The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Headless Over Heels.

She pulled him into her arms. She held him there. The same vast, encompassing embrace she’d given Ofelia, no poked holes required. The horrible tension of the afternoon fled him like an exorcised possessor-seraph.

“You saved her,” she whispered. “You saved my daughter’s life. My whole fucking world. You saved her.”

“I’m the reason—”

“Seth,” she rumbled, low in her throat. “Shut up.”

He shut up.

Her thumb drifted up and couched at the shallow cleft of his chin. Her tongue peeked out to dampen the pillows of her lips. “If I kiss you,” she whispered, half to herself, “it ruins everything.”

“Probably should have thought of that before you got this close,” he whispered back.

A smile flickered through the unvarnished desire dominating her face. “I was kinda counting on something interrupting us by now.”

A second’s stillness. But nothing did.

All My Strength

The prominent peak of her nose brushed his. Her breath had a honey-sweet tang to it, like mead.

One inch. One minuscule inch between him and a vast, impossible new life.

She’ll kiss you back, and then she’ll panic. You have to give her an out.

“If you don’t wanna kiss me,” he said, “I’d happily just cop a feel.”

She shoved him away, laughing. “You little fuckin’ pest, you.”

He grinned back, even though it had been two-thirds a joke at most. “Front or back. I’m not picky.”

“Got such a horn on you.”

“Me? What happened to all that right here against the wagon stuff?”

“That was a turnip wagon,” Annalise said. “My carriage is posh. Can’t knock boots against it. I’m still making payments on it.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“Sure I was. Mad and scared and all. But only pieces of me, and not the sensible ones. As tempestuous as all the head malarkey can be, it gives you good practice on filtering all the little bits of yourself. Knowing when your dramatic bits are acting up and the like.”

“We should have come to get you,” he said.

“Lay off that, il Gutierre.” She rolled her eyes. “Cosmically speaking, you should’ve, yeah. But how were you to know those husks were gonna go after you? I still don’t understand it myself.” She sighed. “Fuckin’ seraphs. Bastard things. We’re gonna need to do another hunt before long, I think. Tiago’ll skin me otherwise, sure, and he’ll be right to.”

Seth recalled Tiago’s trembly rejoinder. “What happened in ‘36?”

“Missed quota,” Annalise said. “Long story. But I ended up in the Winter War that year. Served a couple weeks on the front, killed a few seraphs to make up for the difference.”

“Shit.” Seth had heard many tales of the Winter front. None of them good. “Thank the saints you made it back.”

“Wasn’t so bad. I’d already been through it once, after all. And this time I had my own fancy tent and a rank of spearmen at my command. We did some pretty work. And we’ll do more of it on the way to Fontana. If there’s unlit in the area, that means there’s a seraph to find.”

"This one said Ydris. Do you know why?"

"I imagine it's one I've killed before. They have grudges, some of them. Nothing to fuss about." She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ll be all right? If we track another few down before the season ends?”

“I fight seraphs now, remember?” He tapped the side of his nose. “Anna, I’m less sure about.”

She snorted. “I will be less of a cunt this time. I’ll chant it at myself during the changeover. No cuntery, no cuntery, no cuntery.”

“Does that work?”

She waggled her hand noncommittally. “I might try and give you some shitehawk line about getting Ofelia hurt. I am telling you face-to-face right now that if I do, please remember what I said here and invite me to eat shit.”

“I would, but I worry for my neck.”

“I’ll be a sore bitch at you, maybe. But that’s all. Believe this, Seth, ‘cause I swear it on my sword.” She dared to draw close to him again. Her voice dropped. “Keep faith with me and mine, and none of me will raise a hand to you. All my strength is for protecting the ones I love. Never, ever, ever for hurting them. All right?”

His legs went into that mid-dream numbness again, like they had when she’d seemed so full of rage at him. “All right.”

“Good.” She smiled and leaned back against the door to the square. “C’mon now, ‘fore I get all breathy at you again.”

She opened the door back to Sondam, and he followed, her voice ringing through his mind with a rhythm that nearly drowned out the whole world.

All my strength is for protecting the ones I love.

The ones I love.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...y-strength
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2420130/