Chapter 19 #2
Little John lets out a low grunt that might be a laugh, and Marian finds it easy to ignore the rawness thrumming beneath her sternum. The path ahead winds gently through speckled sunlight, and, for a moment, everything feels easy.
The village stirs with a midday rhythm. Voices lift in chatter from the communal hearths, the scent of roasted roots and herb broth curling through the air.
Someone’s mending fishing nets near the stream, while children dart between hanging bridges overhead, their laughter trailing like ribbons in the wind.
Marian slows at the fork in the path that leads up to her quarters, staring up at the familiar arch of her bough visible between two wide-trunked oaks. She turns to the others.
‘I think I’ll rest for a bit,’ she says.
Will nods, their expression unreadable but no longer distant. ‘Eat something, you earned it.’
Allen claps his hands together, toes tapping with theatrical flourish. ‘May your solitude be short, because tonight we celebrate!’
Marian arches a brow. ‘Celebrate?’
‘The Severing, remember?’
She blinks and shakes her head. ‘Of course.’
Will glances toward the path that leads deeper into the village, then back to Marian.
‘You could join us this time,’ they say carefully. ‘Instead of watching from that perch in your room.’
‘Oh yes, please come!’ Allen claps again, grin blooming instantly. ‘There will be music, and vows, and at least three questionable pies. And,’ he leans closer, stage-whispering, ‘you’ll get to watch Will pretend they don’t cry every single year.’
Little John huffs a soft sound. He taps two fingers over his heart, points to Marian and then up through the canopy, where the heart tree’s crown towers, and finally draws a slow circle in the air that encloses all of them. An invitation in gesture: together.
Marian’s throat goes tight. For a heartbeat she can only nod, fingers skimming the new vine beneath her collarbone as if to be sure it’s still there, still warm.
‘What does it entail?’ she asks softly.
Allen spreads his hands. ‘We eat. We sing. The Elders recite the old words, while we cut ties and make promises we’re terrified to keep. Then we weave something new.’
‘You don’t have to speak,’ Will adds, ‘but if you want, you can hand the forest one thread you’re done carrying and let it fall.’
‘I’ll think on it,’ Marian answers.
Little John puts a massive hand on her shoulder, her body sinking with the pat, before he turns and marches back toward the village. The others follow while Marian makes her way up the narrow steps to her quarters.
The door opens easily, and she steps into the quiet. It smells faintly of dried lavender and freshly baked bread. A loaf, still steaming in its cloth wrap, rests beside a bowl of stew on the small table.
And there, in front of it, sits Lox.
For a breathless moment, Marian can only stand still and stare.
He doesn’t just look alive, but whole – cheeks flushed with colour, eyes alert and bright cadmium.
There’s a faint sheen to his skin, as if his body is still working to knit itself back together.
But there’s no slump to his posture, no grinding jaw or sharp edge of pain darkening the gold of his gaze.
Relief drives the air from her lungs. She’s only just beginning to realize how tightly she’d been holding herself together, how afraid she’d been that he might not have made it through the night.
Lox glances up and a small, crooked smile tilts his mouth. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
She exhales a shaky laugh and closes the door behind her. ‘You’re not nearly pale enough.’
‘I brought you lunch.’ His voice is threaded with hesitation as he gestures to the tray. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’
Marian crosses the room slowly, afraid that if she rushes, the moment might collapse beneath the tangle of gratitude and guilt unravelling in her chest.
‘Thank you,’ she murmurs before sinking into the chair across from him. Her palms rest against her thighs, fingers twitching, when she notices the tiny fox made of stems beside the bowl.
‘The healers said you were at my bedside the whole night.’
Silence stretches between them.
‘I thought you were going to die,’ she eventually admits, her voice barely a whisper. ‘If you had—’ Her throat catches on the thought. She shakes her head, but it doesn’t clear anything. ‘I’d never have forgiven myself.’
Lox’s brow creases. ‘Why? This wasn’t your fault.’
‘Those nets. The combination of fae ore and iron . . . They were my designs.’ Her voice crackles.
Lox studies her for a long, aching moment, and the quiet needles under her skin. He leans forward and steeples his fingers together.
‘You’ve already atoned for what you did under your father’s roof.’
Marian doesn’t realize she’s shaking until his fingers brush hers.
‘It doesn’t matter what you’ve built with them before,’ he breathes. ‘What matters is what you build with those hands from here.’
She swallows hard, but the lump in her throat won’t budge. She stares at their joined hands and looks up at him tentatively, but his gaze drops to where her neckline has slipped to reveal the vine inked fresh over her sternum.
His eyes darken as his thumb traces the edge of the mark, the contact featherlight and unbearable all at once.
A pulse throbs between her thighs so sharp she nearly gasps.
Lox’s nostrils flare, his preternatural senses triggered. He rises from his chair and circles around the table to kneel before her, fingers never leaving her skin. He traces a little further down, leaving the vine behind and moving toward the curve of her breast. She arches into the touch.
‘Does it hurt?’ His voice is gruff with desire.
The memory of every unfinished moment between them surfaces. Of the way his body had felt beneath hers. Of the taste of his mouth, the weight of his hands, the rasp of his voice when he said her name.
And saints, she wants it. She wants him.
‘Yes,’ she whispers, legs falling open around him.
His mouth curves into something sharp and feral. ‘Mind if I take a closer look?’ He tugs at the laces of her tunic.
All she can do is nod, lifting her arms above her as he slides the garment over her head and drops it onto the floor in a breathless hush. He takes his time, looking over every inch of exposed skin.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs, his fingers ghosting over the tattoo again. His touch drifts over the bud of her breast, the soft swell of her stomach, then the edge of her hip where skin pebbles beneath the pads of his thumb.
He leans forward and places a kiss at the centre of the ink.
A shaky breath leaves Marian. She cradles the back of his head, tangling her fingers in his hair, holding him to her.
His tongue follows the winding curve of the vine, teeth grazing where the thorns twist into her skin.
Marian’s head tips back, thighs quivering. A moan slips out of her and he groans in response.
‘I want you to remember today,’ he sighs, mouth hot against her belly, dragging lower. ‘Not for the pain you’ve endured, but for how good I made you feel after.’
Lox’s gaze is steady as she lifts her hips and tugs her skirt down. His eyes never leave her face, not even when her thighs part fully and he disappears between them like a penitent. He presses a kiss to the inside of her knee, then another higher up to the dimpled skin of her thigh.
Each kiss comes closer than the last, until Marian is trembling with anticipation. When his tongue finally brushes over her, a strangled gasp slips out of her, torn from someplace low and aching.
And Lox purrs at the sound like he’s starved.
Marian tries to stay quiet and dignified, but when he growls into her with need, her control fractures. She fists her hand in his hair, guiding him harder, deeper. He goes willingly and vibrates with approval when she shakes beneath him.
‘Robin,’ she moans as if it’s the only thing she’s ever known how to say.
Her hips buck against him, desperate for more friction, more pressure, and he obliges, brushing the calloused pad of his thumb against her until she cries out.
Marian’s back bows, her body trembles with the force of release, legs clenching around his shoulders.
Lox laps at her through the crest and aftershock like a man utterly possessed.
When she finally slumps, boneless and wrung out, he presses one last reverent kiss to her slick, swollen centre.
She can’t speak. Can’t think. The mark on her chest throbs, raw and alive, as if echoing the roar he just coaxed from her depths.
After a moment, Lox rises. His mouth glistens with her.
He looks proud and utterly undone. His lips drag up her sides as he kisses the round of her stomach, the underside of her breast, the base of her throat.
When he reaches her mouth, he hovers there, close enough that she can practically taste herself on his breath.
She sees the war in his eyes. Want and restraint. Hunger and devotion.
Marian curls her arms around his neck and pulls him down to her with lips open and grateful.
The kiss is laced with something fragile, and when he sighs into her mouth, she realizes it’s relief.
He needed this as much as she did. Not just the release, but the proof that there’s something here worth exploring, despite his confession that no future for them could exist.
She kisses him harder. For once, she’s not running from want, but claiming it, savouring it, weaving it into memory just like the ink beneath her skin.
Pain may have brought her here, but this moment is what she chooses to remember.