His love for Bexley Briar had once been the most complicated part of him, but that, too, had changed for Acton.
Now it was simple, particularly in the face of gods and monsters and scattered flocks of Crows. He loved her, he wanted her, he was happy being with her and thinking of her. That beat-sun day in the canyons might never have happened; the jagged scar that marked her perfect face could have been any old accident.
The past was never complicated if you never thought about it.
Would not, his girl said, and as his skin shivered and shuddered beneath her touch he chose to believe her. The buckskin leaned into her, that comfortable warmth that just bordered on pain (when she either forgot the strength of her magic, or intentionally let it slip), and she leaned against him too, and it was everything Acton never thought he’d have and never thought he’d wanted.
Sometimes being wrong didn’t make him want to start a fistfight. Maybe that was another sign of his growth.
Even as close as they were he had to duck his head nearer to pick up her voice; not quite a whisper, but like she’d dialed the volume down. Bexley quiet - when had that meant anything but danger? He could see no anger, though, when he met her gaze, and no sorrow either, and not anything he could read. But then he could never tell what she wanted - love or revenge or teeth or tears. He could only make his best guess.
“Nah. It’s just that all the trouble these days is bigger than me.” He spoke wryly, like all the storms and killer birds and goddesses had been a joke, too, and not a plague or an apocalypse. But then he smiled, and flicked his tail at her, startlingly dark against her spun gold. “But you should come and see for yourself. There’s going to be a party on Midsummer’s Eve - be my date?”
They were no longer attracting looks, the regent and the magician bold as a bonfire in the marketplace, and Acton once more turned his gaze to the rhythm of life around them. He, too, was ready to move on - from the bustling streets, from that hard-to-read look in her eye. When he spoke again he dropped his voice, dark smoke like an offering. “If you are done for the day, I can think of a thing or two to keep us both occupied.” His grin then was as wicked as the first time he met her and twice as knowing; Acton thought he could still manage to make her yell, if she needed a reason to. When he leaned close and nipped at the bright gold of her neck just above her throat, the heat of his breath suggested as much.
“If you’ll still have me,” he added, low, and stepped away toward the keep and her quarters like he walked it every day. Maybe in his dreams, he did.
with a fuse that's so thoroughly shot
@
