“Someshaking?” she spouts off. “This wasn’t some shaking, Osrik! It sounded like the entire earth was cracking open!”
“That’s because it fucking was!”
“Well, excuse me,Sir Army Captain, that I decided to not simply stand around and let the building collapse on me,” she says snappishly. “I went outside so I could see what was going on.”
I pinch my nose between my thumb and finger, like I can squeeze some reasoning into her pretty fucking head. When I take a breath and drop my hand, I look her in the eye. “You could havedied. I went to the barracks to find you, and you weren’t there. I thought you were stuck in a pile of rubble and buried ten feet in the ground somewhere.”
Her blue eyes flash. “I saw the wall and the guard towers start to fall. The ground was shaking so hard I couldn’t even stand straight. But I wanted to see where you were. I needed to make sure you were okay too, you giant oaf!” she yells, her fiery tone lashing at me with accusation.
The retort I was about to spout dies on my tongue. We stare at each other, both of us breathing hard, still exhaling out our panic.
After a second, a sigh leaks out of me, poked through with the holes in my chest from where the fear clawed into me.
“When I came down here and couldn’t find you…” My own admission grates out between us. “It scared me to fucking death.”
She pushes out a sigh of her own, her anger loosening. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“Are you going to start listening to me?”
“Yes. Sometimes. When it seems like the right thing to do. And if it suits me.”
I grind my teeth. “At least you’re fucking honest.” I pull her to my chest. My pulse is still fucking pounding, but holding her helps. Reassures me that she’s okay.
“Soldiers died?” she asks quietly.
I pause at rubbing her back. “Yeah.”
“Is it difficult for you?”
I see a flash of the soldiers’ faces as they fell into the breaking wall. Hear the sounds of them screaming…
“Every fucking time,” I admit with acid burning my gut.
Rissa looks up at my face, her voice softening. “I really am sorry that I wasn’t in the barracks. That I made you panic.”
“I’m sorry that I yelled.” I curl my hand around the back of her head and pull her in so I can lean down and kiss her. “You can’t scare me like that again.”
She hums. “Well, then you know the solution for next time, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Simple. We don’t separate. You should’ve had me with you on the wall,” she says breezily.
I blink at her. She must be joking.
When she continues to look at me, I shake my head. “Yellow Bell. I’m not bringing you up on afucking fortress wallto throwcatapultsinto afae army.”
She leans away with a frown. “And why not?”
Fucking hell. This woman.
I shake my head in frustration. “You don’t go onto the actual battlegrounds. I’m not arguing with you about this.”
“There’s nothing to argue,” she argues. “We stay together. We don’t want to worry about each other, so that’s what’s going to work best for us.”
I mutter under my breath about this difficult, frustrating, beautiful fucking woman of mine. Who absolutely willnotbe going on the battle lines.
For fuck’s sake.
