The fire burns brighter, keener, sharper, and he leans into it.
If the knife slices, if his flesh parts around it, he doesn’t notice. Doesn’t care. He will deal with the scars from his later—will deal with the pain and the agony and the trauma later.
Now, all he cares about is the fire that burns through him.
“I can’t imagine something I want to do less,” he whispers, teeth finding her skin and feeling the pressure of it building in his chest. He kisses her then, soft and then fierce and then edging to the very cliffside of violence before backing down. He feels something like it within her too—an answering call to his own.
He can’t imagine backing down now. He can’t imagine stepping away from this or feeling anything but the answering call of it, but he gladly rises to the challenge. There is no running from this now, he knows, and he finds that he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to turn from her, from this.
Even if it’s a mistake.
Even if it’s the biggest mistake he’s ever made.
Brigade can only growl light and low in his throat, can only graze his way down her curved neck and then to her withers. He continues to kiss his way down her spine, teeth grabbing at her hips as he curls around her. His wings are molten gold at his sides now, bright and fierce, and he gives into the storm.
“Kensa,” he says her name one more time—a whisper, a question, a promise, perhaps.
And then he pauses, breathing in deep, feeling his chest tighten, as he stands and waits.
For just one more word before they completely lose control.
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake