makai
Makai’s feelings toward the Chamber are complicated at best. It is the land of his father and the land that was responsible for bringing him back to life—but it was also the land that held the strings to that same life. He was grateful for the air in his lungs but resentful that he did not control his own destiny; he did not like that he could be called to her side at any given moment. He did not like that she simply had to snap her fingers, and he would be helpless to say ‘no.’ She had given him life, but it had come with a cost.
But her clear discomfort with his reaction is enough to drag him back to the surface of his thoughts, and he can only shake his head at her—can only stare at her with the intensity of his gaze. “You tell me,” he demands and coughs, blood splattering the ground beneath him, his coat clinging to the skeleton of his ribs. “You tell me what I should do. I am clearly not making good decisions for myself anymore.”
He presses against her further, and he turns his teeth onto her coat, closing his eyes and imagining she is Oksana. He tastes the blood and the sweat and the pine-needle scent of the Chamber. He is not shy about the way that he curls around her, and he does not ask politely. His mouth wanders from her jaw to her neck and he is breathing hard—his poisoned lungs constricting painfully in his chest.
She is not Oksana, her coat is not the same burnished copper. She does not have wings curled dangerously at her sides, and she does not smell of fresh grass and mountain air—but he is sick enough to pretend that she is. He is sick enough to taste Oksana when his mouth lingers on her neck. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” he finally whispers, eyes still closed, body still pressed against her. “Just tell me.”
you're the fire and the flood
and I'll always feel you in my blood
