Will – They Bleed #3
She spun toward him, stopping in her tracks, her eyes flashing with sudden, explosive anger. “I am walking on a dirt path, Will. I am not helpless. I can’t do this anymore.”
Will stopped, his jaw locking. “Do what? I am trying to keep you safe.”
“You are smothering me!” she fired back, her voice echoing through the trees.
“You lay out my clothes every morning. You tell me what foods I am allowed to eat. You try to dictate my entire schedule. I lived on my own with Ellie for years. I kept us alive without anyone telling me what to do. We have had two months together, and of that, over three weeks we were separated. You may have more transportation and magic experience, but I am not incapable.”
“This is different,” he insisted, his heart hammering against his ribs.
“I know it is,” her voice broke slightly, though her glare remained fierce.
“I know what those pirates did to you. I appreciate that you are dealing with the trauma of your torture, and I know you are terrified for the baby and me. But I cannot accept this behavior. It is suffocating. We trust each other, or we die.”
He stared at her, the sharp ache of her words echoing in his head, rivaling the burning pain in his side.
She was asking for the impossible. Trusting her meant risking her, and as long as he had breath in his lungs, he was never going to stand by and watch her take a hit he could have taken for her.
Before he could voice the thought, the dark iron of the portcullis emerged through the trees.
Malin stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
Without asking, she pressed her hands to his bleeding side.
Warm, golden magic flooded his ribs, instantly sealing the rest of his torn flesh before they stepped into the safety of the courtyard.
At the iron grate of the portcullis, Aldrik straightened his spine, wiped mud from his boots, and looked back at them. “You have until the top of the bell to look presentable. We must be in line. We are part of the ceremony after all. After that, it is all bowing and handshakes.”
Reaching the corridor to their chambers, Aldrik disappeared into his own room, already unfastening his coat. Left alone in the hall, Will and Malin stood awkwardly, the anger between them still raw.
Finally, she looked up at him, her blue eyes tired and red at the corners. “You know I love you, right?” she said, voice almost a whisper.
He nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“Then let me fight. I don’t want to be locked away.”
He wanted to promise her that he would trust her.
He wanted to say that he’d do better, that he would stop protecting her and start letting her fight by his side the way they did in the West Woods.
But that was before she carried their child.
Before he learned he couldn’t survive without her.
Before the waking nightmare of her death began to tear at his soul, rivaling the darkest memories of his captivity at the hands of Captain Nemilios.
Instead, all he said was, “We’ll talk about it. Later.”
She shook her head, not angry now, just weary. “We never do.”
How could she say they never did?
It had been less than a month since they returned with the children from the Draco Mountains.
Before that, this never came up. He tried to tell himself it was just the stress of the pregnancy making her bristle, or the adrenaline of the ambush talking.
It was easier to blame the hormones than to admit she was right…
that his terror was actively suffocating her.
An hour later, dressed in the tailored misery the palace called formal wear, he headed down to meet Malin with the children. The bright chime of enchanted bells echoed through the corridors, announcing the start of the ceremony.
As he walked down the corridor toward the reception hall, he pressed a hand to his side. It was a phantom ache, as he was healed, but he doubted the pain would ever truly go away. Not when the deepest wounds had nothing to do with rusted steel.
He survived the torture. He survived the darkness that nearly destroyed him. The physical wound was closed, but the phantom weight of Captain Nemilios’s chains still dragged at his wrists.
Every time he closed his eyes, the palace walls vanished, replaced by the face of the man who almost broke him. His mind showed him images: She lay dying. The stone shattered her spine, a rusted blade caught her throat, and the mother of his unborn child bled out into the dirt.
The mere thought of a world without her in it was a bone-crushing devastation.
Each desperate save screamed that he didn’t trust her strength or her magic, which were far greater than his own. He was suffocating her. The cruel irony twisted like a knife in his gut: the tighter he held on to keep her and the baby safe, the more she bristled, pushing him away.
The distance was growing between them, a cold wedge fracturing the very bond that kept him sane. His terror was actively destroying their marriage, but when the weapons were drawn and the blood started spilling, logic vanished.
Panic took the reins, leaving him powerless to stop himself.