“Let me take your pain,” Alvis said, and Dutch turned away from him, arms wrapped tight around her torso. It wouldn’t help; he wouldn’t leave unless she outright told him to. She could hear him, deliberate footsteps on the ground, and knew what was coming even before his hands pressed into her shoulders. “Dutch. You don’t need to carry it alone.”
“What if I want to?” she snapped, spinning to face him, fists tight.
Alvis didn’t step back, just raised his hands and smiled sadly. “Are you telling me you want to?” he asked, and his eyes burnt into hers. He’d always had a talent for seeing the truth.
Dutch grimaced. “No.”
“Then let me take it.” He reached out again, slowly, like she was a spooked cat.
Dutch let his fingers rest on her cheek for a single second before she grabbed his wrist and squeezed it. “Fine.” She raised an eyebrow. “Where shall we go for our devotions, Scarback?”
Alvis grinned, eyes already darkening. “Your place? Or would you prefer mine?”
“For this? Yours.” Dutch released Alvis, following him through the streets of Old Town. “You know Lucy disapproves of activities that leave blood on the carpets.”
She heard Alvis’ breath hiss despite the crowds. “So much?”
“Alvis.” Dutch came up beside him, wove her fingers into his. “You know the score.”
“Sometimes I think I really don’t.”
But he didn’t say anything else, and neither did she, until they wound their way through the tunnels to the clean—sanctified, Alvis called it—rooms the Scarbacks kept for private confessions with their devotees. It rubbed Dutch the wrong way, most of the time; the Scarbacks’ religion wasn’t hers, because she didn’t have one, and devotion was never the reason she came here. It was still a place where Alvis was comfortable, and there was safety in the pretense of religion—and even more in the knowledge that nobody would come here uninvited.
Alvis stripped in practiced economy as Dutch closed and bolted the door behind them. She didn’t remove any of her clothes, just waited and looked at Alvis’ naked form. He was beautiful; he’d always been beautiful, and she mostly didn’t think too hard about that. The tapestry of intersecting marks on his body—thin dark lines of scabs on his arms and chest and hips, thicker intentionally-scarred flesh on his back—simply drew attention to the swell and ebb of his muscles and the simple grace with which he resided in his flesh.
Dutch drew in a breath as he looked at her, perfectly calm, perfectly silent. Her skin itched. Her lungs didn’t want to settle. Her blood thumped in her ears. “Alvis.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Dutch.”
“Strip me.”
Alvis nodded and approached, hands quick and sure. He even pulled out most of the weapons Dutch hid on her clothes before gently urging her out of them. She didn’t know when he’d spotted them, but this wasn’t the first time he’d undressed her; it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to have felt the harder spots that weren’t outright armor. Dutch kept herself still until she too was nude, and then bent to pick up her favorite pocket-knife.
“Tell me,” she said, unsheathing it, “what your limits are today.”
“I need to be able to continue my duties.” Alvis clasped his hands behind his back, and Dutch absently noticed that his dick was beginning to harden. “I trust your judgement, otherwise.”
Dutch snorted. She was just far enough away from Alvis that she couldn’t reach him without stepping forward again. “Is your safeword still devil?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Whenever you’re ready, Dutch.”
Dutch moved, knife leading her way until its blade just kissed Alvis’ jaw. She pressed up, and Alvis gave easily, chin tilting back and exposing his throat. Dutch leaned in to nip at his Adam’s apple, which twitched as her teeth scraped it. His beard scruff rasped against her cheek as she leaned around him, biting just underneath his ear on the opposite side of her knife.
He didn’t twitch. Dutch only barely caught the exhale as the minor pain hit, but it was easy to feel his heartbeat speeding up in anticipation. Dutch slid her free hand around to grab Alvis’ hair tight, keeping him still as she created enough distance to slowly lower her knife, tracing a faint line—not enough to draw blood, not yet—down the delicate skin of his throat and onto his chest. There, where the faint lines of his own blessings made long crosshatched patterns, she pressed the edge deeper.
Alvis jerked in her grasp, mouth open and eyes wide, before breathing slow and deep. Dutch rubbed her thumb against his scalp, where her hand tangled in his hair, and kept her gaze on the dark blood welling up around her steel blade.
Red, like the flesh of a plum.
Red, like dimmest fire.
Red, like metaphorical hearts in Leithian celebrations.
Red, bright and vital and glorious against Alvis’ pale skin.
Red, iron against her tongue as she bent to taste it.
Red, human and real and untainted by Hullen-green.
Dutch tore a long gash across Alvis’ chest and then tossed her knife away so she could press her hand against it. Alvis groaned, the sound shaking through her bones as she squeezed, coating her fingers in his life, eyes fixed on the way it slowly dripped down his chest, her hands. She hadn’t cut deep. She didn’t need to. She just needed enough to remind herself what she was fighting for, and that—
“What do you dream of?” Alvis murmured, his eyes dark and sharp. “Do you see her?”
“In my nightmares.” Dutch dragged her hand down his chest, leaving a trail along his muscles and down to the softness of his stomach. “I am her.”
Alvis’ hips pressed up, ever so slightly, but his voice didn’t change at all. “Does this help?”
Dutch laughed, and slid her hand down to grasp his dick. “Maybe.”
“Whatever you need, Dutch.” Alvis smiled, and Dutch could feel the tension in his muscles as he kept his hands behind his back, not reaching out. “You can have it.”
Dutch let out a breath, nodded sharply, and then shoved him back against a wall, capturing his mouth with hers.
There was no more time for thought; only for answering the most deeply human call of their blood.