[mature] tell that devil to take you back; ryatah

[atrox]

hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

It’s different.

It’s different and he isn’t sure when the ground gave out under him or when his bastard heart actually started to care, but it wraps its thorns around the moments and lets them sink in deep. He revels in the way that it feels to hold her against him, to see the impossible black of him pressed against the impossible beauty of her. Her blood stains the porcelain of her skin, and she looks all the more beautiful for it because of the way she embraces it, because of the way that she arches and croons and asks for more.

It stokes the fire in him until he struggles to breathe, until his lungs feel fit to burst and his entire body nearly shuts down in the wake of an inferno. There is nothing but the moment and the way that they feel—nothing but the press of her, the sound of ragged breathing, the lake stretched before them as though made for it. There’s nothing but the way his empty chest aches at the sound of his name on her lips.

When it’s done, his lips bloodied, his dark body drenched in sweat, he slips from her, but he doesn’t make some flippant remark and take his leave as he usually would. Instead, he stands there for a moment, his sides heaving and his mane tangled on both sides of his neck. His yellow eyes are impossibly clear and sharp as he studies her. Finally, he walks up her side and presses the crimson mark, that stain of a reminder of what has transpired, to her cheek before trailing it off and pulling her close to his chest.

There are some words he thinks of saying—ways to lighten the mood, or remind her he has not changed, even though he irrevocably has. Instead he just breathes in deep, trying to catch a breath that long fled him, and stands there looking at the lake that is not the Chamber and holding a woman who is not Twinge.

Trying to remember the moment when this new reality somehow became the only one he wanted.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING