

His hand wanders down to your throat and you wince with anticipatory pain only to realize it doesn't come. The rope never quite snapped around your neck. That lever was never pulled. Though it feels like you died in that moment, you are still very much alive, kept on God's green earth and made to suffer all his terrible creations.

Philip's hand dips lower and your breath catches in your throat, forcing your chest to cease its movements as you stop breathing. You remember the letter shoved into your blouse hiding in your slip, the only place you could think to stow it away where it wouldn't be knocked free from your pockets or torn with the wind. You feel his hot gaze on your body and the smirk on his lips and you think of what he might do to you. You know this story well. The raping of women before their murder—their final good use all used up before they're disposed of.

Then what of John and the others? You broken and their only piece of evidence ripped to shreds, forever to live the lives of wild men.

When his hand reaches the top of your breast just under your collarbones, you grab his wrist and cover yourself with your free arm. You finally bring yourself to look up at him and though you are infuriated, you aren't surprised to see that wide-eyed joy on his face as if the fish he has on his line is finally decided to make the reel more interesting.

"What kind of man do you take me for, sugar?" he asks.

You bite your tongue for only a moment before you decide to let it free. "A greedy kind."

Leaning away from you, he yanks his wrist free from your grasp before inspecting the bloodied rag he clutches in his fingers. "Is that so? Think a greedy man would've saved you from the gallows? Think a greedy man would dedicate his life to protecting the interests of the people in this town? I serve Blackpeak, little lady. There ain't a greedy bone in my body."

"Blackpeak?" you repeat. For the first time all day, you allow the rage to envelope you. You allow it to raise your chin, to narrow your eyes, to curl your upper lip into a snarl. "Or just Makarov?"

It's the first time you've seen him waiver in his otherwise infuriating ability to seem impermeable. Still, he only leans back, tongue clacking against the back of his teeth as he shakes his head. "I see John Price has poisoned your mind with that, too." When you don't fight back, Phillip huffs and tosses the rag at you, allowing the sodden mess to fall into your lap, adding to the various stains that bleed into your skirt. "Clean yourself up then, if that's what you want, but don't say I never did you any favors, sugar."

With that, he leaves you and you are finally alone. Your sore fingers curl around the damp cloth and you are overwhelmed with a sudden grief that disguises itself as fury. You feel your face contort as you stand from the bed, fist clenching around the rag before you drown it in the water bowl at the desk with a strangled growl. Droplets splatter through the air like rain falling backwards, gathering across the wooden surface of the desk and the now muddled shine of the mirror.

You force yourself to view yourself through the mess and it's the first thing that prompts you to slow down. You look so much like your mother, you realize. Tired eyes, swollen face, angry tears giving your cheeks the kisses your father never would. You bear her resemblance in your quiet anger. It was the last thing she left you with on this earth—the frustrating will to endure where others would refuse.

Wiping your face, you make the quiet decision to not destroy yourself and instead take care to blot the stains of your dress and care for the scrapes on your legs. When you're finished you dip your fingers into your blouse where you feel the comforting scratch of paper against your skin, warmed by your body heat and bending to the curve of your body.

In the morning when your head is clear, you'll come up with a plan. John Price wouldn't abandon you. He's out there somewhere waiting for you.

Phillip Graves returns with a rocking chair that he sets up in the far corner of the room, giving himself a perfect view of the bed, door, and window. He chuckles at your bewildered look before settling into the chair with an old book in hand and a candle lamp to read with. Realizing that you will be getting no privacy tonight, you leave your overdress on before burrowing deep beneath the blankets like you could hide the way rabbits do in their burrows.

He does not speak throughout the night—the rhythmic turning of the pages of his book and the creaking of the chair do enough chatter for the both of you. Even as night falls, you do not sleep. You lay on your side with your back to Phillip as you stare at the wall where the darkness morphs shadowy shapes before your eyes as if you've had too much communion wine.

When your bladder stirs you awake in the middle of the night, he follows you there too, only letting you out of his sight long enough for you to relieve yourself and wash up before leading you back to bed. Not even dawn chases him away. Stirring from your restless slumber, you wake to the smell of hotcakes and the view of him still in the corner of the room, seemingly finished with his book with the way he has it folded in his lap.

"Mornin' sugar."

Mrs. Shepherd serves both you and Phillip for breakfast. Pancakes, sausage and some freshly brewed tea she made for the meal. You are wary of the glaring lack of her husband's presence, but she informs you he wandered in town to the jail earlier in the morning with the order for Phillip Graves to take you there once you were finished with your meal.

Anxiety fills up your stomach too much for you to eat much of anything, but just like the night before she doesn't say much about it as she takes your plate and wishes you luck on your journey into town.

Phillip Graves doesn't offer you his horse this time as the two of you make the walk back towards the main section of town, but he doesn't take the ride for himself either. Each step you take is excruciating. The swelling has overwhelmed your body, rendering each joint achy as you travel beneath the heavy weight of the sun and your shame. Each figure that you pass prompts you to raise your head to look at their face, eager to find familiar blue eyes.

You begin to fear John might not be coming for you at all.

Unlike the other buildings that surround it, the jail is made of brick. Dust settles heavy on the red stone giving it a pink appearance like the rag you stained with your blood last night. On the outside just beyond the porch there is a wooden posting board filled with legal notices like local laws and changes within the town, but most notably there is that drawing of John's wanted poster again.

This time, it's not just him, but the others as well, each earning their own poster and matching bounties, a band of bothers kept together with a long string of hatred. As you walk up the stairs, you note the graffiti scribbled on the parchment in graphite and ink. Some people have scribbled out the word alive on dead or alive while others have drawn nooses around their throats. The violence of this town is so deeply sewn you're not sure how you survived such contempt—the more time you spend with Phillip Graves, the more you feel as if the reason he saved you wasn't purely out of mercy.

He opens the door for you, allowing you inside of the jail where you're met with a wide room that seems like a cell morphed into an office. Two sets of jail bars section off the back corners of the room with nothing inside but a bench, but they both lay empty. The only other door besides the entrance is one on your left, cracked open just enough for you to find a set of stairs that descend down into what you assume must be the basement and the place where they keep a majority of their inmates.

Sheriff Shepherd sits at a desk full of papers and envelopes both torn open and fresh ones waiting to be filled and mailed off. His eyes were on you the moment you stepped foot into his jail, pale and dead as they were last night when he all but interrogated you at his dinner table. Having something more interesting to do than paperwork, he points at the wooden chair across from him.

"Take a seat, girl," he commands as if you are a dog.

You make no fuss in following his orders. As far as you're concerned, the less time you spend with this man, the better. He stares at you in silence for a long moment as if contemplating how he should gut you. His gaze is uncanny. Even when you believed John to be nothing more than a cold blooded murderer he never gave off such an algid aura. This pale, sickly man looks like death—or a creature who enjoys toying with it.

"I've arranged for a ride to bring you back home," he finally admits after a moment. "It would be faster by train, but we don't have any passenger trains that come through here. Just the engines that lug coal to the cities. A few of my lawmen will take you by carriage to the next town over and you can hop on one there. It'll take you over the gorge and right on home."

You blink at him. He must be lying. "That's… That's it?"

"I don't want you in my town. This is better for both of us," he says bluntly.

Gears begin to twist in your brain as ideas sprout; dark, conniving ones you never would have thought before leaving Penmosa. You think of Kate and Lottie, of Grand Hollow and its train station, of the hotel, the place John wanted to keep you because it was safe. You could go back, you realize. Back to them all with the letter hiding safe in your blouse and wait for John to come find you.

It could all be over. This mess. The lies.

"You mean, you'll take me back to Grand Hollow?" you question cautiously, throwing your line into the water to see if anything bites.

The sheriff raises a brow. "Is that where you're from?"

"Yes sir," you nod.

He stares at you for so long you fear he might see through you. "You're not lying to me, are you, girl?"

"No, sir. I'd never," you insist.

Humming, he nods. With a sigh, he begins to sort through some papers on his desk. You note a letter already sealed and stamped with his name and address on it, but you don't get the chance to look at the recipient before it's covered by tickets for a train company you don't recognize. He holds them out for Phillip Graves to take, who shoves it into the pocket of his vest with a chuckle.

"Tell me, girl," Sheriff Shepherd says. He retrieves one last piece of paper before setting it flat on the desk for you to view. "Why do I have this, then?"

Your blood runs cold as you're faced with a drawing of your exact likeness. Every line is correct, all the way from the curve of your nose to the pull of your lips. Your name is stamped in dark, inky letters underneath the photo with a description that reads:

WANTED: MISSING GIRL TO BE RETURNED BACK TO HER FATHER IN PENMOSA REWARD: 25$

Reholstering his gun, he raises both hands and starts to approach you. Deliberately, patiently.

He's about ten feet away from you when he drops down on one knee, dipping his chin in an effort to look smaller and less... him.

It's easier to make out your features now that he's closer.

You're young— younger than him, at least. Hair clings to a face still unfettered by age. The exposed skin on your body looks unmarred. Soft, manicured hands that look out of place wrapped around the rusty iron.

Undoubtedly civilian.

You're still watching him like a frightened animal; brows furrowed and muscles stiff with tension.

A cat, he thinks.

That's what you remind him of. Can almost imagine the airplane ears and bristled fur.

"Hey," he offers softly. "Leon Kennedy. DSO."

There's no recognition in your eyes, and for a moment, he wonders if you can even understand him. He reaches up to his ear, about to call out to his comms when you ask—

"Are you here to help me?"

It's a quiet sound. Barely a whisper, fear laced in every word.

His hand drops back down, resting on a knee. Your question burns him, not from the words, but because of how vulnerable it sounds.

Like you want to trust him so badly.

He hasn't even done anything yet; hasn't even begun to earn any of what you're offering up.

Leon nods, keeping your gaze. Your shoulders droop, just a little.

"You okay? Hurt anywhere?"

Eyes flittering over you again, down to where blotches of red stain your dress.

You blink slowly, then look down at yourself as if trying to figure that out, too. He waits; the open silence soon punctuated with the shake of your head.

"Good," he pushes himself up with a grunt.

Slowly—you're still a bit jumpy—walking over and settling in front of you, he reaches out with a gloved hand.

"I'll get you out of here, okay?"

Eyes flicker from his face to his hand, back and forth, like you're still debating the pros and cons of running away. But eventually, one of your hands let go of the metal bar and slip into his.

Warmth.

Seeping through the wrinkled leather on his hands, it’s an unfamiliar thing when everything he touches is usually cold and gray. Almost disarming, almost dangerous.

The shadows on your face lift with the passing sun as he pulls you up from the ground. Behind you, a breeze catches fuschia branches. You give his hand the gentlest squeeze.

"Okay."

It's barely audible over the sound of rustling bougainvillea, but he hears you; sees the beginnings of something akin to hope piecing itself together in your eyes.

And for Leon—

(Somewhere, someplace in the back of his mind, cementing into place.

A timer beginning its countdown once again.)

—that's all he needs.

Fira is quiet as Leon guides you into town from the outskirts.

It's nearly noon, but the town feels stuck in a sleepy morning that never woke up.

Wouldn't think it to be an outbreak site if it weren't for the sheer amount of blood.

Whitewashed buildings he's seen in pictures are drenched in blood like a bad paint job. The overwhelming scent of iron is unpleasant mixed with the salty ocean breeze.

You don't comment on it, but he sees the way you wince and turn at the sight. Notices how your hands fist the fabric of your ruined dress. Almost like you're trying to curl in on yourself to get away from it all.

It's not just the blood.

Bodies litter the streets— some more undead than others. He doesn't let them get near, pushing you behind him whenever he spots an infected. Favors his firearms over close combat because he can't risk leaving you at a distance. Tries his best to shield you from the worst of it.

Still, they're everywhere.

On the ground, slumped over balconies.

Scattered over the cliffsides where land meets sea.

The easier way to go, he concedes. His boots squelch in a puddle of blood. He glances down, frowning.

"Glad I'm not the one cleaning this up," he mutters.

Behind him, you let out a small amused breath—barely a huff. Leon looks towards you, mild surprise on his face.

You'd been relatively quiet, until now.

"...It would be a lot of mopping," you offer, eyes tilting down when you catch his expression. Sheepish.

(Your own feet are no longer bare, strapped to a pair of sandals he nicked from a souvenir shop further back. Not the most practical, but he couldn't just let you walk around in nothing.)

His lips quirk up, just a bit.

You're handling everything remarkably well.

Leon doesn't tell you this— knows not to.

Because he knows that this front, however strong, is a delicate thing. Vividly remembers how it felt to keep it up, to pretend it was all just another day—not out of naive optimism or any kind of rationality, but as a necessary part of surviving.

He doesn't know what you've seen or done to get this far. Won't ask you to relive it for him either.

You're resilient; that much is clear.

So he asks about other things instead.

Your name, where you're from— simple things. Mundane things. You answer honestly, in spite of the circumstances.

A grad student.

Art history, you tell him. Something about Ancient Minoans and pottery and wall paintings. It's nothing he understands— all mumbo-jumbo in his mind.

But the more he coaxes these things out of you, the more your nerves seem to stitch themselves back together. The more your eyes seem to brighten up. So he tries his best with it—asks you questions that probably seem a bit dumb, if only to keep your mind off all the blood and bodies you come across.

He offers you tiny things about himself, too.

Because maybe, you could come to trust him more if he felt like a real person.

He tells you about his motorcycle he keeps back home when you pass by a line of knocked-over mopeds. Talks about how hot it is in Greece, compared to the cold, rainy spring back in Washington.

You nod along; still tense, but you listen.

His mind stutters a little, the first time you show him a real smile.

He's in the middle of scoping out a closed-in streetpath covered with awnings when he hears a small clang. His gun whips out, steadily pointing at where it came from, behind some knocked over trash. He feels you against his back without him even asking—good. You're getting used to the drill.

Another clang, this time a little closer. He squints, not spotting any shadows or infected in the narrow alleys between the buildings. But then, something clutches at him— your hand. Tensing, he spares you a quick glance.

You're looking forward, eyes squinting, like you're seeing something he's somehow missed.

"What is it?" He asks, gaze turning back to the pathway.

Quiet, and then—

A cat.

Scurrying across the stone path, leaping onto a nearby half wall. It sits there, letting out a meow and licking a paw. The gun points back down, his shoulders relaxing as the tension alleviates.

"Oh."

He turns to you, just in time to see your lips curving up into a smile.

It's a sight so out of place in this hellhole, that it catches him off guard.

Pretty—

You look at him; it's the first time he's seeing something close to joy on your face.

"I've seen that cat around, I think." You point at it. He spares it a another glance. "It has a cut—on the left ear. I remember."

It does. A small notch cutting diagonally on its left ear.

"There's a lot of them on the island," you explain softly, eyes still on the cat. It stares back, slowly flicking its tail and and forth. "It was being bullied by some bigger ones. I felt bad for it, so I chased them away."

You let out a soft laugh. His eyes trace the movement of your lips.

"Well, that one ended up running away, too. Not sure if I actually helped."

The cat eventually jumps over the other side, and he continues where he left off, guiding you down the streetpath with a careful eye.

He doesn't think about how much prettier you look with a smile on your face. Ignores the echoes of your laugh in his mind.

Focus, Kennedy. Focus.

He forces himself to move on. To think about the mission instead.

He stares into the empty street.

(Something is strange.

From when he was dropped off at the port to now, there's been plenty of infected roaming the town— but something is off.

It doesn't seem like enough.

He's seen bigger outbreaks in less populated places. Seen hoards of infected civilians in places you wouldn't think had a population over a thousand.

The briefing said a sudden outbreak overnight— could it have been timing? Too many people asleep in their beds, not enough to infect outside? Were they all rounded up somewhere?

Whatever it is, he needs to figure it out soon.)

At the end of the path, one street flows into three more. A curved road leads up higher into the hillsides, while the other paths lead opposite ways. A quick consult to his GPS device shows him an emergency clinic on the upper path. The other roads leading to more residential buildings and shops.

He considers it.

Considers how the possibility of the outbreak originating from a health clinic isn't exactly zero.

Clinic it is.

Leon leads you up the little hill, before stopping at an open street. On the other side, sits the clinic.

It's a sight out of a horror movie.

Wooden planks hastily nailed against the windows and door, like someone had realized something horrible was happening outside. Some are shattered, chopped through like some last ditch effort to get out once they realized the bad thing was actually locked inside with them.

He approaches, flashing his light into the half-broken down doors.

You frown, pursing your lips as you glance back and forth between the building and him.

"Are we…going inside?"

He hums, peeking through the gaps of the boarded windows. "Clinic's a useful place to check in situations like this."

You don't answer. Leon pauses and looks at you.

Arms wrapped around yourself, shoulders hunched in, eyeing the building like it's going to suddenly move and eat you alive.

You're scared.

"Hey," he says, walking back to you and ghosting a hand over your shoulder. "I'm not going to make you go in with me if you don't want to."

He squeezes your shoulder, reassuring. "But you have to promise me to stay here until I come back, okay?"

You peek at him through your lashes, nodding gingerly. Bottom lip tucked under your teeth.

"Okay."

Okay.

He scans the area. Trash bins, parking lot, gated in. Space for you to hide yourself in. He could work with that.

There aren't many infected around when he leaves for a quick perimeter check. He doesn't need to guess to know most of them are probably boarded up in that clinic. The ones that are there, die with a bullet to the brain.

When he gets back to you, you're still rooted to the same spot.

You're obedient. He likes that about you.

He pulls you over, makes you huddle into the side of the building. Hidden from the open street, away from potential danger. Should be safe, he tells you, but he grabs his hatchet and gives it to you anyway. Because a hatchet is better than nothing. Peace of mind.

His hand finds your arm, giving you another gentle squeeze.

"I'll be quick," Leon says, firm. "Stay sharp, okay?"

A sinkhole opens up in your heart the moment Leon leaves.

It's quiet; too hot, with the midday sun glaring down on your bare shoulders.

Too much space for you to think.

Everything had been fine, before today.

You had been on vacation. A self-indulgent splurge shared with a few friends to visit one of your bucket-list destinations. It should've been a dream come true; a break from research, the endless papers, the tedious grading.

Yesterday's memories spring up— vaguely foggy. It had been a good day. Brunch, some sightseeing, a beautiful sunset in Imerovigli, dinner before your friends left to go to some fancy lotus-themed club while you stayed at the hotel to rest.

A slow day.

But at least it had been normal.

At least you hadn't left the hotel early to go find your friends, only to find the streets filled with undead instead. At least you weren't covered in someone else's blood.

At least you weren't toeing over bodies and guts, following a man decked head-to-toe with straps and ammo and other things you don't know the names of, wielding guns that blew through skulls like nothing— all because he said he'd get you out.

Don't talk to strangers, your mother had always warned.

Now look at you.

All dependent on a stranger you met several hours ago, a man who you know next to nothing about.

(A man who can somehow make you feel so safe.)

In a sudden moment of clarity, you feel naked— helpless, exposed to the elements. Regret seeps in. The idea of going into an enclosed, zombie-ridden place suddenly sounding more rational than ever.

You know Leon cleared the area for you before going in, but if some zombie decides to pop-up now, you're not sure you would survive again.

All the fight had drained from you the moment Leon stepped into your orbit. When he took up the responsibility of pushing you behind him and using himself as your shield. When he held your hand and told you he'd get you out.

You don't want to be alone, you realize—you want to go after him.

Shit, you'd probably follow him into a burning building, at this point.

The heavy mini axe he gave you isn't doing you any favors, isn't making you any less anxious as your eyes peel back and forth. Between the building, the darker shadows in the alleyways, behind you, even though your back is to a wall.

So, when the tell-tale groan of a zombie falls on your ears, you inevitably panic.

Whipping your head around, you spot it—a man with a solid chunk of his neck gone, staggering around the building. Your stomach drops, mind racing. Where did it come from?

It's not looking at you right?

It can't see you.

But you're scared, trembling. You take a small step back—a mistake.

Your foot kicks a piece of wood on the ground. It makes the smallest sound. Your breath catches when the man's head snaps towards you, bitten neck splurting blood.

It starts to run, faster than any of the other ones you've seen.

Oh, fuck—

You break into a sprint, past the building into the little parking lot on the side. Adjusting the grip on Leon's axe, you frantically look around for anything that could help you.

A few cars are still parked at the lot; the owners probably never left, you realize, bile threatening to come up.

An idea pops into your head.

You scurry around the front of a car, waiting on its passenger side. The infected man follows just like that, around the front.

Okay, okay, you tell yourself. This could work.

You reel around the trunk quickly, making a fast circle around the vehicle until you're right behind the man. It doesn't see you; too dead to have any sort of peripheral awareness.

And then, with all the power you can muster, you swing down, right into its head—crack!

It slumps, falling limp against the side of the car before dropping into itself on the ground. Axe sticking awkwardly out of its skull.

Dead.

Thump, thump—ears ringing, heart drumming. If it doesn't stop beating out of your chest, you might actually die.

The axe, you pant, breath quivering. Need the axe back.

You lean down and pull with shaky hands; the handle doesn't move.

One more time.

Nothing.

It's stuck. You put all your strength into it, even using your foot on the body as leverage to try and unwedge the blade from the bone, mentally blubbering out apologies to the person it used to be. But it doesn't budge.

Fuck.

Dread starts to pool in your stomach.

You can't stay here. Not without a weapon.

One step back becomes two, two becomes three, until you're running back towards the entrance and into the clinic.

Red. Everywhere. Even in the shadowy hallways, only dimly lit by streaks of sunlight, you can see it. The floors, the benches, the reception. Red.

You run past it all. A trail of bodies down the hall, your beacon.

You hear Leon before you find him.

The sound of bullets and furniture toppling over echoes out of a room further down the hallway. You make a beeline towards it—racing past more and more bodies, into the face of danger. When you get to the entrance, your heart jumps into your throat.

In the middle of it, Leon stands, fighting off a horde of the undead.

Five, you count. Toppling over beds and stray carts, lurching ever closer. Three go down easily with a spray of bullets; the other two approach slower. Leon backs up against a bed, prepping for a quick reload, when you see it—

A body, creeping out from beneath. Your eyes widen.

You can see it.

But he can't.

Fear rushes over you like a bucket of cold water. You shout.

"Leon—behind!"

Leon's gaze snaps to you instantly, but it's a second too late. A hand grasps at his boot, catching him off guard and breaking his balance. Somehow, he manages—ripping his leg out of its grip and sending his heel straight back into its face. He lifts his leg again before crushing its skull against the floor, blood and brain gushing everywhere.

But his balance is off.

He falls back onto the mattress with a grunt. The two infected are still darting at him, only barely missing him every time they grab at him. He grunts, rolling around to avoid them, gun still mid-reload.

Think, think, think!

A broken wooden plank on the floor catches your eye. It's splattered with yellow paint and sharp nails, leftover from the boarding. You leap at it, arms screaming at its unexpected load.

Come on, come on!

Turning back, you bolt towards the one of the infected, right as it launches itself onto Leon. With a cry, you slam the plank into the side of its head, nail side-up. It staggers with a groan, blood spewing from where the nails impale its flesh.

It's just enough of a distraction for Leon to kick the other one back, reload, and send a bullet into its skull. Just in time for him roll off the bed, put himself between you and the infected that's now lurching in your direction.

He shoots— two in the face, one more into its chest, when it drops onto the floor.

You pant, huffing deep breaths that leave your chest trembling.

Holy fuck.

You see Leon turning, feel him staring, but you ignore it. Legs weak from the sudden rush, you sway, stumbling back into a cart for some kind of support. Hiss the moment your hand leans on it, pulling back and shaking your wrist in pain.

Immediately, Leon's hovering over you. His own gloved hands gently prying your palms open to check for injuries.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Prickly pain radiates as he feels them for injuries.

Splinters, you realize. Some big, some small, embedded all over your palms and fingers. Already growing red where they pierce flesh. You let out a miserable groan, mumbling ugly curses at the plank.

"Not too bad," Leon mutters, still assessing the state of your hands. "We’ll need to pick them out.”

He nudges you over to a clean bed further away. You sit, still reeling from the physical whiplash. Drags over a nearby stool and discards his gloves. Takes out a small flashlight from his belt, tucking it between his neck and shoulders and shining the light over your palms.

You shiver at the heat of his breath against your skin.

"Hold still for me, sweetheart."

Oh, you blink, adrenaline struggling to settle. That's new.

He starts with the bigger visible pieces. Some are deeper, having been stabbed deep with how hard your grip had been on the plank. Each squeeze of his fingers send stinging shocks through your nerves. You wince, when red beads on the surface of your skin.

"Gonna need a tetanus shot after this," you mumble.

Leon raises his head for a second. His lips twitch up into a weak smile. Your heart misses its beat.

"Probably."

His fingers are careful as he picks the remaining wood out of your hands. Slowly, methodical. Checking up on you every time you twitch a little too hard, like he's afraid of hurting you.

You watch him. Really look at him.

Shaggy hair keeps falling into his sightline, unkempt like he can't be bothered to do anything with it. Stubble covers the bottom of his face; freckles and sunspots here and there, barely visible. Strikingly blue eyes.

It's a face you'd stop to look twice at, on some night out.

Handsome, you muse.

Leon pats your hand when he's done, tells you to touch something to see if there are any more stuck pieces. You do that, rubbing your fingers together as he swivels around and glances at the bodies littering the room.

You ask the question that's been sitting heavy on your tongue.

“Are these things," you pause, licking your lips as you force the word out, like you're tasting something for the very first time. He turns back to you. "Bioweapons?”

(You don't notice the way his eyes darken when your tongue peeks through.

The way his jaw tightens when your teeth sink nervously into the plush of your bottom lip.)

"Infected," Leon corrects. "Zombies, whatever you want to call them. Bioweapons are... different. Manufactured."

He tilts his head, assessing you. Like you're some mystery he's trying to solve.

"…Why did you come in?"

It's not an accusatory question. More curiosity than anything. You still—the earlier incident nearly forgotten.

"Uhm," you look away. "There was an one. Outside."

He stiffens, looks you up and down again. Checking. Emerging guilt evident on his face. You interrupt him before he says anything.

"It's dead," you blurt. And then quieter. "I killed it."

It's the first time you say it out loud.

"With your axe-thing. But it got stuck, and I—I couldn't get it out," you explain hurriedly, vaguely gesturing to your head. "So I panicked and ran inside."

Leon doesn't say anything. It makes you uncomfortable.

Did you do something wrong?

"I'm sorry," he finally says.

You frown. "For what?"

His eyes furrow shut, brows creasing. "You could've—"

He doesn't finish the sentence. You don't need him to—the consequences that could've been are not lost on you.

Leon exhales, slow and controlled.

"I shouldn't have ever left you out there. That's my mistake. You shouldn't—." His hands tighten into fists. "…You shouldn't have had to do any of what you just did."

Oh.

You look down at your bloody hands. The pit in your stomach grows bigger.

"I already killed a few of them." You confess quietly, eyes trained the tiny cuts. "Before this. Before you found me. I think I did. I don't know. I had to, I—"

Had to.

You had to.

Because if you didn't, you would've become one of them. You would've died. And then you would've probably killed people.

You can't get it out of your head now that you've acknowledged it.

Hazy lifeless white eyes rimmed with blood; bared teeth and hands clawing at you. Bodies with chunks of flesh missing; bodies that shouldn't even be able to stand, running straight at you.

Your hands, gripping hastily-found iron, bashing into their bone, their bodies, the soft fleshy bits and all. Again and again and again, because all of a sudden, there was no difference between life and death anymore.

It's a reality you've been so desperately trying to keep away, finally solidifying in your memory.

A tourist.

The nice shopkeeper from down the street.

The teen.

The vile urge that's been stuck simmering in your chest suddenly burns hot.

You've held it together until now. Don't think about it.

Don't—!

It heaves, acid surging up your throat as you twist over the bed's edge and empty out the sickness with a gag. Your vision blurs as you cough up the disgusting nausea. A strangled retch dies in your throat.

(Bloody eyes, bloody eyes, hands gripping at you, at your dress, the teen, oh god, the fucking teen—)

You feel it first, over the sudden ringing in your ears.

Hands. Flat on the skin of your back, rubbing soothing circles. Threaded in your hair and pushing it away from your sweaty face. Coughs rack your chest again, scratching away at your burning throat.

Leon's saying something. It takes a few more seconds before the drumming of your heart dies down enough to actually hear.

"—Breathe, sweetheart. Come on—"

The images don't leave you. Your chest seizes again with an ache.

Somehow, you're drowning above water.

Fingers grip your arms, pulling you back up from your bent over position. They brush strands away from your forehead, behind your ears, before settling on your face. A calloused thumb brushes your mouth, wiping the filth away.

Don't touch me, your mind begs. You'll get dirty, I'm—

Warm pressure on your forehead, grounding. You can barely focus through the blurry film of tears, but it's also all you can see.

Baby blue, staring right back at you.

Leon.

A stuttery breath chokes out of you.

"You're okay—just breathe for me."

It's damning, how much a few words and touches from him can make you feel so protected. So utterly safe.

Your chest still stutters, but you try—for him. Matching your shaky breaths to the rise of his chest. Leaning forward into the touch of his skin against yours.

"That's it," he coaxes, thumb caressing your cheek. "Just breathe, yeah? You're doing so good."

You focus on him— you focus on his touch, the brush of his elbows on your knees, how he's looking up at you like you're something worth worrying over.

Leon, you realize, looks tired.

His face is covered in wrinkles that don't hide any of his stubborn handsomeness. Crow's feet line the creases of his eyes. Sunken cheeks, maybe from getting old, maybe from a constant exhaustion.

It's the face of a man who's gone through a lot; a man who's lived more than just the number of his age.

You wonder what he sees in you.

Someone young. Someone who's never touched a gun in their life, never had to worry about everything trying to kill you.

Someone he has to keep alive.

"Leon," you whisper. It's almost a sob. "I want to go home."

His worried eyes soften; you feel it with how his forehead relaxes just a bit. They remind you of the color of your sky back home.

"I know," he says, breath tickling your face. "I know. Remember what I said? I'll get you out. We'll get you home, yeah?"

His thumbs brush over your cheeks, gentle in a way that feels out of place in a situation like this.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"Promise?"

Your voice cracks when you say it. Something drips through your lashes, thick with the weight of what you've been holding between your teeth. It trails down, following the line of his thumb.

The taste of salt lingering where the corner of your mouth brushes his palm. Your tongue darts out again to wet your lips.

(This time, you don't miss the way Leon's eyes flicker to your mouth.

You don't miss the way his hand tenses just a tad on your cheek. Your heart thrums with something lighter.)

His voice is rough, all jagged edges, when he whispers it back. To you, it sounds like safety.

"Promise."

The next few hours are grueling.

Traversing the dense, stair-ladden streets of Fira is even more difficult with the hot Mediterranean sun beaming straight down. Sweat and blood make the fabric of his shirt cling and chafe his skin. The heat bothers you, too. The linen of your dress is bogged down with dirt and blood. He sees you fanning and fluffing the skirt, like it'd somehow make it easier to breathe.

Eventually, you say fuck it— taking the hatchet he retrieved from the infected you killed and hacking at the blood-dyed fabric until the hems brush your thighs instead of your ankles.

Should've done this earlier, you hum, sighing in relief.

(Leon's glad you didn't.

Not with the way the butchered dress hangs dangerously short— your soft skin, right there, on display.

Not with the way he has to dig his nails into his gloves to get himself to tear his eyes away.)

At some point, after his thoughts settle some more, and the regret and the shame starts feeling like a tank on his ribs—he thanks you. Reaches out to your hand, watches those lips fall open in a question.

Thank you, he whispers. You tilt your head in confusion. For what?

For saving him back there, for risking your life, for hurting yourself—just to help him. Even though he doesn't deserve it. You blink, eyes crinkling upward in a smile so damn pretty, it makes his heart ache.

Wouldn't you have done the same?

Leon comes to realize something, between now and the first time he laid eyes on you.

The space between you is shrinking.

Before, you hobbled behind him from a distance. Still wary of him, a stranger, despite trusting him enough to follow him through an infested, undead island.

Now, you hover closely. Fingers brush his arms whenever something startles you. You let him press you to his back whenever there's infected in sight. You don't flinch when he grabs your hand to lead you somewhere.

(And, the worst thing is—he enjoys it.

Is that just a testament to your nature, or some fucked-up sign about himself?)

He drags a gloved hand through his sweaty hair, willing his thoughts back to something else.

Concentrate. You still haven’t figured out the source yet.

The clinic had held no real evidence. Just bodies on bodies; people who had hoped to get help and ended up bringing the entire place down with them.

"Leon," you call out from behind, shaking him from his thoughts. "How do people get infected?"

"Think of it as a virus. Can be direct contact with something infected," he answers, gaze flickering around to check for hostiles. "Like saliva. Or drugs. Even airborne pathogens."

Dead bodies and an eerie stillness are all that's left. An outcome that never changes.

"But it only takes one person to get infected to end up with something like this."

"What if," you start slowly, measured. "it was all of that?"

He looks back. You're several paces away, staring intently a bunch of papers plastered on whitewashed walls. Leon silently tucks his weapon into its holster, walking towards you to take a better look.

His gaze lands on the one in the middle. It's a messy thing; ugly, if he had to be honest. Bright colors and big blocky English text that scream 'read me!'

'Spring Fever!

Ladies Free! Free Entry Drink + More! €5 Tickets!

—Club Lotus.'

Last night's date stares back at him. The line about free drinks and more is underlined thrice, in bright red. Bolded. Emphasized.

You turn to him, eyes wide. The beating in his chest quickens.

“What if it started at a party?”

Smart girl.

It's all he can think as the two of you make your way deeper into the town center, towards the nightclub.

The logic makes sense.

A big stuffy crowd, cheap entry, free drinks, hook-ups and saliva-swaps. A virus distributed like a party drug.

The perfect scenario.

It would explain the number of infected. People who pass out drunk, people who go overboard, unable to make it out of the club itself. The ones that do might have not made it home; they might have turned in the streets. Or, they might have ended up somewhere else—like a clinic. If they did make it back, holed up in some hotel or hostel or rental, then it would've wiped the entire place out.

There would've been panic with law enforcement—it wouldn't have ended well. People who don't know they're infected, turning in crowds of uninfected.

Fira would've entered full outbreak by morning, with half of its population just waking up and unaware, while the other half stood dead on their feet. That timeline could work.

It comes into view as soon as the two of you enter the square. Club Lotus. A square-looking building, with a wide balcony up top. Palms and vines line the white walls. The doors are cracked open, as if waiting for him.

Leon takes a step, about to take a look, when he feels something tugging his shirt. He looks down; it's you, staring into the dark entrance, fingers clutching at him.

You're hesitating.

"Hey," his hand immediately comes up to hover over the curve of your waist, barely touching. "What's wrong?"

You tear your eyes away, towards him, before looking down at the ground.

"My—… I came here with friends," you admit, hand crumpling the fabric of his shirt. "They said they were going to a party last night. Here. They— they didn't come back."

Oh.

For a moment, he debates what he wants to say to you. He can't reassure you, can't tell you that your friends are probably fine— because that would be a lie.

And Leon Kennedy is a lot of things, but he's not a liar.

"I'm sorry," is what he offers instead.

You don't react, but the way your lips tremble chips away at his chest.

"I don't know if I can—," your eyes flicker back to the entrance.

You don't need to say anymore. He understands.

Jaw tightening, he surveys the area.

Bringing you in with him would be preferable, especially after the clinic— you'd be safer with him. But it was a gamble; what if there were too many? What if it was filled to the brim with infected and he couldn't fight them off? And if he leaves you here alone— well. He's not making that mistake again.

But if your friends are still in there—

No.

He won't let you go through that kind of horror.

A guttural groan drags him away from his thoughts.

Leon takes your hand and pulls you towards an open bar next to the club. He spots the infected before they can even start to move— two near the stools, three in the booths, a few more near the door to the kitchen.

The ones by the stools go down first, five bullets tearing through their torsos and skulls. He drags you over, quickly checking the bar before pushing you behind the counters. You sit without a word, obedient, tucking your head and feet away.

Good girl.

He moves back around the bar, hatchet in hand as he approaches the closest infected. It trips over a chair leg— an opportunity he doesn't let go to waste. In a flash, his hatchet digs into its skull, splattering brain and blood all over the floor. The zombie twitches once, twice, before falling limp over a chair.

The rest go just as easy.

(It's always easy when you have something worth protecting.)

Leon closes in on the booth, where the infected scramble over each other to try to get to him. It doesn't take more than a few strikes and head-stomps before they're down, too. The ones furthest from him don't get to taste his hatchet. He doesn't let them come closer; can't let them get remotely close to where you're crouching. Gun in hand, he shoots them dead where they stand.

Clear.

Turning on his heels, he jogs back to where he's tucked you away.

"Hey," he calls out.

Rounding the corner of the bar, he drops down on a knee. One hand takes yours, the other unholsters his sidearm before placing it gently in your palm. He ignores how you flinch at the cold metal, how your eyes go wide and panicky.

"Leon—"

"I need you to listen to me, okay?"

He can't risk bringing you into a cesspool of infected. He also can't risk you being out in the open again.

You nod. Hesitant, but still so full of that trust.

"The safety's on," he takes your fingers and traces them along the safety. He shows you how to flick it off, and then back on. "It's fully loaded. Fifteen bullets."

He can see the information spinning in your head as you try to follow along. He takes your other hand, maneuvering both into the proper grip, gun pointed towards the ground. Lets your fingers brush the trigger, just to know what it feels like in your hand. You're shaking a little— he squeezes your wrist, holding you steady.

"You keep the muzzle down unless you got something to shoot at, got it? And if you do, you aim for the head. If you can't, take out the legs instead."

It frightens you, he can tell. The way your hands are clammy and still around the gun, the way your leg muscles are stiff, the way a bead of sweat is dripping down your neck.

"There's no silencer on this one, so if you shoot, I'll hear it. And I'll come right back to you."

You're about to say something. He can almost guess it.

No, wait, what? I'm scared, I'll come with you instead, don't—

His hands come up to your face before he can stop himself, cupping your cheeks gently. Your breath hitches, but your eyes are focused on him again. So fucking trusting.

"I'm gonna need you to be brave for me, sweetheart," he murmurs. "Can you do that?"

A shaky nod.

"Good." One of his hands drop down to squeeze your calf. "I'm going to clear the area first, and then I'm going to go into that club, get what I need, and then I'm running right back."

You bite your lip, gaze dropping down to the gun.

"…But what if—," you start to mutter, before squeezing your eyes shut and taking a deep breath.

He waits, because he can afford this, can afford to make sure you feel safe first.

"…Okay. Okay," you say again, steeling yourself. "What do I do if you don't come back?"

Despite it all, Leon finds himself grinning.

A contigency plan?

His smart, smart girl.

Reaching into his back pouch, he pulls out a small earpiece. An extra, packed in case of emergencies. You've seen him use it every now and then, whenever he needed better directions and supply drops. He reaches up, pushing away strands of your hair before setting it into your ear. His fingers brushing your skin sends a shiver down your spine— he huffs a small breath, amused.

And you— you jump. The tiniest jolt of your shoulders, eyelashes batting away in embarrassment.

He taps it gently, motioning for you to feel it yourself.

"If I don't come back before dark, push this button and call for help. You keep doing that until someone comes get you. And make sure to give them my name."

You nod again. It's steadier now— no less anxious, but there's a light in your eyes that wasn't there before.

Leon breathes, his own chest thumping heavy.

With one last squeeze to your arm, he pushes himself up with a grunt. Timer's ticking. He needs to get you out before the sun sets.

"Remember what I said, okay? Stay sharp."

A tug on his pant leg right before he steps out. He stills, body already turned away.

"Please come back safe."

It's barely a whisper.

Leon doesn't look back at you when he leaves—can't.

He's already risking your life by doing this again; he can't risk his resolve, too.

Check the perimeter first.

He's thorough, more than ever. Leaves no chances. Saves his ammo; opting to clear the streets and shops with his body and hatchet. Makes sure to get in an extra chop or a kick. Nearly decapitates them all. A trail of blood and bodies behind his every step.

Keep you safe.

Get you out.

The faster he gets this done, the faster he finds what he needs— the faster he can get back to you and make sure you're okay. Then he can focus on getting you out of this hellhole.

He clears the area in record speed. Can barely remember moving before he finds himself standing back in front of the dark club entrance. A quick look towards the your bar is all he lets himself have.

Stepping beyond the threshold feels like stepping into the third circle of hell.

The moment Leon enters, his boots step on a limb. A pile of bodies obstruct the main entrance— strangely, they're dead. Actually dead, dried blood leaking from multiple orifices, eyes glazed over.

Get samples.

Reaching into his pouch, he grabs some swab kits, making quick work gathering blood samples from several different corpses.

Move on.

Gun raised, he slowly enters the main room. This is where it really goes to hell.

Infected, rising from the dead. They swarm the bar, the dance floor, everywhere. His mind forgets reality for a while.

One, two— his hatchet cleaves through decomposing flesh and bone. He kicks the one closest to him back, sending in crashing into two more infected crawling over.

Seven, eight, nine—two bullets rip through brains. He doesn't look back, immediately raising the hatchet to block the bite from another zombie. Sending a kick to its stomach, another bullet from his gun landing through its head. More come his way, climbing over the bar counters.

Leon doesn't let himself get distracted. Doesn't hesitate, doesn't let himself try to figure out which one of these infected could be your friend.

(Ignores the guilt pooling in his chest every time he kills one that looks around your age, every face that looks like it could've laughed together with you once.)

He reloads, firing off headshot after headshot at the ones that count. Using his body and hatchet instead for the ones that can't seem to find the strength to get on their feet. Fifteen, sixteen. He grunts, pushing off a close-call—a taller, bigger one that comes barreling through.

It goes on like that, for almost an hour.

Leon nearly collapses against the wall when he's done, entire club cleared. Four bullets left in the mag, a chipped hatchet he can barely hold onto. He'd lost count of the bodies somewhere along the way.

Dragging a hand through his hair, he lets out a tired exhale.

Getting too old for clubbing.

But he can't stop now.

Not when you're still out there, waiting for him to come back.

He sweeps the room, swiping up anything he can find to confirm that the virus originated here. He finds booths tucked near the back—broken vials and needles he places in reinforced bags, alcohol he soaks up, more blood, more bodies.

There are bodies like the ones at the entrance— ones that stayed dead, ones that never turned. He collects from those, too. Wonders if the virus distributed here had been experimentally unstable. A test.

Would help explain the theory, he muses.

When he's finished, he all but runs out of the building.

Runs straight towards you.

You must hear him, because your head peeks out from over the counter. Eyes widening at the sight of him.

"Leon," your voice breaks into a sob.

He's barely there, barely down on his knees when you launch yourself into him, gun forgotten somewhere on the ground.

Arms wrap tight around his neck, your face burying itself in the crook of his neck. One of his arms grasp around your back, holding you flush to his chest as he steadies himself on the floor. Your fingers clutch at the back of his shirt, desperate, as if he'd disappear if you didn't hold on tight enough.

He lets out a relieved breath, eyes fluttering shut at your warmth. His exhaustion, fading into the back of his mind. Tilting his face into your temple, lips brushing softly against your skin.

"I'm here, sweetheart," he soothes. "I'm here. You're safe."

(Doesn't even know if he's saying it for you or for himself anymore—)

You only pull him closer, ignoring all the filth covering his body.

"I was so worried," you cry, words muffled. "I heard the noise, but then it stopped, and you didn't come out, and I didn't know if—"

Leon shushes you, pressing you closer. Whispering reassurances in your ear. I'm fine, sweetheart, nothing happened. I'm okay, I'm okay.

He kept the unspoken word—came back safe to you.

That's all that matters.

The easy part, now.

Getting you out.

Contact is made with mission control after you calm down a little more. Extraction team set to drop down at the edge of town. It's right as the sun sets that the two of you hobble over to the set coordinates, a military helo landing down as soon he calls out to his comms.

The agents that come out are familiar. He knows them by name—but he moves anyway.

It's instinct now. The natural order of things, the way he tugs you closer behind him. Despite the fact that the people walking towards him aren't hostiles. Despite how they're there to bring you back to safety.

He only loosens up when you whisper his name, confused. Leon?

Staring back and forth between him and the incoming agents, like you're not sure whether to trust them now.

He must be really fucking tired.

When you're both buckled into the seats, headsets on, it feels like gravity bearing down on him tenfold. He doesn't do it on purpose, doesn't want to close his eyes, but sleep overtakes him anyway. Too worn-out to fight it, not with the weight of you pressing against him.

When he wakes up, it's hours later on a tarmac in Washington.

And you—

You're no longer there.

Gone. Your seat is still warm.

Leon doesn't panic, doesn't jump to his feet and demand information out of the nearest agent—but it's a near thing.

Bureaucracy meets him before he even steps out of the damn bird.

They remind him sternly about the debriefing he's required to attend in ten minutes. The collected samples he's supposed to immediately submit to forensics. The mission report he'll have to fill out. Flippant when he asks about you, waving him off without telling him where you've been taken.

Mandatory quarantine period, Agent. You know how it goes.

Bad things surface in his mind. Memories from ages ago, ones he doesn't want to remember.

Maybe, that's why there's a tension in his chest that wasn't there twenty-four hours ago. Maybe that's why it's a physical effort dragging himself through the halls of headquarters.

He sits through debrief and lies to himself about how you're probably better off in quarantine.

Safely sequestered in a guarded place where the horrors on the island can't follow. And when you're cleared, you'll go back to the safety of your home and live out the rest of your days there, because you're strong like that. He's witnessed it with his very own eyes.

Yeah, he convinces himself. You'll be fine.

It's better this way.

So he doesn't stutter when he drones on about you, your information, and barely specific enough details to be put on the mission report. He doesn't tell them about how you had to kill to make it out alive. They don't need to know that.

Adrenaline still pumps through him for some reason, even when there's no danger. Leg keeps jittering; people glance at him every time he shifts in the chair. Checks his watch so much, someone notices.

What's up with you, Kennedy? Somewhere else you gotta be?

Hours later, when it's all said and done, when the samples are dropped off, the blank report template sitting stagnant on his desk, when he's finally clean and changed, finally alone—

He can only think of you.

His head falls against the back of his chair. Hand dragging over his face, trying to ease the hours-long migraine in his skull. The tiled ceilings stare back at him.

The mission is done. Objective completed. You're safe. He brought you back and you're in the hands of people who'll make sure you're okay.

So why can't he stop thinking about you?

This isn't his first rodeo. You aren't the first person he's saved, and he doubts you'd be the last. It shouldn't be any different.

Still, the memories flash by.

A scared you, crouching against a wall. You, bravely throwing around a wooden plank. Holding back whimpers as he carefully holds your hands in his, plucking out wooden shards that make you bleed. Smiling so prettily, because of a damn cat on a death-infested island.

You, sobbing and refusing to let go.

Like him coming back to you had meant so much.

Fuck, he stands, chair squeaking behind him.

Fuck, as he storms his way into the director's office, the surprised faces of other agents peering over at him.

He thinks back to the promise he made you, the one he hasn't yet fulfilled. The earnest heart on your sleeve.

Leon Kennedy has a history of holding onto things that don't look back. Has a bad habit of searching through the rubble with a microscope in hopes of finding something salvageable; he knows this.

He knows, that in this lifetime, he's made a lot of mistakes. Gathered too many regrets. So when it comes to you—

Swear on my life.

He runs out the building doors.

I won't let you become one of them.

You wake up with sweat dripping down your back.

Hands, your own hands, grip at your chest, feeling fabric. You look down— it's not your dress anymore. A white hospital gown in its place, crinkly and scratchy.

The stubborn afterimages in your head don't want to fade even as everything becomes clearer, imprints in your mind's eye. Hands that weren't yours, clawing at you, empty blank eyes—

A nightmare, you tell yourself, that's all.

Because it's over.

You escaped that place with your life in tact. You got out with Leon.

And Leon is—

(Head spinning, you whip your eyes around you.

White room, glass windows, beeping machines, lines stuck to your arm, something pinching your finger, empty room, empty, empty, empty.)

—not…here.

For the next hour, you're inconsolable.

Please, please tell me where I am, where is Leon, you beg when a nurse in a hazmat suit comes in. Please, please, I don't want to be here, please, let me go—

They put you to sleep before you can hit two.

When you stir awake, you see hazy sterile white walls and glass again.

A doctor and a woman come into your room. They tell you it's standard procedure, that you're in quarantine after having been exposed to an outbreak. They ask you questions; about Santorini, about the things you saw, and the things you did. You can barely think— what did they put in you?

You don't know who they are, and they don't tell you anything about themselves. They leave once they have enough of your one-word answers and 'I don't knows'. Never once answering your questions about Leon.

You still don't know where you are.

Bright fluorescent lights keep glaring down on you. Too blinding to keep your eyes open, too distracting for you to even think.

And the white.

You can't stand the white.

(White walls, white walls, white buildings, white eyes, bloody eyes—)

There's nothing you can do but curl into yourself and squeeze your eyes shut. It's the only way to make all the white go away. The only thing you can do while you wait.

Because Leon promised to take you home, and this isn't home.

So you wait.

You don't know how long you sit in that room.

You don't know how long you spend in your own head, trying to fight the sleepiness that still runs through your veins. Trying to make the images go away.

(They don't. You can't stop seeing them. The tourist, the shopkeeper, the—)

And then, like an echo growing closer, you hear voices outside. A commotion. Footsteps, loud and hurried. Someone opening the door to the room. You lift your head from your arms, sight blurry from the sudden invasion of light, when—

"Hey, sweetheart."

You sob.

Leon catches you before you can crawl over the edge of the bed, firm arms pulling you against his chest as he settles onto the edge of the mattress. He brings you close, hand slipping into your hair as he holds your head to the crook of his neck in an embrace that's become so, so familiar.

"I know, I know. I'm here," he says, voice cracking as he whispers endless apologies into your hair. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I left you—"

You shake your head, choking out wet words that don't even sound like anything.

You don't need apologies.

All you need— all you want— is Leon. His warmth envelops you, and for that reason, nothing else matters.

You stay there in his arms, leeching onto his heat, his everything. And he lets you. Leon sits with a leg perched on the bed, drags you closer into his lap, doesn't stop whispering to you, doesn't stop apologizing. Just keeps gently massaging your scalp and tracing circles on your back.

The exhaustion slowly catches up to you as the tears dry out, but you don't let it take you under. Not yet.

Not while you're here.

"Leon," you whisper tiredly, dry lips brushing against his neck. His hand stills, just for a second. "I want to go."

His arms tighten around you, protective.

"…Yeah, okay," he mutters. "Let's go home."

You don't fight him when he pulls away, but you keep a hand on his jacket. Unwilling to let go. Leon is gentle as he pulls out the needle from your arm and plucks the heart rate clip off your finger. He frowns when he takes a closer look at your state of dress, immediately shrugging off his jacket to place over your shoulders, drowning you in its warmth.

He gathers you up in his arms like it's the easiest thing in the world, tucks your head into his chest and pulls the jacket closer over your body. You don't see much of what's outside the room when he leaves, only more bright lights that make you shut your eyes and nuzzle closer into Leon's chest.

Leon keeps walking— through what, you don't know. You filter out the noise, pretend not to hear voices going back and forth. At some point, you doze off, only to rouse when you feel your body shifting.

You're in a car; you shift your head, catching the blurry figure of Leon reach over you as he buckles you in. He brushes strands of hair out of your face. You lean into his touch, eyes slowly drooping shut again. Too tired to stay awake.

"Get some sleep," he mutters, pressing his lips to the crown of your head.

So you do.

("She stays with me."

"Agent Kennedy, there are protocols—"

"She stays. With me.")

The weeks come and go in the after.

Your life becomes a flurry of mandatory checkups and therapy appointments and government visits. It's invasive, the way they poke and prod at you and try to convince you they're on your side. But you try, because trying is better than pretending it never happened.

Leon is by your side at every single one of these visits.

It's easier with him there. He doesn't ever let them run over time, shuts them down when the questions get too invasive or too difficult. Holds your hand when you start struggling to breathe and kicks them out when everything gets too overwhelming.

And he never lets them happen at home.

A small one-bedroom in Washington. The one you woke up in, the day he got you back.

You never ask him about the white room.

You don't bring up how he came in and took you away, or how the people you have to talk to always look mildly afraid when he's in the room with you. How they call him Mr. Kennedy and treat him like he's a loaded gun with a broken safety and a faulty trigger.

It's easier that way, to just let it be.

In the days that pass, some things stay the same, and some things do not.

You read— mostly research and fantasy books. The occasional poetry book when the mood hits right. Cooking becomes a pasttime, now that you have an extra stomach to feed. You order things online and go to home decor stores to fill the blank spaces in his home.

One less interior designer I have to hire, Leon says, when you bring back your first plant and low-light lamp.

You tell him about the new paint color you have in mind to replace the dull eggshell walls. He comes back home the next day with a few gallons, some brushes, rollers, and tarp.

You can't watch Mamma Mia! even though you used to love it in the before, and you still can't go to the meat section of the grocery store. Can't stomach horror movies or Halloween-themed things.

Eyes gloss over white clothing whenever you go shopping. Skip over the long, flowy pieces that you love in favor of more practical things.

You take up running on the gym treadmills in the apartment complex. Outside, when the weather is nicer. Leon takes you to the shooting range on some Saturdays and teaches you how to use a gun.

Sometimes, you visit the art galleries and museums in DC and spend days and days perfecting a master copy with the paint set Leon brings home for you. A painting of two Minoan partridges now hangs in the bedroom.

Nightmares plague you more often than not.

But you also wake up every day with an arm wrapped tight around your waist, flush against a warm chest, and soft breaths tickling your neck.

And some days, it's not you.

Some days, you notice the tremor in Leon's hands, when he's a little too tired and the world is a little too loud. You see how he stares into the wall behind the TV, how it takes him a second to hear the things you say.

You don't mention it when he comes home hours too early, when he just sits and watches you move around in silence.

Those days, you let him bury his face into your stomach while you stand over him, running your fingers through his hair until his shoulders stop shaking.

The government sends you a notice a few months later.

Finished. Done. No more appointments, no more visits, no more anything. Just a fifty-thousand dollar check for 'the trouble you went through', because that's all you're apparently worth.

No more strings.

It feels like a cigarette burning a hole into your stomach.

This, is a point of divergence.

You think about your graduate program, your students, family, friends— the ones you couldn't contact yourself, because you couldn't be trusted to stick to the script given to you. You think about the love you have for them, and the love you hold in your heart now.

You think about all the things you've left behind, and the so-called freedom you now afford.

But.

The thing is—

If you were ever asked to capture your life in any way, it would probably look like this:

Frames of every day you've lived, every moment you've cried, every second you've spent underneath the sun—coalesced onto a single piece of paper. Covered with all of the good and all of the bad, until it's saturated with everything that makes you, you.

Then, you would hang it up to dry and wait for it to stain blue.

So, in the end—

It really doesn't change a thing.

No flights are booked, no plans made. Nothing is packed. It all stays the same.

Every morning, you wake up in a bed that's not yours. Toddle into the kitchen in a shirt that's too big. Make coffee and breakfast for two. Take ten minutes to meditate and journal because the therapist said it'd be good for your health while the sound of dishes getting washed fills your ears.

You laze around and read journals on the latest art restoration techniques. Figure out what dinner should be according to the latest food trends on your phone. Drive to the store to pick out the ingredients together. Bicker over the differences between name-brand stuff versus the store-brand ones. Maybe go on a walk after eating to stretch your legs.

And sometimes, on the days Leon has to be out on the field, you crawl into bed and cry yourself to sleep until he comes back to you in one piece.

You do not think about the things from before. You do not think about going back.

It's only on a random night, when the both of you are in bed, that Leon asks.

“You don't want to go home?"

You both know it's a stupid question.

Home?

Your home has long morphed into something else; has been something else entirely, ever since that day in Santorini.

But you humor him anyway. Because this isn’t about you. You know what you think, what you want.

What your heart's settled on, a long time ago.

“Should I?”

(The ugly thing in his chest bares its teeth. Biting; hideous.

Only one thing it wants, only one thing it's hungry for—)

“No.”

You hum, eyes fluttering shut. Snuggling ever closer into his chest.

"Then I won't."

The thing that was always bound to happen, happens on a whim.

Four days gone, a field mission that would take at least seven.

The longest Leon's been away from you—the longest days of your life.

You count them down; a calendar sits on the fridge door, four boxes crossed out with big red x's and a circled date at the end of the row.

You don't know where he's gone, didn't even get to say goodbye. Just woke up one morning to a cold, empty bed and with a left-behind note on the pillow. Messily written, signed with a promise. Like he couldn't bear to wake you up to do it properly.

So when the locks to the apartment click open, it sends a fright down your spine.

You freeze, hand placing your cup down quietly on the granite counters. Eyes scan the calendar one more time, because he isn't supposed to be back yet. No call or text on your phone to show for it. Slowly, you inch towards the drawers where knives lie.

A breath lodges in your chest when the sound of hurried steps gain towards your spot. Is it him? Is it not? What do you do—

It happens quickly.

Leon, alive and whole, trailing in.

Rushing across the kitchen the moment he spots you.

"Le—mmph!"

His lips, on yours.

You stumble back. He follows, until you're pinned against the counters, until there's no air left between your bodies. You squeal when he grabs the back of your thighs, hands flying to his sturdy arms to steady yourself as he heaves you up to sit on the counter without ever breaking away. His hands run up your waist, your neck— fingers weaving into your hair as he kisses you breathless.

(You've long grown used to the feeling of Leon. Used to his arms around you, his hands on your skin, lips brushing your temple every now and then, fleeting touches that never go anywhere.

But, this—

This is springwater at the end of the desert; a balm to your soul, in the aftermath of a long-suffering journey home.)

It's all tongue and teeth, your mind afloat with the pressure of his face and body against yours.

When Leon finally pulls away, it's to look at you— to take you in as you are. He presses his forehead against yours, noses brushing as you catch your breath.

His hands, warm like they always are, hold your face like it's something so precious. Beautiful, beautiful blues rove over your face, flickering between every line and freckle.

You tilt your head, pressing a light kiss to his palm. He nudges you with his nose, before kissing you hard again, the ache in your chest receding with every bruising press of his lips.

It is easy to love a man who would kill for you.

It’s even easier, then, to offer up all that you are when he finally gives into the very thing that kept you alive in the first place.

"Missed you so fucking much," Leon confesses, pressing kisses down your neck as he carries you into your shared bedroom. "Couldn't stop thinking about you—"

You whine, grasping at his shirt and trying to pull him back up to your lips. Addicted, now that you've had your first taste.

He rewards you with a deep kiss as he sits on the mattress, nestling you onto his lap. His hands aren't gentle as they explore the whole of you— slipping beneath the shirt you stole from him, fondling your chest, your waist, your every curve.

The kisses don't stop; he only breaks apart once, all but ripping his shirt off of you, before claiming your mouth again.

It drowns you, to feel him all at once.

Whimpers fall from your lips as he presses your tits together, burying his face in the cleft— licking, sucking the skin until it blooms purple. He grunts things into your chest, drunk on the taste of you— gorgeous, so fucking pretty, how are you so fucking pretty?

His stubble scrapes gently against supple skin; hand cupping you as his tongue laps at a nipple.

Leon doesn't relent, even when you start squirming as his teeth nibble at your sensitive breasts. Chokes out a shaky breath when you grind against his clothed cock, a hand falling to squeeze your ass.

"Fuck," he grunts. His other hand makes its way to your waist, slipping into the waistband of your shorts before tugging them off, along with your underwear.

For a moment, he just stares, breaths coming out short and fast as he takes you all in.

It's the only reprieve you get before he's diving in again.

"So fucking gorgeous," he murmurs in between messy kisses— a silvery string of saliva dangling from his tongue to yours.

It's like he can't stop, like every breath he's forced to take is an obstacle to keeping his mouth on you. Your hands claw at his shirt, trying to take it off. When he doesn't let up, you sink your teeth into his bottom lip.

Your mistake.

Leon groans, fingers digging harder into your bare hips. You yelp when he bites back, pulling away at sharp pain. He's smirking— tongue poking out as it traces the edge of his teeth.

"Don't try anything you can't handle, sweetheart."

It's unfairly sexy.

He listens this time at least, when you pull at his shirt— taking the hem and tugging it over his head.

You've always known Leon to be attractive. Would see it in shy glimpses, in the moments you wake up to him changing, when he sometimes walks out of the shower shirtless.

But now that he's laid out bare before you, you can't seem to take your eyes off him.

"Might start charging if you keep staring—"

You shut him up with a kiss.

Must've been how he felt when your shirt came off.

You can't stop touching him; your hands keep wandering as his tongue slips into your mouth. You feel every flex of his arms, every twitch of his warm muscles against your palm—the ones that have protected you and held you through everything.

But, you want more.

You yank at his belt. His hands move over yours, unbuckling it with ease, hips lifting just enough to pull his pants and briefs off his legs.

Pretty, you think, licking your lips as his cock springs free. He hisses, jerking up in your hands when you wrap your fingers around his hot throbbing length.

You pepper kisses down his throat, muttering softly. Wanna be good for you, Leon, please, let me be good.

Hauling yourself off his lap, you drop to your knees. Lashes fluttering as you take him into your mouth.

"Fuck—!"

Leon's mouth falls open, brows furrowing, fingers clinging to your head as you drag your tongue around the velvety tip. Salty, you think, the heady scent of him filling your senses.

He looks wrecked as you take him further down your throat—needy man.

"Yeah," he whimpers. Face scrunched in pleasure as he presses you down. "Just like that, baby."

It's shameful— the way you stroke his cock a little faster, suck a little harder when he calls you that.

"You like that, hm?" His fingers thread through your hair, finding his grip. "Like it when I call you baby?"

You moan as he drags you up and down with a firm hand, saliva leaking all over your hands with how fucking big his cock is. Your tongue glides over the underside of his tip, earning fucked-out groans from Leon.

Perfect, baby, just like that, he sighs out. Hips jutting up with the way you're sucking him so well.

You're about to take him deeper, push harder, when Leon pulls you off with a pop.

He's breathing heavy, skin slick with sweat.

Tilting your chin up, he pushes lightly on your wet bottom lip with his thumb. You let your mouth fall open wider, watching his wild eyes darken as your swollen lips wrap around the finger.

"Fuck—c'mere," he pulls you back up, shifting his own body to lay back on the mattress as he settles you on top of him, legs spread over thighs. He curses when he feels the press on your slick folds on his skin.

Leon hauls you up, until your clit is brushing his nose, until your dripping pussy is right above his mouth—

—and then he eats.

His mouth feels like absolute sin as he buries his face into your pussy.

"Fu—haah," you squeeze your eyes shut, leaning on the headboard as something warm flutters around your clit. You whine at the feeling of his rough tongue running greedily over your cunt, back and forth, again and again—eating like a man who's been starving for a long, long time.

You can feel every twitch of his jaw—every brush of hair on skin, the movement of his head as he flattens his tongue against your clit and shakes.

Fuck, fuck fuck—

You cry out, hypersensitivity threatening to be too much when strong arms wrap around over your plush thighs.

His hands splay across your legs, holding you down and pushing you impossibly closer on his face. His lips wrap around your sensitive clit, suckling so hard that it makes an obscenely wet sound. You sob—too much, Leon, can't, gonna—

Fingers dig into your skin, your eyes peeling open to look down. Stormy blues staring right back, waiting.

Demanding.

Your orgasm spills over before you even realize you're cumming. Cries tumble from your lips as your body trembles in pleasure, jolting and flinching when Leon keeps you down, drinking up the juices leaking from your pussy.

You collapse against the headboard, panting through residual waves of bliss. Leon gives your clit one last suck— you whimper, face leaning on your arms as you struggle to keep yourself up.

"Should do this more often," Leon teases, pressing wet kisses into your thighs. "I could get used to the view."

He eases your body down, pulling you by the nape and kissing you again. He tastes like you.

And his cock.

It's driving you insane— the feel of it gliding over your cunt as you grind down on him.

"You're dripping, sweetheart," Leon groans.

You are. Didn't think you could be any more turned on— didn't think you'd get any wetter, but the slick sounds coming from your pussy are downright filthy.

"Need you, Leon," you beg, hand moving to grip him between your thighs, rubbing the tip against your soaking hole. "Please, please—"

"Take it, baby—shit." His breath hitches at the contact, hands clamping down on your hips in a bruising grip. "Fuck yourself on my cock."

He fills you, deep in your cunt. It twitches hot, hitting spots that have you seeing double.

There's no coming back from this, now that you know how he feels inside of you. Can't imagine being anywhere else but here, pussy wrapped tight around his cock.

You lift your hips once, then again, dropping yourself onto him as best as you can. Arch your back because it's hitting just right. Let your tits bounce in his face because he deserves to see how you fuck yourself on him.

"So goddamn pretty," he sighs, hands caressing up your body to cup your tits.

But Leon is a big man.

It's hard to bounce on his cock when your thighs are strained across his abdomen, when you have to raise yourself higher and higher, just to move your cunt up and down his length.

"Let me give you a hand, sweetheart."

An arm wraps around your waist, pulling you down until you're chest-to-chest with Leon. He shifts, spreading you over his hips.

And then, he starts to fuck you.

He drives his cock up into you, shaking the bed with how utterly fast and relentless he goes. Deep groans mix with your choked whimpers, growing louder and louder as you clench around him with each thrust.

Tears prickle at the corners of your eyes— at this angle, with you pressed flat against him, his fat tip slides right into a spot that's leaving you breathless and shaking. And with the way he starts absolutely bullying that spot, you know he notices, too.

The hand on your hip slides between your bodies, slipping down to your cunt.

"Need to see you cum again, baby," Leon growls, fingers rubbing fast circles around your still-sensitive clit.

You might have screamed; you can't tell because your mind goes blank.

White-hot. A second orgasm crashing over you, pussy gushing around his cock as it rocks your body.

There's no time for you to come down, no time for a breather when Leon suddenly pulls out of you with a low groan. He lays you down on your belly, stopping for just a moment to press feathery kisses down your spine. His legs settle around yours. You feel his hands kneading your asscheeks, right before he spreads them open.

His cum-soaked cock slides home into your fluttering cunt.

You think you're crying— you don't know anymore. All you feel is Leon's fat cock fucking into you.

"Been waiting for this, haven't you?" His hips against your plump ass—slap, slap. "For me to fuck you like this."

He doesn't stop moving, not when you rip the bedsheets off their corners. Not when the words coming out of your mouth start sounding like incoherent babbles.

If you thought his cock hit deep when you were on top, then it might as well be fucking a new hole into you now.

The angle is different, but the heavy weight of his body on you, the way your lungs are compressing—fuck, you could let him do this to you forever.

You feel his hands cover yours, his chest molding into the shape of your back and pressing you deeper into the bed. Lips brush the cuff of your ear, kissing the tears dribbling down your cheek, until all you feel is Leon.

Words spill out of him like a confessional— your body, his shrine.

"Fuck, shit—," he pants. "Went through hell and back for this, you know that?"

One of his hands grab your jaw, tilting it just enough for him to cover your mouth with his. It's barely a kiss, more a messy push-and-pull with your tongues. You can barely focus on it, mind out of body with the way his cock keeps burying deep inside your cunt.

A whine tumbles out of your mouth when he suddenly pulls out again. No, come back, don't wanna be empty—

You don't have to wait long. Leon flips you over, hooking your legs over his shoulders before slipping his cock back into you with a wet squelch. Punching out moans with each shove into your sopping wet pussy, the sparks of another orgasm lighting up your insides.

He leans over, pushing your legs down. Hot air mixing with yours. Even in the hazy ecstasy, even as Leon falters and whimpers with every squeeze of your cunt, you feel it, clear as day— a sincerity, so intense that it threatens to suffocate you.

"Would burn the fucking world if it meant coming home to you—"

You are lost—in the pleasure, in the pain, in the all-consuming blue that gazes so lovingly at you.

It all comes down over you like a wavebreak, your orgasm coursing through your body so violently, it has you convulsing. You feel him thrust faster, harder. Lips pressing into yours with a desperate urgency as he cums deep inside your cunt, filling you to the brim with his heat.

It's almost too much— a high that keeps on reaching new heights, a euphoria that has you sobbing.

And at the end of it, Leon is there.

Soothing you with kisses as tears blur your vision from the intensity of your climax.

Catching you, like he always has, since the very beginning.

"You can't leave me, ever."

Your fingers brush idly through locks of hair. It looks more blond like this, under the soft illumination of the bedside lamp.

"Ever?" Leon mumbles against your chest. "What if I need to use the toilet?"

You flick him with two fingers, huffing an exasperated sigh when he lets out a quiet ouch.

"I'll just go with you," you retort, gently slapping his hand when he pinches the plush of your stomach, muttering some nonsense about privacy. He grabs your hand before you can pull it away, kissing your knuckles with featherlight touches.

"What if I get stuck in hell?" He muses.

You tilt your head, settling deeper into the comfort of your pillow.

"Then I'll follow you there, too."

Leon doesn't say anything. Your eyes follow as he shifts his weight onto his side, pushing himself back up towards you. His eyes, soft in the shadow of your room, look right into yours, like he's peering into your soul.

You wonder if he can see himself in its reflection.

His hand reaches up, cradling your cheek. You lean into his touch, a satisfied hum rippling through you as he strokes your face.

A smile that's become your world takes its place on his lips. Hair tickles your cheeks as he peppers your face with soft pecks. You laugh, reaching up to hold his neck.

"Okay," Leon whispers.

He leans down, lips meeting yours in a gentle kiss— the kind that consumes you in its warmth. And for you—

“I don’t like this.” 

“Believe me, John, I know. But the higher ups are putting a lot of pressure on us with this initiative and I’ve pushed back as much as I can. They’re convinced it will be good for morale and team dynamics.” 

He wants to protest, but he’s been protesting this idea for three months. “What more can you tell me about her?” 

“Not much that isn’t already in her file.” Her tone is not lost on him. She can, but that’s not a conversation to be held over the phone. “She’s quiet and polite, a bit jumpy but she relaxes once she gets to know you. Remember, I picked her out myself.” 

That doesn’t make him feel any better.

He flips through the file again after he hangs up with Laswell. He almost has it memorized by now, having looked through time and time again since the letter was dropped on his desk three months ago. 

He stares at the photo, the headshot taken by the institute in her file. She’s cute, as most omegas are. American, but she had grown up on military bases. At least this world wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to her. He grimaces as he looks over her DOB below the photo. She’s young, younger than he would have liked, but at least she was old enough to drink. 

He sighs through his nose as he flips through her records. She’s been in the institute for nearly ten years, likely sent as soon as she presented. He flips through page after page of test results, notes from her instructors, personality and temperament analysis, essays and essays worth of information written on her and also by her. He didn’t care so much about what her instructors thought, he was more interested in her. 

“Christ.” He breathes as he pauses on the page with her statistics, rubbing his eyes. The file has everything in it, down to heat tracking and her early signs it was starting. 

As if he doesn’t have enough to worry about, now he’s going to have an omega under his care. 

He hasn’t considered taking an omega in well over a decade. Back when he had been young and reckless, he had once considered starting his own pack, but then his career in the military began to take off and he let that dream go. It became too dangerous, and he had seen many times what happened to omegas who were left behind during deployments for too long. 

His team didn’t need an omega. He had briefly considered it in the beginning as they adjusted to the new dynamics, but he knew it was too dangerous and their schedules were far too unpredictable for the sort of stability omegas needed. He had fought time and time again against the push to add an omega to the team. They had settled into their roles easily, and operated perfectly fine with the missing dynamic. 

Then the Omega Initiative was born and he found himself with no grounds to refuse anymore. Task Force 141 was getting an omega whether they wanted one or not. 

He can’t help the tickle in the back of his mind that something else might be going on. He flips back to the first page, staring at the omega’s photo. They’d be here in a week. She’d be flying with Laswell to London where she’d be given a few days to adjust before they’d fly in here and she’ll be left with her new pack. 

Price closes the file, leaning back in his chair. He has a lot to do in the next week. 

You stare down at the files laid out on the table. Four of them, hardly more than a single page each, most of which was blacked out. They’re all older than you, their birth years at least visible to you. Most of the things on the file you don’t understand, and you weren't even sure how tall they were since you can’t convert meters to feet in your head. 

You’re tired and on edge, nervous about tomorrow when you'd meet your new pack. You sit back in your seat, letting out a long breath. 

“I know.” Station Chief Laswell, Kate as you had been told to call her, takes the seat across from you. “You’re going to have to get used to hearing the word classified. What they tell you about themselves is, of course, up to them, but the things they do, the places they go, even with your security clearance as high as it is, that will all still be-” 

“Classified?” You finish for her. 

Kate smiles. “Exactly. It’s mostly for your safety. The less you know...” 

The less there is to make you a target. 

You’d been given that speech before you left D.C. You’d been given a lot of briefings, as Kate had called them, since you had been pulled into the director’s office at The Institute and told to pack your bag. You remembered Kate and the interview you had done a few days prior. It hadn’t been any different than the other interviews you’d done before, except that you were chosen this time. 

What had come after was three months of intense briefings and training, for what, you hadn’t really known at the time. They had told you little, at least until last week when Kate pulled you into her office and told you what was happening and why it was happening and where you were going. 

“You don’t have anything to worry about, though.” Kate continues, something you’ve been told over and over again during your briefings. “They’re all good men. John and I know each other well. I wouldn’t have picked you if I didn’t think you could handle them.” 

You continue to stare at the files. Two alphas, two betas. It wasn’t an unusual pack, evenly balanced, except for the missing omega. If the situation were different they may have elected to have two omegas to keep the even balance. This wasn’t a normal situation, though. This was a military pack, special forces at that. It wasn’t unusual for packs to form on bases, especially those stationed together for long periods of time. Alphas and betas united together with one purpose, one collective goal. 

That was why so many alphas were drawn to the military. 

That, and the excuse for violence. 

Omegas weren’t allowed to enlist, omegas weren’t allowed to hold many jobs at all. It was usually only in special circumstances, and even then, they were more likely to be assigned into a pack than be allowed to work and care for themselves. In a lot of ways you were lucky. You wouldn’t have to fight to find a pack, fight to find a match, fight for one of the few decent alphas left in the world. Your road had been chosen for you as soon as you presented. 

In a lot of ways, though, things were worse for you. 

“How do you feel?” Kate asks, looking you over. You’ve grown to like the beta Station Chief in the weeks you’ve spent together. 

“Tired.” You run a hand across your face. 

“The time difference will do that to you.” Kate says, giving you a sympathetic look. “Not to mention everything else.” Kate stands, stacking the files and pushing them to the center of the table. “I have a couple more errands to run, so get some rest. I’ll pick us up some dinner on the way back.” 

You look nervous. 

He can’t blame you. He’d felt a bit of a nervous twist to his stomach this morning as he’d finished ensuring everything was in place. He doesn’t often get nervous anymore, years and years of experience giving him the ability to expect anything and react accordingly. 

This is different, though. This isn’t a soldier he’s greeting, this is an omega. 

His omega. 

As Pack Alpha he had more of a claim to you than anyone else. It was his mark you’d wear, his scent that everyone would notice first. It was his duty to protect you, to ensure you have everything you need. You’re not another member of his team, you’re not even a soldier. You’re just a poor civilian that’s been thrust into this world of danger and secrecy. 

“Captain Price.” Laswell greets him, shaking his hand. 

He greets her back, but he can’t help his gaze as it flickers to the omega. You’re small, as expected of an omega. Your sweatshirt hides most of your curves, but your jeans hug your full thighs. Most omegas are small and soft, designed to be held and healthy enough to bear children when cared for correctly. 

He doesn’t even want to think about that. 

Laswell introduces you, your feet shuffling a bit as you step forward toward him. Coming from an institute, you likely hadn’t had much contact with alphas before now. You try to stand taller, look braver as you stand before him, but he can smell the tangy edge of anxiety surrounding your scent. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” You say, shaking his hand. It’s small and warm in his, your skin soft and slightly clammy. 

“The pleasure is mine.” He says, releasing your hand. 

You let it drop to your side, pulling your sleeve down over your fingers. You shift on your feet, your body language betraying your nervousness. Hunched shoulders, fingers tugging your sleeves over your hands, shifting your weight foot to foot as if you might take off running at a moment’s notice. Your eyes dart across the airfield taking in the movement around them. You’re on edge, alert, and likely a little overwhelmed. 

“I’ll show you around and let you get settled.” He says, his eyes shifting to Laswell. “You and I have some things to discuss.” 

You follow behind him with Laswell as he leads you towards the building that served as the 141’s home base. He points out different places you might find yourself visiting. The gym, the rec area, the mess hall, and finally their barracks. He leads you down the hallway where their rooms were located, pointing out each door before he gets to yours, sandwiched between his own and Gaz’s, with Soap and Ghost on the other side. 

He opens the door, letting you enter. He stays in the doorway, letting you explore the small space. Your bags had been brought in, the faint hint of the beta Corporal that had brought them in still lingering in the air. There’s four shirts folded neatly on the desk, one from each of them that they’d slept in for the last couple days to give you a chance to get used to their scents. 

“The lads are still running a simulation, but they’ll be done within the hour.” He says, drawing your gaze from the bed. “We’ll let you get settled in and I’ll come get you when they’re ready.” 

“Thank you, sir.” You say.

Laswell steps in as he steps away for a moment, letting the two of you say your goodbyes. You’d likely see Laswell again, and soon, but he knows after three months you’ll have bonded with her just a bit. 

Price leads Laswell to his office after she leaves your room, his ears picking up the sound of the lock clicking into place as they walk away. He’d left it on for a reason, wanting to give you the ability to feel safe and secure as you adjusted, even though you had nothing to worry about. 

“So.” Price says as he sits behind his desk, reclining back in his seat. “What can you really tell me about her?” 

Laswell gives him a knowing look. “The CIA has had their eyes on her for years now. The Omega Initiative as it is now, isn’t how it started. They were going to train omegas as agents, and she was one of the first names on that list. They had FIOT put a hold on her file once she came of age.” 

Federal Institute of Omega Training. The name was stamped on the front of your file. It was the highest rated institute in America, the place where most omegas born to politicians, government workers, and some military went. 

“They had agents go in and pretend to be interested parties just to make it seem like there was interest in her.” Laswell continues. “But, you know omegas aren’t cut out for this kind of work, so they changed the Initiative. She was still at the top of the list, but there were some...hesitations as to where to place her.” 

“What sort of hesitations?” He asks. 

“You saw those scores, John. She’s a good omega. Those purebred instincts are strong, and that makes her an easy target.” 

Most omegas born from an alpha/omega pairing were good at listening to their instincts. That was why they carried such a high standing, even among omegas. But, being so closely intune with their instincts made them more sensitive, more vulnerable. They were more likely to give in to an alpha, if the alpha knew how to play them right. 

Laswell pulls a file from her bag, sliding it across his desk to him. “She’d get walked all over in a larger pack, and the last thing she needs is to get hurt by an overbearing alpha.” There’s something hidden in Laswell’s words, his mind filing that away for later. “I need someone I can trust with her. She’s smart, learns fast. She needs a challenge, but also someone that won’t take advantage of her.” 

“It sounds like you’ve grown rather fond of her.” He says, flipping open the first page of the file. It’s the CIA’s data on her, everything they’d done in the last three months to prepare her for her life as a Special Operations pack omega. 

“Like I said, I’m the one that picked her for your team.” Laswell leans forward against his desk. “She knows what she’s in for. She was well prepared for this kind of life. She’ll let you mark her, no questions asked because that’s what she’s been told to do. She’s obedient, John, almost to a fault.”

“That could be dangerous.” Price says. 

“Yes, it could.” Laswell says. “I’m leaving her in your capable hands. She has my number, and so do you.” 

Price walks her back to the airfield, his head reeling a bit as he replays their conversation over and over. The hidden messages in Laswell’s words aren’t lost on him, and his gut feeling that something else was going on had been correct.

“Take care of her, John.” Laswell says. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you.” 

He hasn’t failed her yet. 

Your body is tingling. You’re not sure if it’s nerves or something else. You haven’t been around an alpha since the day of your presentation, when you had been pulled from your home and taken to the institute. You had nearly wanted to keel over when you came face to face with Captain Price. Your alpha. He’s a commanding presence, the tickling at the back of your neck still not quite gone even though the door is shut and locked. 

The bed is comfortable, not any worse than what you slept on in the institute. There’s extra pillows and blankets stacked at the end, likely for your nest when you finally settled enough to make one. The door to the private bathroom is cracked open, facing the end of the bed. There’s four shirts on the desk next under the window next to the bathroom door, and your bags are sitting in front of the dresser and closet situated on the opposite wall from the bed.

You push yourself to stand, ignoring the way your legs wobble as you stare down at the four shirts on the desk. They’re all olive green, folded neatly in the exact same way. You wouldn’t have known any different, except for the scents gently wafting from them, and the names on the tags. 

Price. You pick up the one that will be the most familiar, bringing it to your nose. Tobacco smoke, aftershave, something sharp like whiskey. All things you had scented on him in your short time together. Underneath you catch a whiff of his natural scent. Something woody, fresh. A tingle crawls up your spine, prickling in the back of your neck again. You drop the shirt on the desk, taking a step back to breathe in the unscented air for a moment. 

You’re breathing heavily as you go for the shirt next to Price’s. Garrick. You press the shirt against your nose, inhaling. Aftershave, different from Price’s. Some kind of lotion. Coconut oil maybe? You can’t pick up more than the base scent of beta, the soothing almondy scent. 

You take another deep inhale of it, letting the beta scent ease you before you let it drop to the desk beside Price’s. You grab the one next to it, looking at the tag. MacTavish. You lift it to your face, scenting another aftershave. There’s something citrusy mixed in as well, slightly watered down compared to the scent of the aftershave. Again, you can’t pick up more than the scent of beta, letting it ease the tickling on the back of your neck again before you let it drop back on the desk. 

One more to go. 

You pick up the last shirt. Ghost. The faceless one. You bring the shirt to your nose, wincing slightly at the sharp tang of gunpowder and metal, smoke and a lingering aftershave. You try to smell deeper, but your nose burns with scent blocker spray. You let out a huff, dropping it back onto the desk. 

This Ghost was dedicated to his anonymity. 

He’s going to be a problem. 

You sink back onto the bed, eyeing the shirts. Your senses have heightened, picking up the scents wafting off of them, mixing in the air. You pick up the sound of boots approaching, three pairs of feet making their way down the hall. You can hear them talking and laughing as they approach. There’s a pause outside your door and you hold your breath, sitting as still as possible. 

Of course they can smell you. You had sprayed yourself down with scent blockers before you left the hotel, but it had likely worn off by now. Even with the blocker, the scent of unmated omega wasn’t hidden easily. The entire base had probably caught a whiff of your scent by now. Caramel, vanilla, strawberries with the undertone of pure omega that made alphas go insane. 

“Coming, Si?” 

Your lungs burn as you hold your breath, and for a moment you’re afraid your heartbeat might be audible from how hard it’s pounding. Steps recede from your door and you don’t breathe until they’ve disappeared. 

You decide to unpack to keep your mind busy as you wait. You don’t have much, mostly clothes from the institute and toiletries. You don’t even have a photo of your family, that part of your life behind you. You put your clothes away, venturing into the small bathroom to put away your toiletries. There’s towels already inside, along with a few things like shampoo and soap. They’re all scentless, like the things you had brought from the institute. 

Nothing that could dampen your natural scent. 

You almost don’t hear the knock on the door, lost in your own thoughts. You take a steadying breath, hand hesitating over the lock. What if it wasn’t Price? What if it wasn’t anyone from your new pack? 

“Just me.” Price’s voice comes through the door. 

Of course he would notice your hesitation. He’s a trained soldier, he’s always going to be aware of his surroundings. You unlock the door, opening it slowly. 

Price greets you with a small smile, your nose picking up the scent of his aftershave and the lingering scent of tobacco smoke now that you’re attune to it. “They’re ready, if you are.” He says. 

You nod. “Yeah, I guess.” It wasn’t like you had much of a choice to say no. 

You slip out the door, closing it behind you. You’d ditched your sweatshirt, wearing a scoop-necked shirt to give them easy access for the scenting. Price leads you down the hallway, back towards his office. You’re not quite sure what to expect, the nervous twisting in your stomach coming back. 

“I thought we’d do it in a meeting room.” Price says, likely picking up on the change in your scent. “Somewhere neutral.” 

It’s smart, it’ll keep you from getting too overwhelmed by other scents or sounds. The last thing you need to do is panic and send them all into a spiral. Talk about a first impression. 

Price pauses outside a door, looking down at you. His gaze is kind, almost sympathetic as you take a deep breath. “Ready?” 

Not really, but you wouldn’t dare say that. You have to do this, and the sooner you got the awkward part over with, the easier things will get. You nod, hands tugging nervously at the bottom of your shirt. “Yes, sir.” 

Price opens the door, stepping in first. You’re glad for the few moments you’re hidden behind him as the scents in the room slam into you. Alpha and two betas, scents you recognize from their shirts. They stand as Price enters, and for a moment you want to stay hidden behind the alpha but you know you have to be brave. You were made for this. The words drilled into your brain over and over again at the institute flash through your brain. You have one job in life and this is it. 

You can hold power over them. 

The words from the book your bunkmate had smuggled in flash through your mind. “The Powerful Omega”, it had been titled. Authored by a progressive omega, it talked all about how powerful omegas could be, even those forced into traditional roles. You can get them all wrapped around your finger if you wanted to. 

You steady your nerves, clenching your hands into fists at your sides and step out from behind Price. Your skin prickles as three sets of eyes are set on you. Price is speaking but you’re not really listening as you take them in. You recognize the two betas from their files.

Gaz, you pick up Price doing introductions, has kind eyes. He’s tall for a beta, almost the same height as Price. He waves to you, offering you a small smile. 

Soap is the shortest of the four, more what you would expect from a beta. “Good to meet ya, lass.” He greets you, giving you a charming smile. He’s going to push your boundaries, you can tell. 

You’re beginning to see the dynamics already. 

“And Ghost.” Price says, your eyes finally moving to the place you’ve been avoiding since you walked in. 

All hulking muscle, Ghost seems to take up the entire room. Your heart flutters nervously as you meet his dark gaze, his face hidden by a balaclava with a skull painted on the front. His presence is oppressive, tickling the back of your neck. You’re not sure if you want to run or submit to him, every inch of him screaming alpha. 

Price’s hand on your back nearly makes you jump, your gaze finally drawing away from Ghost and back to him. “Come on, take a seat. Tell us about yourself.”  

Price sits at the head of the table, Ghost, Soap and Gaz to his left. You take the seat on the right, staring at the other three members of your pack. You jump into your spiel, things that they already knew if they’d read your file. There’s not much else to tell, since everything about you was in that file. That was its purpose, to make you look as appealing as possible to potential alphas and packs. 

“What about your family?” Soap asks, the sharp scent of your nervous energy spiking for a moment. “Do you still talk to them?” 

You shake your head. “Not for a few years. Institutes don’t really encourage keeping ties with previous packs, but I know there were a few omegas that did. It was hard to keep track of where my family was.” 

“Your father was a Marine, correct?” Price, even though they already know the answer. 

You nod. “Yes, sir.” 

“You lived on base?” He asks. 

You nod again. “Yes, sir. We moved a lot, but we lived in pack housing on every base. We were a family pack, and I was number four of eight by the time I presented.” 

“When did you get sent to the Institute?” He asks, almost regretting answering it. 

It’s a sore subject, he can tell by the change in your face and the slight souring of your scent. “The day after I presented.” You say. 

The tension in the room is palpable, Soap and Gaz’s eyes widening in shock as Ghost's shoulders tense just slightly. Price stares at you with a sympathetic look in his eyes. He knew it was likely shortly after, but that soon? Most would wait until the presentation had finished at least, and usually there was some downtime when it came to getting into an institute as well. 

“My father was a traditionalist alpha.” You say, something they also knew by your status. It was printed all over your file, squeezed in every place it could be as a reminder of your worth to whomever was reading it. “It was because we were already on base that they got to me so fast.” You explain. “It was my dad’s status in the Marines that got me into FIOT.” 

“What was it like, in the institute?” Gaz asks, wanting to change the subject a bit, if only to ease the sourness in your scent. 

You huff out a laugh, the corner of your lips lifting in a smile. “Not unlike the military, I think. We had strict schedules we stuck to every day. Everything was dictated for us, what we wore, what we learned, what we did with our free time and how often we got it. Even what we ate was chosen for us. We always had to be ready to be tested at any time, and we were always being observed.” 

“Your test scores were high.” Price remarks. 

You shrug. “I’m a perfect omega, or so my instructors always said. It comes easily to me. I don’t really have to think much about it.” 

“Did you really kneel for two hours straight?” Gaz asks. 

You huff out a laugh. “Yeah. There was one day...it was a couple years ago. I don’t know what caused it but there was something in the air. We were all on edge and worked up. The director got tired of us and made us all kneel in the mess hall during our two hour afternoon break. No cushions, no pillows. Just all forty of us, kneeling on the marble floor for two hours. Not everyone could do it. Quite a few got too fidgety, couldn’t handle the pain. Three even passed out.” 

“How did you manage it?” Gaz asks. 

Price wasn’t a fan of using instinctual habits as punishment. It left a bad taste in his mouth, and he can only imagine what else you could say they forced you to do with such nonchalance. 

“To be honest, I don’t remember most of it. I just let my mind go somewhere else and before I knew it the time was up.” You shrug.

“We won’t make you kneel for two hours.” Price says. “And definitely not without a pillow.” 

You smile softly. “Thank you, sir.” 

Price watches you, the way your eyes dart around the room again, the sour edge of your scent gone, but the tang of anxiety remains. You’ve relaxed some, though, your shoulders are not quite so tense and you’ve stopped picking at your nails. 

Ghost has remained silent the entire time you’ve spoken, eyes glued on you. You’ve tried not to look at him, finding your words get stuck in your throat whenever you meet his gaze. 

He’s going to be a problem. 

“There’s some rules we need to go over before anything else.” Price says. “You have freedom to roam this building as you please, but one of us will escort you if you need to go elsewhere at least until you’ve been marked. There’s other alphas on this base and I don’t want them getting any ideas.” 

You knew well enough omegas frequented the barracks on bases often. You don’t want to be mistaken as one. Even with their scents on you, you know that won’t stop some. You’re not even sure a mark will stop them either. 

“I want full transparency. If something happens you come to me, or you call Kate if we’re gone. If you need anything too, the same order stands.” You’re beginning to detect the edge to his voice, The Captain slipping through his more casual demeanor. “We have some downtime to adjust for now, but sometimes we may leave for weeks at a time. It will be rough, I won’t lie to you, but Kate pulled some strings and there’s an Omega Specialist that’s been brought in for you. You’ll meet her later, I’m sure she wants to do a full workup.” 

You’ve met many Omega Specialists in your time. The beta medical professionals that go through specialized training so they can assist and treat omegas better than regular doctors and medics. Most of them go through a residency at Institutes, studying and practicing on young omegas. The thought of having at least someone who might understand you on a deeper level is comforting. 

“I’m starving, let’s get the scenting over with.” Soap nearly whines, rubbing his stomach. 

His words strike a chord of nervous energy in you again. You had been prepared many times for the scenting. You’d seen instructional videos and done mock practices with your fellow omegas. Yet you feel like it’s not going to be enough. These were real alphas and betas, your pack. What if you don’t like the way they smell? 

What if they don’t like the way you smell? 

“If you’re alright with it?” Price says, looking at you. 

You’re taken aback by the offer for consent. You weren’t expecting it, as this was something you have to do. What would happen if you said no? Would they respect your boundaries? The fact you had been asked at all is shocking to you. You won’t say no, because you’ll have to do it eventually, and at least this way you’ll be walking around smelling like them. If nothing else, it might make this transition a bit easier. 

“Yeah.” You nod, swallowing down your nerves. “I’m okay with it.” 

All five of you stand from the table, your stomach churning with nervous energy. You try to clear your head, try to calm yourself so you don’t stink them out with your anxiety. You need your scent to be clear, to be as tantalizing as possible. 

“Don’t look so worried, lass.” Soap says as they gather around you. “We won’t bite.” He winks at you playfully. 

Your cheeks warm as Price steps up to you. He is right, that would come later. Likely during your first heat when Price would give you his mark and claim you as his. It wasn’t unusual for packs with multiple alphas to let more than one claim an omega, but judging from what you’ve seen of Ghost, you’re not sure that’s going to happen. 

He had a right to claim you too, but from the look of it, he was the least excited about your joining their pack. 

You tense as Price’s hands settle on your waist, lifting you up so you’re seated on the edge of the table, putting you closer to being eye-to-eye with them. They’re all so big, the natural consequence of genetics and their jobs. 

“Ready?” 

You turn to look up at Price, close enough you can see the freckles on his nose and the grey in his blue eyes. You nod, pressing your hands into the table as you bare your neck for him. Your heart is fluttering in your chest as he leans in closer, pressing his face against your neck. His beard tickles your skin as he rubs his face against your scent gland, warm breaths fanning against your skin. 

He pulls away just slightly, baring his own neck to you. You press forward, gripping the edge of the table as you press your face against his throat. You catch the scents you had picked up on his shirt in your room, the surface level scents that were environmental. You close your eyes, inhaling deeper. Woody. Pine? Spruce? It reminds you of a candle your mother used to burn. There’s another scent, the one that lingers. Petrichor, you think, rubbing your face against his scent gland. 

His hand on your side pulls you back from your scent-induced haze, and you force yourself back from him. You take deep breaths of the sterile air in the meeting room, picking up his scent more clearly now as it mixes with the others. 

“Good girl.” He says, squeezing your side gently. Something flutters in your stomach at his praise, some deep primal part of your brain preening at the thought of making your alpha proud. “Ghost.” He says, stepping back from you. 

You’re snapped back into reality as the hulking alpha steps up towards you, moving almost silently. You try to keep yourself calm as he stalks towards you, his sharp gaze burning into yours. 

He’s testing you. 

You won’t satisfy him, holding his gaze as he reaches you, his thighs pressing against your knees. One hand comes to rest next to your hip on the table, his body leaning in towards you. You’re enveloped by the black fabric of his sweatshirt as his other hand reaches up to tug his balaclava up. Stubble tickles your skin as he presses his face against your throat, breathing in deeply. He lets out a quiet sound as he scents you, almost akin to a growl. 

He shifts his weight, pressing his uncovered scent gland against your face. You close your eyes, inhaling deeply. Gunpowder and metal stings your nose again, along with the scent of his body wash. You press deeper into his throat, seeking out his natural scent. Something deep and musky washes over you, like suede or leather. There’s something fresh in there too, almost like eucalyptus. You press your face closer, inhaling it deeply. Your head spins, and you’re sure your knees would have given out if you hadn’t been sitting. 

Something rumbles in Ghost's chest as you scent him in a daze. While all alphas’ scents carried a natural musk, Ghosts seems to shoot directly to some deep part of your brain even Price’s scent hadn’t reached. 

You let out a quiet whine as he’s pulled from you, his mask back in place by the time you pry your eyes open. Ghost is leaning back against the wall, eyes back to their icy stare as he watches you. Your head is still spinning as someone steps up next to you, taking Ghost’s place. 

“How ya doing?” Gaz asks, eyes assessing you. “Hanging in there?” 

You nod, taking a couple deep breaths to try and clear your head. 

“You’re halfway there.” He says, leaning in closer. “Got through the hard part.” 

His breath fans your neck as he leans in, the familiar scent of beta flooding your senses. He was likely doing it on purpose, trying to calm you after the intensity of being scented by two alphas. You breathe in the almondy scent, relaxing into him as he scents you. Your hands raise, gripping his shoulders as he presses his neck close to your face. You seek out the source of the calming scent, pressing your nose into his scent gland. 

You’re drawn from the room and to the time your family took a trip to the beach when your father was stationed in North Carolina. Salty sea air, briney and clean, and something else, something soft. Like the clean linen scented spray your mother used on the laundry. You’re clinging to him, his arms around you as you relax into his scent. The tingling energy that had begun to build up at the proximity to the alphas fades as you melt into the calming energy of the beta in front of you. 

“Easy.” He says, his hand on the back of your head as he pulls you away from him. You take a deep breath, trying to clear your head. “Still with us?” He asks, meeting your gaze. 

“Yeah.” You say, sounding breathless. You knew scenting could be intense, but you hadn’t expected it to feel quite like this. 

“Almost done, hen.” Soap says, taking Gaz’s place in front of you. “Lucky there’s only four of us.”

He’s right, you think as you bear your throat for him. You’re not sure you could have handled it had there been more of them. You already feel like you’re floating, enveloped in so many scents you’re not sure what to do. That tingling has begun at the back of your neck as Soap scents you, your eyes meeting Ghost’s. The look in them has changed, his body poised like he’s ready to strike at a moment’s notice. 

Soap pulls back, blocking your view of him as he bears his throat to you. You press your face into his neck, pushing past the scents you knew, and that beta scent, looking for him. 

You inhale deeply, the scent of warm spices invading your nose. It smells like the holidays, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger enveloping you. You can almost taste the apple pie, see the gingerbread houses. You cling to his shirt, holding him against you as you rub your face against his throat. 

You’re trembling just slightly as Soap withdraws from your hold. It’s subtle, but to them, highly aware soldiers, it’s likely clear as day. Your skin is buzzing, like the fluorescent lights above you. You can hear it now, the buzz of electricity. Your pupils are blown, the room suddenly clearer and sharper. 

“There she is.” The low grumble of Price’s voice begins to pull you from your heightened state, your eyes turning to him as his hand cups your cheek. 

You press into the rough palm of his hand, eyes picking up the grey in his beard and hair as he stands in front of you. He’s older than you, they’re all older than you. Older than you, bigger than you, stronger than you. A small tickle of fear begins to itch in the back of your mind, drawing you from your daze. 

You’re vulnerable, entirely vulnerable and incapable of defending yourself against them. Forgetting second genders, they’re all much stronger than you, not to mention trained fighters. You’d be fucked if they decided to try anything, if they wanted to do anything. You’d be entirely helpless against them. 

They could if they wanted to. 

It would be well within their rights. Even though you had just met, even though you bore no claiming mark, there was nothing stopping them. You couldn’t stop them, and no one would help you. 

“You hungry, pup?” 

Price’s voice cuts through your fearful daze. There’s a slight furrow to his brow, likely picking up the sharp edge seeping into your scent. Omega fear and distress was the one defense nature gave to your kind, aside from the omega itself. It’s a putrid scent meant to ward off alphas and betas. You’ve heard it described as smelling like sulfur, burning coals, gasoline, melting plastic, and sometimes even the ozonic scent that accompanied alphas in a true rage. It was a warning, but it doesn't always work. 

Pup. Price called you Pup. 

You haven’t been called “pup” since you were a pup. It’s a commonly used nickname for any status. You remember your father calling your older brothers pup, even after they presented. It could be derogatory, but it’s more commonly used affectionately. He’s trying to ease your discomfort, the fear welling up inside you. 

The door is open, the fresh air of the hallway watering down the heavy mix of scents that had become trapped in the room. Soap and Gaz have already stepped out, Ghosts hulking figure blocking the doorway for a moment as he follows them, leaving you alone with Price for a moment. 

“Alright?” Price asks as your gaze meets his again. 

You nod, still leaning into his touch. “Yeah, ‘s a lot.” 

“I know.” His thumb strokes your cheek, a knowing glint in his eyes. He leans in closer, lowering his voice. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but Soap nearly passed out when we scented him.” 

You cover your mouth to stifle your giggle. It wasn’t unusual for scentings to become so intense that the receiver passes out. You’re sure if there had been more than four in your new pack you would have passed out. 

“Come on.” He says, wrapping an arm around your waist to lift you off the table and onto unsteady legs. He doesn’t even grunt with the effort, moving you easily. The thought sends a shiver down your spine, but it’s not entirely one of fear. 

His hand is warm on your back as he leads you out of the room, the clean air in the hallway clearing your head further. Most bases have circulating air systems, constantly filtering out scents to keep things as neutral as possible. They’re less effective in smaller areas though, especially after scents were intentionally projected. Most military members wore scent blockers, at least while performing their duties. You remember your father coming home at the end of the day with the dull burn of scent blocker still on his clothes. 

Your head is still spinning a bit as you follow them out of the barracks and towards the mess hall. They seem to almost walk in a formation, though you suppose with years of having it drilled in your head, it’s almost second nature. You’re sandwiched between Soap and Gaz in the middle, Price in front and Ghost bringing up the rear. 

The other personnel on the base give your group a wide berth, and even in the mess you can feel the glances, but none of the stares linger. Price guides you next to him as you get your food, adding things to your tray for you. That tickling feeling starts again at the back of your neck as he makes your plate, your omega preening happily at the knowledge of what he’s doing. 

He’s proving his ability as a provider. 

In more primordial times he might have gone out and hunted for food to bring back to you to prove his capabilities. Even in more modern times, he might have hunted as some alphas still did, or he would have gone to the store to keep the fridge stocked full of food. Alphas are good at adapting to their surroundings and situations. He’s proving his capabilities in the way he can. 

You’re also silently grateful to not have to think too hard about the choices in front of you. Even after a week, British food is still a bit unfamiliar to you. It’s not entirely indiscernible, though, and you’re sure you could pick out things that sounded good if you had to. At this moment, though, with your head still reeling a bit and the unsettling energy of a new place filled with unknown alphas and betas, you’re happy to let Price do it for you. 

He carries your tray and his to a table, sitting you next to him. Gaz takes your other side, Soap and Ghost sitting across from you. The choices in their seating arrangement don’t feel quite so random to you, and you quickly realize the arrangement is similar to the room setup in the barracks. 

A beta for each alpha, you think. Gaz and Price. Soap and Ghost. 

Then there’s you, stuck somewhere in the middle of them. Somehow you’ll fit between them, squeezing into their perfect dynamic. Omegas are supposed to help balance packs, but as you sit with the four members of your new pack, you can’t help but feel like you’re only going to make things more difficult. 

NEXT ->

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Your world is small, contained.

A dim operations room buried somewhere deep in the base, humming with electricity and recycled air. The overhead lights are always too soft or too harsh—never just right—so you’ve taken to leaving only your desk lamp on. It casts a warm, golden pool over your workspace, leaving the rest of the room in a kind of permanent twilight.

Screens line the wall in front of you—six in total, each flickering with different feeds: satellite imaging, drone footage, helmet cams. One is always reserved for him.

Ghost.

Though you never call him that out loud. Not really.

To you, he’s just a voice. A presence. A constant thread in your ear during long nights and longer missions.

You know the cadence of his breathing when he’s crouched and waiting. The way his voice drops half a register when something’s wrong. The quiet, almost imperceptible hitch when he’s injured but refusing to say it.

You know him in pieces.

“Talk to me, bird,” he says one night, softer than usual.

You glance at his feed. He’s tucked behind a crumbling wall, dust coating the camera lens. There’s blood—dark and drying—on his glove.

“Two tangos left,” you reply. “One on your six, slow approach. Other’s posted near the exit.”

A pause.

Then, quieter.

“You always watchin’ me that close?”

Your fingers still for half a second before you recover.

“It’s my job.”

A faint huff of something that might be a laugh.

“Right.”

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It becomes routine.

Late hours. Your voice guiding him through shadows. His voice grounding you when the silence between updates stretches too long.

Sometimes, when the mission lulls, he talks.

Not much. Never too much.

But enough.

“You ever leave that room, bird?” he asks once.

You glance around at your little corner of the world—half-empty coffee mug, a blanket thrown over the back of your chair, a sticky note peeling off your monitor with scribbled doodles and coordinates.

“Sometimes,” you say. “I think.”

“Think?”

“It’s… easy to lose track of time in here.”

A quiet hum through the comms. Thoughtful.

“Sounds like a cage.”

You swallow, eyes flicking back to his feed.

“Not really.”

A beat.

Then, softer than you’ve ever heard him.

“Still.”

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You imagine him, sometimes.

Not the mask—that’s all anyone ever sees.

You imagine the man underneath. The lines of his face, the thoughts in his mind, the way he probably looks at a room before stepping into it.

You build him from fragments.

From silence.

From the way he says your name—rare, but it happens.

From the way he says bird—like it means something.

The first time something goes wrong, really wrong, your hands shake.

“Ghost, you need to move. Now.” Your voice is tighter than you’d like, eyes darting across the feeds. “They’ve rerouted—there’s a squad heading straight for you.”

No response.

“Ghost.”

Static.

Your chest tightens.

“Simon.”

The name slips out before you can stop it.

And suddenly—

“I’m here.”

Relief hits so hard it almost hurts.

“I lost visual,” you say quickly, forcing yourself back into focus. “Camera’s down. You’re blind to me.”

“Not blind,” he mutters. “Still got you, don’t I?”

Your throat goes dry.

You guide him anyway. Off memory, off instinct, off the rhythm you’ve built together over countless missions.

Step by step.

Breath by breath.

Until he’s out.

Safe.

They tell you later it was close.

Too close.

You stay in your chair long after the room empties, screens dimming one by one until only your desk lamp remains.

The silence is louder than gunfire.

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You don’t expect to meet him.

Handlers don’t meet operators. That’s not how this works. You’re voices, not faces. Ghosts in different ways.

So when your door opens one evening—quiet, deliberate—you don’t look up right away.

“Room’s off-limits,” you say absently, eyes still scanning reports. “You’ll need—”

You stop.

Because the room feels… different.

Heavier.

You look up slowly.

And there he is.

Filling the doorway like something pulled straight out of shadow. Broad shoulders, tactical gear, the skull mask stark in the low light. Real in a way that steals the air from your lungs.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

Then—

“…Bird.”

It’s quieter in person. Rougher. Real.

Your heart stutters.

“You’re not supposed to be here..” you manage.

“Yeah,” he says, stepping inside anyway, boots barely making a sound against the floor. “Got that impression.”

He looks around your space—your screens, your notes, your carefully controlled chaos.

“This where you’ve been watchin’ me from?”

You nod, suddenly very aware of how small the room is. How close he is.

“All of it,” you say. “Every mission.”

His gaze shifts back to you.

You can’t see his eyes. Not really. But you feel them.

Heavy. Intent.

“Then I figured,” he says slowly, “it’s about time I saw you back.”

Something tightens in your chest.

“You didn’t have to—”

“Wanted to.”

The words land heavier than they should.

Silence stretches between you, but it’s not uncomfortable. Not like before. Not like the empty kind.

This is… full.

“You’re quieter in person..” you say softly.

A faint tilt of his head.

“Am I?”

“Yeah.” You hesitate. “But less… hidden.”

A low exhale. Not quite a laugh.

“Funny..,” he murmurs. “Was gonna say the same about you.”

Your lips twitch.

“Guess we’re both a little different off comms.”

“Maybe.” He steps closer—slow, deliberate, giving you time to pull away if you want to.

You don’t.

Up close, he’s overwhelming. Not just in size, but in presence. Like standing too close to a storm.

But there’s something else, too.

Something familiar.

“You called me Simon.” he says quietly.

Heat rushes to your face.

“I—thought I lost you.”

A pause.

Then, softer..

“Didn’t.”

Your breath catches.

For a moment, it feels like you’re still on comms—like this is just another fragile thread of connection stretched across distance.

Except there’s no distance now.

Just him.

Just you.

Just the quiet hum of the room that’s held your voice for so long.

“Guess I’m not just a voice anymore.” you say.

“No,” he agrees.

A beat.

Then, low and certain.

“Still my bird, though.”

Simon remembers the first time he saw you.

How could he not? You were a stranger in a strange land.

A flower from the south, grown up in warm soil and rich sun. Looking like you lived on fruit and honey, and Simon bet you smelled like it, too. Blackberry jam, and sweet cream, and nectar, he'd reckon. It was the first thought that passed through his head—that he'd like to smell you. Wanted to shove his ruined nose into that soft part in the hollow of your neck, where you were warm and delicate and he could feel your pulse thrumming just beneath, and inhale. He had to get close to anything to get a scent—his nose was mostly scar tissue, burned and singed from coke smoke over and over throughout the years—but he had wanted it.

You stepped out of your vulgar carriage, a little bird, bright and smiling in the bitter, sodden morning, and he had wanted it.

He doesn't know why. Hours in the forge leave him plenty of time to mull thoughts like warmed, spiced wine, but he hasn't yet figured out his taste for sweet things. Finespun things. Things he could crush in his hands like eggshells. He only knew that the sweet things never liked him much. Sweet things were frightened of the large, scowling thing making iron sing among the flames.

Until you.

You looked him in the eye. Smiled at him that day when he stood in the receiving line in the courtyard. You had a flash of teeth for everyone, it was true, but often even those generous with their smiles could never quite find one for Simon. They got lost somewhere, swallowed by his imposing frame. And maybe you didn't know to be afraid, maybe you'd never learned to be wary of mutts in your fair, tempered home, but Simon thought it was something else:

Curiosity. Interest in the beasts bred in the north—because your lord husband certainly wasn't an example of one.

The first son of a first son with a great old name and a castle. His family had lived within its walls for four hundred years, building and defending it in the name of some faraway king Simon couldn't give two shits about, and your mooncalf lord was going to run it all into the mud. He was a dull axe, meek and mollycoddled. Played at war to take the spines of other, greater men. A bare branch, too, Simon figured.

You'd learn all that when he returned from his latest campaign.

Married in absentia for your father's wealth of fighting men, you'd meet your new husband for the first time a month after your arrival. For now, you're alone, a warmblood getting used to the frost. It's no wonder you wander into Simon's forge.

Three days into your residence at the keep, your maids have you dressed for the winter. All wrapped up in a dull-coloured cloak. Hiding you beneath thick fur and delicate embroidery—as if anything could dull what you hold within you. The waifs are too flighty to follow you into Simon's workshop. The smell, the heat, the man within—all of them offend their delicate sensibilities in one way or another. Not you, though. You run to the bellows with no mind paid to the bull hammering metal beside them.

Simon only stops his work when you clear your pretty throat.

"What is your name, ser?" you ask. You're a daisy blooming in the winter muck. Or a weed, sprouting stubbornly where it doesn't belong. Wilting petals sucking sunlight in a smithy.

The only light here is from the fireglow; all else is choked. Coal smoulders in the hearth, belching sulphur and tar into the dense, stifling air. Breezes are throttled the moment they pass the threshold, so there's nothing to kick up the ash and soot—they lie in a blanket over the vices and punches, chisels and swages. Anything in Simon's forge doesn't stay clean for long. Even you, satin eve. Linger, and you'll melt into the walls with all the rest.

"Not a ser, little bird. Just a blacksmith," he says.

He had been mending a mail hauberk ruined in your lord's last battle. Some bannerman had a terrible day, and it was Simon's job to set the chain back right so another soldier could have one more. He sets the armour aside, and the loops of steel shimmer like stars in the firelight. You demand his full attention, and Simon wants to see what you'll do with it.

"My lady," you say, tone polite and proper. You run him a cunning once-over, top to toe, and Simon wonders what you see.

"Not no lady, neither."

"No, blacksmith, I'm a lady—the lady of your liege lord," you remind him with a smirk. As if he needed it. You look the part enough—clean and soft, highborn, grown up never scraping a knee, no doubt. But there's mischief twinkling in your eyes, like a child looking at a stream they want to ruin their boots in.

Simon doesn't know if he wants to stamp out that mischief or if there's something else he'd like to do with it.

He'll have to get closer to find out.

"And what does the lady of my liege lord want?"

"Your name." You're puckish and enjoying it, a smiling imp playing in the tick of your mouth. Even as your neck cranes to look up at him.

He rounds the heavy anvil to stand in front of you. Simon knows he's a big man. Can't forget when he's looking at the tops of people's heads all the time. And he's reminded, often and loudly, by highborns who think their sigils and names make them large. If I were your size, I'd rule the fucking kingdom, they say, and they're right. Simon probably could be a knight if he wanted. A ser. Fight hard enough for a lord who would give him a holdfast and a wife of his own. But he prefers the forge, prefers bending iron to his will to being bent to a lord's.

And if he were some perfumed knight, you wouldn't be here, looking up at him with intrigue.

Mud-madness, maybe. Maybe you want to know what it's like in the dirt.

"Riley," Simon says. He gives you his last, a secret joke just for him.

He's stepped into your space, something that would get him flogged if there were anyone around to see. But it's dark, and warm, and lonely in his poor hovel, and he likes how a little bit of your bravery is sapped away with him so close. Likes to see the uncertainty bleed into the curve of your brow with every notch your fine spine bends.

"Riley the blacksmith." You run a delicate finger on the flat side of a blade Simon was working on earlier, pressing prints into the cooled iron where it rests on the table beside you both. You're pretending now, pretending you're not afraid. But you can't look at him, and Simon can see your chest rise and fall.

"You'll forge a new sword for my husband," you continue. "I've brought good steel from my home for you to use."

"Not some jewelry?" he asks.

You hum. "I have enough jewelry."

"Didn't mean for you."

That gets your eyes back on him. You're affronted at the insult to your perfect lord. You draw yourself to your full height, taking back the measures you shrank. It's still lengths below Simon, and you know it. Simon sees the exact moment you realize just how tall you'd have to grow to match him, so you put another kind of distance between you and him. You glide to the other side of his work table, and when you speak, it's harsh and proud. "No jewelry. A sword, a longsword."

"Why?"

Chin tipped high, shoulders squared; a bead of sweat rolls down your temple. "Because I want for it."

"Used to getting what you want, little bird?" Simon follows your path, but when he steps, you step, and it's a dance. Not the measured steps you were surely taught as a girl, not the proper trips of light to plucked strings. It's a different sort of dance, and it doesn't help you. The only thing it does is get his blood hot.

If it's a chase you're after, you'll get it.

"Yes," you say.

Simon likes how your throat looks when you swallow.

"You don't know what you want," he tells you.

He could show you. In his mind's eye, Simon sees the woods outside the keep. He hears your soft footsteps thumping on the forest floor and the sounds you'd make when he catches you. Can almost smell the frozen leaves tangling in your hair, and the prey-sweat on your skin, and his jaw tingles.

"I do." You circle the table, never letting Simon get within arm's reach. Smart bird, but you sound as petulant as a child.

"And what's that?" he asks.

A table between you and him, and you think it is enough. That's the problem with highborns—they never think the lowbreds are half as bloodthirsty as they are. They think they are the teeth. Think their rank is armour. But what's a title in the mud, and even a worm will turn. That table could be across the room in a second, if Simon had the mind. You stir some creature in him, your furtive steps like the beating of wings. It rises from his chest like bile, that urge to hold you down, stop your movings and twitchings with his weight, feel your muscles flex below him.

Like a hound on a coursing—only what runs is hunted.

"A happy husband," you tell him, and Simon can't remember what the conversation was. He's busy keeping his feet planted, even as you step into the doorway and his every instinct begs him to act. He hadn't even realized you'd circled all the way back to the entrance to his forge, where the cold and daylight await.

"And a sword. By the end of the month, Riley, for his return."

Your scent sits in the air like poppy oil long after you've left.

You come back the next week, a winter rose tucked behind your ear and flakes of snow dusting your crown.

You're a bright thing, too full of life for this unwelcoming keep. Simon keeps thinking you'll wither, that one of these days he'll see you round a corner and you'll be sallow and wet like the rest of the north, but you keep surprising him. He eats his fill of you in glimpses, flutters of your cloak through the keyhole of his doorway, traipsing through the snow with your litter of gamines at your heels. You haunt his nights, his dreams, walking the scorched halls of his mind like a shade of witness, and in them, too, you run.

Simon wakes every dawn before you're caught. Always just around the next bend, soft soles padding on the stone.

Seeing you, then, measures from his wingspan and unaware of the danger dripping drool at your feet, Simon feels of consequence. Feels like a whispered name of a fable, too treacherous to say too loudly, or something may hear. Infamy, that's where Simon's thoughts lead him. Or into the loop of a noose.

Where you got that rose, though, he'd like to know. Crystal ropes of ice line the petal edges. A precious beauty frozen in time, black as liver blood. When he asks, you pluck it from your ear and hide your smirk behind it. "I met a handsome fairy in the wood, and he said he would give me a secret if I gave him a kiss. All I received was this rose," you tell him. Grinning like this is the start of a fun game, like you're the Good Neighbour between the iron oaks.

In your southern home, perhaps, The Folk are just stories. Here, in the unyielding North, people don't have the luxury to laugh at tales. If you're born in the snow, you don't take bargains with a light heart.

"Trading kisses, eh?" Simon grunts. Coke smoke and steam billow around him as he quenches a blade in a pail of water. Metal screams and hisses as it chokes for breath. "What do you want, then? A pair of earrings? I could give you a necklace you'd like."

You come to his side, straining around his torso to watch the steel drown. You're nothing, just nothing beside his great frame. He could bend you as easily as red iron, but your teeth flash with alloyed courage.

"Is that your usual payment, Riley?"

"Give me a kiss, little bird, and you'll get more than a necklace."

Sheltered, highborn lady, whistling in the dark. You don't even know what he's saying. You may have a shade of an idea, words sipped from distant whispers not meant for your ears, but it's like the light that slips through coloured glass. Insubstantial, just a facsimile of the real thing. You're here to catch rays to see what they feel like. To know.

Because you came back—like a moth to a flame, you came back alone to singe your wings—and you don't call for the guards when he drifts into your space. Simon wonders how far he can push you, and how quickly. Cool a blade too fast, and the core bows. Warps. Its edge turns to brittle glass, itching to chip and crack. Heat it too fast, and the steel tempers and softens. Becomes just another useless lump of metal.

He wants you boiling when you come to him, and you will come to him.

You've caught his scent just as much as he's caught yours. Like a doe snuck into his territory, you tease his edges—not wise enough to realize just how threadbare his control is.

For now, he'll let you feel the warmth sitting, perpetually, just underneath his skin. Let you feel your own size as he looms over you. Some birds like their men grizzly, like towering beasts with hard fists and mean jaws—you love it. Simon can see it in the twitch of your chin, the draw of your pupils, the hard spots of heat on your cheeks. Bad luck that you're married to your dim, fallow reed. Frightfully bad luck.

"There you go again," Simon whispers. The tips of his boots touch your fine shoes. Your delicate hands wring together in front of your belly.

"Pardon?"

So mannered, so decent, even as Simon can see your thoughts swimming around your empty head like water wraiths. Just the promise of a kiss below the murk, or a wet grave. He could pluck the pictures from your mind, roll them around his mouth like spit-stones, and he knows what he would taste. Interest, and imaginations, and lilac honey. Sweat and dew. Clotted cream. So virtuous, even as your lips hang slack, and he can see the pink, wet muscle of your twitching tongue.

"You blush when you look up at me," Simon tells you. Lets some scorn, some mockery, flavour the words as they burrow into your ear. "You even know what you're blushin' over?"

Your hand flies to your cheek, cooling away the flush with dancing fingers. An indignant huff puffs from your mouth, and Simon is sure you'd stomp your foot if you had less of a hold on yourself. It almost makes him smile. Do it, he thinks. Give him a reason to take you over his knee. Welts on your ass and three fingers in your cunt would wipe that whiny look off your face, he's sure.

He doubts anyone's ever taught you that lesson—doubts you even know just how hard lessons can be learned—but he wouldn't mind being the first.

"I do know," you puff.

"Know what, little bird?" There's a sparrow, just there, embroidered on your heavy wool cloak. The hours it must have taken to thread it carefully between the weave, the years of practise to accomplish a stitch with such beauty, precision. And Simon could ruin it. Ruin it in a moment. The urge bites at him as he reaches forward to pet the fine fabric between his fingers.

A risk if he's ever taken one. Simon likes his hands. They're rather important to him.

"Why ladies blush." Your voice is just a promise.

"Do you, now?" You're looking at your hem balled in Simon's heavy fist, at the scrapes on his knuckles so close to your belly where you're warm and heaving with breath. "Good little ladies like yourself blush at pretty highborns with flowers in their hair. Why're you blushin' at me?"

You're looking at him like a traveller near a bluff, aware of the drop, feeling the call. One tug, and you would fall into him.

He doesn't get the chance, though. At least, not yet.

The spell breaks, your lady's maid calling your name from the snow, and you take flight—spinning when he, for just a moment, doesn't let your cloak slip from his grasp. Simon knows it's no matter. Your winter rose rests on the cobblestone at his feet, already withering in the heat and choking air. You'll visit him in his dreams again, and maybe he'll see what will happen when you're snared.

Some rabbits chew their foot off. What will you do?

Your milklivered lord comes home clean as spring, and brings disappointment with him.

You try to hide it, but Simon knows. Plucked and preened, you greet him in the courtyard as you were greeted a month before, and present to him the sword Simon forged. The sword with the bloodgutter shaped to the exact curve of your lips, Simon's sickness hammered into the folded iron. The sword your lord can hardly hold upright as his thin arm trembles. Chagrin dusts your tepid smile when his frail hand cups your chin. When he wraps you in his hold, and so much of you is left exposed to the chill.

He's weak, another thing Simon can crush in his palm, but that one, he hates.

And the disappointments only grow, only follow you—dragging behind you like a limp mule slowing down the retinue. Better to cull the lame thing, put everyone out of their misery, but you, the dutiful wife, do try. The servants say you read to him by the hearth in the evenings, and tug him on gentle walks through the wood, and they whisper about the noises he makes as he sweats over you every night. And you glow and simper in the mornings, but he can't keep you happy.

Simplest thing in the world to breed a bird, and your lord is failing.

He's letting you wilt. When more months go by without an heir in your belly, the folk start to whisper. They think there must be something wrong with you. The women make you eat comfrey and daisy, and carve words into the butter you lathe on your bread. They stir hare's egg powder into the tea you choke down. You plant parsley alone in the dawn light, nails cracking in the hard, cold soil, and if you aren't growing soon, you'll be sent away. Back to your father, who may not receive you, or to a lone and quiet convent to dwindle into old age.

Or worse. Much worse can befall a woman who doesn't give her husband a child. You're in a different sort of trap, now.

Simon knows it's not your fault, but he seems to be the only one who does. So he waits—lingers in your periphery for you to work it out for yourself—and it's the dead of night when you come back to him at last. Your lord has just left on another campaign for his king, and you're shivering and washed with the snowfall, standing in Simon's forge. Winter-dimmed, strained in the face and hard around the mouth, but the blustering bellows dance warm, orange light over your skin.

It's what you've needed. Some heat. Should've come to Simon weeks ago. He can press some warmth back into you.

You open your mouth to speak, but Simon hasn't forgotten your last conversation, and it's time you listened to him. "It's because you like blushin' at me, isn't it?" he asks, coming to you where you stand by his work table. "Like lookin' at me. Wonderin' how it would be to have me in your bed and not that tallow-faced lord of yours."

"He's not—"

"He is. Can't even put a baby in your belly." The keep is dark and quiet in the distance. Only the mice are awake. Even though you don't scream when Simon bullies one paw beneath your cloak, planting his palm on your soft stomach, he doubts anyone would hear if you did. "I can do it, little bird. I can give you a pup, and it won't take me no season either."

You grip his forearm like you're going to push him off, but when your nails sink into the scars and mottled flesh there, you hesitate. Something mercenary sits in your gaze, something hard-won and hewn in ice. No more mischief, just purpose.

Simon's a venal man. What's another ware to be sold?

"I need a son," you say at last. Jaw set, shoulders tight.

Simon was never one who needed to be told twice, and he's held long enough. You squeak when he lifts you, hefting you with hands around your ribcage to be set on his worktable, but don't protest when he undoes the clasp of your cloak. Shoves it off your shoulders to find the thin shift beneath. Diaphanous, flimsy—your nipples pebble through the linen. You were probably tossing in bed thinking about this, of coming to him in your night things, wondering what he'll do with you.

Brave thing. You're a conscript yet. Simon can't blame you for your means to an end, and this is as sweet a bargain as he's ever struck.

You run trembling hands over his shoulders, as if picturing a child with his build. "A son, blacksmith," you repeat, as if you can speak it into being.

But that's Simon's job—you only need to lie there and let him.

"I'll give you one. I'll give you three."

Propped in front of him like a dinner plate, eyes round as the moon, gone is your stiff upper lip. Maybe you thought you'd take it like a soldier—get the job done like farm animals and be back to your soft bed within minutes. You don't know, though, what you owe him. What you've done to him in his thoughts. Simon has a score to settle in your flesh, and a hunger in his belly he intends to sate in your sweat. Made him wait, you did. He's going to savour it.

He slips between your legs, bending down and down to bump your chin with his own. You know your pact. He wants his payment.

The kiss you give him is hesitant, cold lips on a warm, scarred mouth. His melted flesh pulls his lips into a permanent sneer, but you don't seem to mind. It's your tongue, first, which presses into his teeth. Your jaw, first, to pop open, expecting. You taste like the first spring day—snow-melt and sunshine, new grass and dripping, shining, icicles—and you hold him like you're going to blow away in the wind. Tugging at him, his clothes, like you're skinning a deer. Folding stripped flesh over itself to get to the warm, wet muscles beneath, still filled with the blood that made them run.

Your shift is insubstantial, so delicate that Simon could shred it like wet paper—so he does. Rips it down the front in one, great sheer to lay bare the body below that he had been thinking of for months. Months. Wondering what you hid beneath your many layers of wool, how your breath would catch when Simon grabbed heavy handfuls of your curves, picturing sooty handprints marring your pretty dress.

You break the kiss to complain, some indignant protest that falls on deaf ears because Simon isn't listening.

He's looking, swallowing the sight of you so he can never forget the way it felt slipping down his throat. The swell of your breasts, the soft roll of your stomach, the plush give of your thighs, knees knocked wide around his hips. Simon's longed for this painting. His muscles cramped with it.

How dare that lord of yours let you walk the halls of the keep. If you were Simon's, really his, you wouldn't be allowed. He would take you to the woods, the vast, unending forests of the North, where no one could ever find you, and he'd tie you to the bed. Make sure the only thing on your mind is the next time his cock will be seated inside you. Drip honey in your mouth and fill your womb with his seed again, and again, and again.

He has half a mind to do it. Take you. Bring you to a place where you could run for lengths and never come close to another heart beating between the trees.

You're halfway to letting him, he thinks. Dropped back into some primal part of your mind as he lays you back, tools clattering to the floor, and latches his mouth to the soft velvet of your breasts. Everything he does, you react as if it is the first time, and Simon wonders. Wonders if he could mark the warm curves of you, sink his teeth in, take a bite and swallow, and if your lord would ever notice.

Limp, pidgeonhearted lord. Wasting you.

He wouldn't waste you. Thoughts catch like fingers on cliff edges, cock swelling, achingly hard, at you so sweet and fictal looking up at him. He'd crack his ribs open, tuck you there, if he could. Make you sip the air from his lungs, breathe when he breathed. Your years of careful comportment, of being hidden in high towers, crumbling in his palm like white ash.

Simon's never wanted anything like this. His stomach aches. He feels washed away, uprooted, by the want—vicious and cruel, rearing now after months of suffocation.

The want to raze and build anew.

Simon has a bed, somewhere—a threadbare nest tucked in some corner—but he likes you where you are, laid out on his table like another thing to be forged, moulded into whatever he sees fit. You move how he wants, pliable as liquid metal, as sweat blossoms in the dips and wells of your body. He could make you, but you let him. You only falter when he parts your legs and dips his head between them, looking like a filly. New to the world on weak knees. Eyes wide, confused, as he kisses your thighs. You rest your hands protectively in a knot below your navel.

It's a near thing, holding back the sleeping creature within himself. The one that howls to devour, claim, own. But things can be owned in other ways—forever changed, tied to him. Something, finally, for himself. Made to keep.

The first brush of lips against your cunt has you squirming, and he has to hold you down. "Is this … necessary?" you ask.

Simon hooks your legs over his shoulders, opening you up more to him, and his mouth waters. He can feel his cheeks tingling as saliva collects, and he can smell you. Finally close enough to really know. Loam, and lye soap, and the tang of dandelion milk. Gooseflesh blooms in the wake of his searching nose.

"Yes," he tells you.

"No wonder I'm not withchild yet, my husband has never—oh." A needless sentence, aborted with a bleat as his mouth descends.

Simon was right.

Blackberry jam—the sweetest thing he's ever tasted.

Even though you run from him. You're prim and proper about it, hiding sighs behind a furrowed brow and the flit of your fingers. Simon doesn't want the Lady; he wants what he knows is beneath, but he knows he's going to enjoy teasing it out of you. You're jumpy, writhing and twitching, swallowing soft hums and hiccups as Simon parts you with his tongue. Sipping nectar from the source, kitten-licks around your pulsing entrance until he finds the sensitive bud at the apex of you and wraps his lips around it.

Soon, other wetness joins his spit, and your hands leave their knot to scratch against Simon's scalp. Gripping his hair at the root, pushing his face into your bucking hips, and it tastes like victory. Your lord is off conquering a strip of land no one cares about, and Simon is here conquering his wife. Simon can feel the rumble in his own chest as he groans into you.

He pulls back, chin wet, to watch his finger disappear inside you, practically sucking him in as you whine. He'd give up breath to keep tasting you, to keep your velvet heat under his tongue and feel you pulsing as you're wrung out, but he has to see. Has to witness the crescent of dirt under his nail, the dark lines in his knuckle sinking in. Watch your stomach as it jumps, and your pretty face twisting up. Your walls flutter around him, giving in to his prodding, his petting, until he can slide another inside. And because he's greedy, Simon's tongue follows too. Muscle against muscle, he could drown in you.

Live forever on only this. On your trembling thighs and plaintive cries, nuzzling his ruined nose against your clit until you shout.

Supine, you thrash, limp limbs tensing and releasing like the crash of waves. Like you're scrabbing for purchase in the dark, and only Simon is there to lead you. "Wait—stop," you mewl, voice high and reedy, and Simon halts—barely. He doesn't ask why, doesn't trust his voice to be anything but a growl, and he doesn't want to frighten you. Not yet. Not when you're teetering on the edge of where he's taking you.

Tears rim your glossed eyes when you catch his gaze down the line of your body. "I don't know what's—I feel—"

Rage and male pride swirl in his chest, a potion he could get drunk on. Ire-honeyed mead his fists could siphon out. Sweet, sweet bird. Poor, mistreated highborn. Simon'll give you a dozen, a score, until you're spent and dazed. Until your eyes can't focus, and the only thing you can say is his name.

"Told you this was necessary, didn't I?" he asks.

You nod, a pout Simon wants to chew off tugging at your lips.

"Then stop whinin'."

You hold his hand through your release, lacing your fingers in his and holding them, locked, to your chest. Your eyes are closed as if in concentration, and Simon can feel your heartbeat against his wrist, thumping in time with your pitiful laments. They pour from your throat as if hooked out, spiralling upward in rungs like a silver-keen melody. It's winsome, how you curl against him, shoulders bowing inward, fingers scrabbling at the singed hair of his forearm. How you clench down on his fingers, still petting inside you, gummy walls pulsing as your muscles tense. Tight as a bowstring, horse tendons dried and twisted, until you're loosed, limp and panting.

Simon's decision is made. It drives into place like a rosehead in his nape, clouted in with your lips on his knuckles. Wrought-iron against bone, muscles making room for rusted metal. Can't pull nails without a fight, not once they've been clenched.

You scrunch your face up when he kisses you afterward, pressing your own taste back into you. He expects you to shy away again. To fawn, coltish and faltering. But you're on him the moment he pulls away, chasing him, sitting up from the table to follow the heat of his torso like you're an early-spring lamb. His tunic, you shove halfway up his chest without a care for the ties, and your nails follow. Clean, shaped things that leave lines in their wake, coaxing Simon's blood to the surface—a red bloom on pale flesh and stark, pink scars. Old burns still holding flame inside him.

Perfect, kept teeth sink into the plush of his chest as you tug at his trousers, paw at him, hard and leaking, straining against the fabric, like you can't wait another moment

—and you're his. Another man's wife, traded to him for swords and arms to wield them, but you belong to Simon. From the moment you smiled at him in the courtyard, you did. And not you nor any man could stop him. You mark bites into his skin like you could chew him living, and Simon thinks about making off with you like a monster in the night. Not Beowulf, but Grendel. But no one is nailing his arm to any wall, not when it can slip around the curve of your back and bring you close to him.

You come readily into his hold, trembling legs locking around his hips, fingers letting blood at the back of his neck, as you're carried. Anywhere. Any flat surface Simon can find so he can sit, can hold you fast in his lap and feel you tense atop his thighs. Let you work yourself full of him as the fire spits.

He doesn't know where he lands. Somewhere hay-filled and dusty. He can't stop relishing the feel of you, better than he could've ever conjured in his rotten mutt mind. So fragile, so soft—your ribs give when he presses his palms into them. A thing to protect, or shatter like overheated glass. Because blood-heavy, aching in anticipation, Simon wants to be cruel. Wants to let free the leash, the vice clamped somewhere in his stomach, and see what crawls out the back of his throat. Pour it into you, let your wrangle or succumb. Plant an ugly seed and watch it sprout.

Simon likes the thought of your lord finding out. Of him stitching it together like piecemeal and coming in the night. Likes the thought of grinding his jaw into the anvil. Making his skull into a fine cup.

You buck clumsily in his lap, hunting for friction. Grinding a wet spot into his trousers because he hasn't even freed himself yet. You cease at a growled command and wait so nicely for Simon to pull himself free and line up, even if your brows furrow at the sight of him.

"It will fit?" you ask. It's vulgar, the sight of him—mean and thick and dripping white globs of seed as his fist tightens around the base of himself—next to you. Shaking thighs and supple flesh, spit and slick dripping down your legs as you hover above. "Riley?"

"Yes, little bird."

"It's only … You're much larger than—"

"M'not him, am I?" He wraps his other paw around your nape, bending your neck to make you stare down between your bodies. The two of you watch together as you slowly sink down on him, the angry, red flesh and veins like bruises pushing inside, just past the lip of his crown. You're too tense to allow anything more, strangling him already; he can hardly breathe. "Look."

Your hands grasp at his shoulders, fingers clawing at the flesh and meat there. Can't do that to your lord, Simon thinks. Your husband is made of bones and twine. He can't take the bruises you want to mould into muscle, can't fill you so full you can't even swallow. Simon can just picture him wheezing over you in your marriage bed, you silent and smiling. Nowhere near the creature Simon's made—the lap dog panting in his hold.

You need him.

Need him to protect you, someone to cover your whole body with his own until you're not even there. Until nothing can find you. Your lord can't make you safe like that. Simon can.

You suck in gulping breaths like a gaping fish as you lower yourself, squeezing him in steadily. It's velvet heat and mouthwatering pressure all around him that make his thoughts dart like wide-eyed hares. Your forehead slides against his, slick with sweat and the mixed putty of settling ash, and he can taste your lungs on his lips. You grind back and forth as you work him in—too fast. Too fervid and impatient, you constrict around him, forcing him in with hurt twisting your pout into a grimace.

"Careful," Simon warns. He moves his grip to your hips to guide you, sliding you up and down his length in slow, shallow dips as you hiccup. "Like this. That's it."

Teaching you how to take him, making you ease him inside because you're too eager to check yourself, choking down pain just to get him in, in—it cracks open something wretched in Simon. It spills like spoiled egg yolk through his chest, dripping through the rungs of his ribcage to dry and split. He wants to pop out every one of your teeth like willow buds and hold them in his cheek. Wants to bite your knuckles into his mouth and feel the bones grind together. He wants. He wants.

You, eyes fastened to the joining of your bodies and none the wiser, spill a warm whine over his mouth. Protesting the pace, you scratch your grievances into his skin.

"Slow at first," he tells you, nipping at the curve of your jaw to quell the ache in his own. "Just this time, little bird."

"No," you complain, pettish and sullen. Sour in your urgency, piqued in your restlessness. "I want—"

"Patience," he murmurs, but he can hear the strain in his own voice. Simon's been patient for months. You can weather a palmful of minutes. It's only a blink of time to get you used to his size. Simon's ox-built in all countenance, so it's steady, patient work, but your muscles give to him eventually. Suddenly, he's seated inside you, fully sheathed and struggling for control.

You're a vice around him, battened down like a garrote. He feels smothered, having to clamp down his insides so he doesn't do something awful.

"Can I move?" you plead, ignorant of the maelstrom happening inside his head, his stomach. You plant sweet kisses on his cheeks, the corner of his mouth, supplicating for movement. Supplicating to be eaten.

Simon rolls your flesh under his palms, hobbling his desire with thin-spun thread. "You think of this when he's inside you? Think about if it were me?" he demands, unable to keep the cruelty behind the ladder of his teeth. "I'll show you."

He starts off blunted, keeping his clip deliriously slow, letting you languish in the feel of him dragging inside you—but that can only go on so long. You cry for him to speed up, to fill you harder, and deeper, more savage, more bruising, and Simon obliges.

And Simon tells himself that this—snapping his hips into you, the head of him grinding against the plug of your womb, bullying himself inside again and again as your eyes roll, hands spasm—is for you. That he's freeing the snare, not tying a new one round your twitching ankle. But it's for him. Because maybe Simon likes sweet things because of the opportunity they promise, the chance of ruin. Nothing sweet lives in the world for long, not without interference, and you have so many lights Simon could snuff out

—or fuel. He could make you burn only for him.

A selfish sort of preservation, like a lover's hands kept in milky jars of vinegar.

His back aches with the strain, that old injury born of being bent over anvils for all his life flaring now as he pistons upward, but he's chasing. His own release and yours, hunting oaths and promises and the feel of you coming apart around him. He tucks you against himself, forearms squeezing your torso into his to lock you in place, but also because he cannot fight the instinct that's telling him to hide you away somewhere warm and dark and that might as well be somewhere beside his liver.

Your skin slides against his, your arms, so much smaller than his own, crushed between your chests so all you can do is huff and squeak as he drives out and in and out again. Rude, crudish squelching sounds dance in tandem with your high cries. Simon shoves your head into the crook of his neck, wanting you close to his pulse hammering there, and tilts the angle of his hips so that your sensitive bud grazes his abdomen with every thrust.

His name is a stunted cry whimpered out between heaving breaths as you clench, but it's not the pulse of your walls constricting around him, or the tender way your muscles run taut as you come, that sets his own release spinning. It's the thought of spilling inside you, filling you full and some part of himself taking root there. Of you, raised on silver and grace and careful comportment, letting yourself be bred by a lowborn smith with only the dirt to call his own. Because only he can—and you want only him to.

A lifetime of prudent rearing, unravelled in seconds. You've left the door open

—and a wolf wandered in.

Simon's body draws tight as his hips stutter, settling finally for just badgering the head of himself against your womb as he floods it with his seed. You thrash in his hold, bucking like an ill-tempered mare, at once running and grinding back on him in your own throes. You shake in his hold like a needle clinging to a pine, simpering out your afterglow into the humid heat of his neck. You're both left panting and sticky, the air in the forge suddenly suffocating.

You try to pry yourself from his arms, to sip cool air instead of the steam between you, but Simon grips you fast. "Can't spill a drop, little bird. You're going to sit here until it takes."

You whine, but settle, nuzzling at the strong cut of his jaw in a sated, satisfied way that makes his chest puff up.

You're very good, listening at last. Sitting there with Simon licking the soot and sweat off your skin until, eventually, he grows hard again, still inside you. So Simon flips you over so you're tucked beneath him and he can finally know what your muscles feel like straining below his, and know how you sound begging him to go slow, please. And he does—take his time, this go. Drives into you slow and hard until drool and tears slip down the side of your face, and you're begging him instead to fill you again.

You pay with a froth-spit kiss, and take your own price with eight red scratches up the curve of his back.

Simon wraps your cloak around your shoulders for you, fastening the cotton tight together up to your chin, and tells you to move quickly and silently when you return to your rooms. He tells you he will burn your shift, but you leave without ensuring it. Instead, Simon folds the tatters carefully and holds the linen to his nose as he closes his eyes—inhaling steady mouthfuls, looking forward to a dreamless sleep. Ragweed pollen, and sunwarmed skin, and the chimney tar he knows he crushed into you like powdered marigold.

He'll keep the shift.

Rage brews in his stomach at the thought of your lord returning, of him putting his spider hands on you, rubbing smooth palms over your growing belly and demanding the world proclaim what a splendid job he did. Simon tamps down the violence clawing at his throat—saves it for later, storing it in the cold cellar of his fists.

Yes, he'll keep the shift.