[private] don't close the coffin yet; ryatah

[atrox]

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

He surprises himself with how tightly he holds her, with the relief that rushes through him at the feel of her against him—against the need that nearly crushes his throat. She folds there as if she had never left and he wishes that she hadn’t. Wishes that he hadn’t done this to them. Wishes that he had not made so many mistakes with her, again and again. It is the first time that he has ever truly known regret.

What she asks now makes him close his eyes, growling lightly in the back of his throat in response. Perhaps she would think the question angers him. Perhaps she would think the anger is pointed at her. But he knows—he knows—the truth. He knows that he deserves to have such things thrown back at him.

“I lied,” he says, finally, into the white of her neck, into the satin of her skin. “I lied, Ryatah.” He pulls back so that she can touch his face and he lets it linger, lets her touch the scars of him like he has let no one else. “I was so angry at myself,” he continues, his voice dark and roughened on the edges.

“I knew what had happened with Agetta was a mistake.”

The biggest of all mistakes. The worst of them.

“She came to Hyaline angry and we were fighting and—,” his voice trails off, unwilling to complete the thought aloud. He finally opens his yellow eyes to look at her. “I’m not used to thinking such things are mistakes. I have lifetimes of them meaning nothing at all.” He studies her with his sharp eyes, not flinching away from his transgressions this time—not trying to hide them or pretend they don’t exist.

“But it mattered with you, and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

An unsteady breath as he rolls his shoulders, an echo of his usually cavalier attitude.

“It matters.”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING