𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞

𝐓 𝐖 𝐄 𝐋 𝐕 𝐄

𝐍𝐨 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞

Briéa sits on the edge of her bed. She wears nothing besides a shirt that's barely long enough to reach her thighs. Outside it snows and frost coats her window, but the fire in the hearth keeps her warm. One hand rests behind her, keeping her body propped up. In the other she spins her dagger. The hilt weaves through her fingers and slides over the top of her hand in practiced motions. It isn't long before her door creaks open.

Zaarin has never cared much for subtlety, neither has Briéa. But after they were viciously chewed out one morning by Zaara, they've made an effort to be more discreet.

The door isn't even shut when Briéa says, in a tone edging on boredom, "Think fast." She throws her dagger right at the back of Zaarin's head. But his instincts are the sharpest of anyone she's ever met, except for maybe his aunt. The Reaper's Shiv isn't even a threat to him.

He turns around, grins, and lets the blade fly towards him, stopping it just before it threatens to pierce his eye. Her dagger hangs, suspended in mid-air by his magic. With lazy flicks of his fingers, her blade begins to turn in the air. It follows him as he makes his way to Briéa's bed, standing above her.

With a snap it drops into his palm. He bends over, close enough Briéa can taste the wine on his breath. Zaarin slowly drags the steel of her blade against the line of her mouth. The corners of his mouth twitch up. Briéa breathes in through her nose watching Zaarin's eyes.

Dark as midnight. Tempting as whiskey. Devilish as the sea.

In one, fluid, impossibly fast, movement, she stands and twists his wrist to press the blade in his hand against his own throat. Not hard enough to draw blood, but enough that the skin would turn red from irritation if he craned his neck. Her forearm pressed against his to keep him pinned. Zaarin grins once he feels her other hand begin to undo the bottom buttons of his tunic.

"You know I only let you do that." He draws his bottom lip between his teeth not breaking Briéa's gaze.

The last button opens and Zaarin's gray and crimson tunic hangs open. Briéa drags a hand, painstakingly slow up his torso, her nails graze over the ridges of his stomach and up the curves of his chest. She releases her hold on him and his arm falls to his side. He drops the dagger on her bedside table while she traces the veins of his neck. A muscle in his jaw flexes when Briéa perches on her toes to brush the lobe of his ear with her mouth.

"Sure you did." She kisses him and can now taste the wine. "Awfully inconsiderate not to bring me any." Zaarin laughs. She can feel it rumble from his chest beneath her hand.

His hands have slipped under her shirt and bring her in close by the waist. "It tasted like shit." He kisses her. "You wouldn't have liked it." The words vibrate against her lips. Then his hands leave her hips and he bends enough to run them down her bare thighs, a trail of heat in their wake. They hook behind her knees and lift her up. "But I'll make it up to you all the same," he says into the crook of her neck.

She laughs and then sighs when he starts kissing the skin of her collarbone.

"Good."

The bed is below her and Zaarin hovers over her, fingers running delicately up and down the skin of her left leg. Her unmarred leg.

Zaarin couldn't have cared less about the scar, but Briéa hates the feel of another's touch on her burned skin. She fears fire will claim it once more to finish what it started and take the rest of her leg. Even a well trained mystic can produce a flame on accident. Zaarin learned, with a knee to the gut-which Briéa did feel some remorse for-, not to tread near the remnants of the savage fire left from that fatal night.

The tunic slides off Zaarin's broad shoulders and Briéa's deft fingers unlatch the belt around his waist. It doesn't take long for the shirt to come over Briéa's head and the pants down Zaarin's legs.

Their bodies are hot against one another. Breaths start to grow heavy, sighs and gasps all meshing into one. Instinctively Briéa arches into Zaarin and he sinks into her. Feverish mouths clash together. Teeth pull on lips and Zaarin trails kisses down Briéa's navel. She rises at the heat.

It may have only been two weeks.

But two weeks too many. Stars dot her vision and his mouth retraces its path back up to hers. She drags her hands over the muscles of his back, his own holding the strength of her legs, both moving together. And when they flip over Zaarin's hands go to grip her hips and guide each of her motions.

It is late into the night when Briéa finally crawls off of Zaarin. She can almost taste the electricity in the air. Sweat glistens off their chests. A breathless laugh escapes Zaarin as he rests his hands under his head. Briéa manages one as well. She sinks face down into a pillow and exhaustion nearly takes her.

"Good to have you back."

Still coming off her high, Briéa smiles. "Good to be back." Which is mostly true.

She watches him look over at her. He's turned to his stomach, a hand drifts to a scar on her shoulder, his fingertips barely brush the line. It's an old one, from the early days as the Crimson Reaper.

She had come across the name of a low-ranked commander under King Marev's flag. One who was part of the Kelrose attack. When she found him, she cut his throat in his sleep. Briéa wasn't expecting him to have a wife. The wife put up a fight, grabbed a knife and swung wildly at Briéa. It wasn't hard to get the upper hand but the woman managed to slice the knife through her shoulder. The commander's wife was dead before Briéa even felt the pain of the cut. Zaarin knows the story. It was one of the first stories she told him when they started... when they started whatever this is.

Briéa lost Aesira to the Kelrose attack. Zaarin lost Bran. When Briéa returned to the Syndicate, it didn't take long for her to revive the friendship she's always had with Zaarin. What started as nights spent together drinking and reminiscing of brighter days, and on the rare occasion talking of their pain, turned into nights spent in one another's bed.

"Be my Shield." She can hear the drowsiness in his voice. Briéa shakes her head. Now she traces the lines on his arm, the tattoos that curl over his skin, the ink itself thrumming with power. His back remains bare. One night Zaarin told Briéa what he plans to do when he receives his second charm, once he becomes Thorn. He already has designs drawn up for the tattoo to continue along his back, the powder of his second charm blended with the ink.

"That life isn't for me anymore," she mutters into her arm. Zaarin brushes the hair back from her face.

"You really will just-," his eyes search hers in the dark, "leave?" She nods once and brings her hand against Zaarin's cheek.

"This place is no longer home." Zaarin doesn't respond. Her hand falls from his face but he catches it, pressing a gentle kiss to the tips of her fingers, before drifting off. The exhaustion finds her again and she rests her head back onto her pillow and falls into the dark of sleep.