[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

[Ryatah]

she fell for the idea of him
and ideas were a dangerous thing to love

With every moment that passes she can feel herself losing grip on the control she thought she had. In this haze of intoxication she finds that she can no longer decipher between unchecked passion, and the truth of what she really wants. That maybe she doesn’t just want him like this, with his teeth leaving bright red marks across the smooth porcelain of her skin, with her name as a moan from his mouth against her back; when he is making her own body shudder and writhe beneath him, when his own name is a repeated gasp on her tongue.

She wants him even when he is being distant, even when his yellow eyes are flashing at her in annoyance, and even when his teeth feel more like a weapon rather than a teasing touch. And maybe that is why she has always come back to Hyaline – why she rarely leaves it at all.

He had started to feel like home, even though she knows she has no right to feel that.

With the silken strands of her forelock and mane clinging to her damp skin, she is left breathless and trembling when he slides from her. Even though she is already missing his touch, she does not look at him, afraid that he will see right through her. There is not a part of her that is not covered with him in some way; his smell, where he had touched, where her skin is still broken and bleeding because at some point every part of her had shut down and she stopped healing herself. Her heart is still thunder in her chest as she tries to squander her hope with logic, as she hardens her nerves for the inevitable nonchalant dismissal. 

Instead he touches her cheek, and her eyes flicker to his for only a moment before he is drawing her into his chest. There is no resistance to the way she folds into him, ducking her head to press her delicate face against him with a tremulous exhale. She can’t remember the last time anyone had held her, much less after sleeping with her. Her jaw tightens against the sudden emotion that she can feel welling in the back of her throat, because she had forgotten what it felt like – and how over the years she had taught herself to not miss it, and to never expect it.

And she is afraid of what will happen after this; how she will want it, and it won’t be there, because she is certain this moment they are currently tangled in is going to be a rarity.

She touches her lips to the scar across his chest, brushing along the ragged edges of it, but she doesn’t say anything. She is worried of what will come out if she dares to speak, afraid she will shatter this moment like the fragile glass that it is. And maybe if she is quiet, if she just rests against him in the silence, the moment will drag on forever.

ryatah