[private] hangman hooded; ana

[atrox]

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

Loyalty was a fickle thing for Atrox, but not something completely out of his grasp. He had been loyal to the Chamber to his last breath, more than once, and although he knew that the kingdom had sunk where he and no man could ever reach, he still felt that pull deep in his belly. Perhaps that is what makes it easy to think of running nothing more than a small territory beneath Anaxarete and not bristling at the idea. After all, at his core, Atrox was still a soldier and although arrogance came easily, so did brutal honesty.

He had served alongside Anaxarete and then ruled beside her—he knew who she was.

And he knew that the gifts that ran beneath her skin was more than he could fathom.

So he does not mind the idea of serving, in some capacity, beneath her now. He trusts that she would give him the freedom he desires and should she ever come calling with an order, or a request, that it would not be a dumb one. So he smiles at her, toothy and predatory, and rolls his black velvet shoulders.

When the shadows come, twisting around her limbs and then reaching toward him, his smile widens just a little, his yellow eyes flashing with interest as he steps forward. “I think it’s about time I found a new home,” he drawls, preferring to not think of the reasons that keep him from Tephra now.

It had never been his home, after all—it had been his son.

And thanks to the fates, Magnus may as well have never been his son, either.

“Let’s go,” he says, looking toward the future that they may carve together.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING