Recent content by Anais

Anais’s hand slowed, the cloth dragging gently across his skin as her brows pinched together. A chill rolled over her despite the warm air in the cottage, and for a moment she just looked at him, really looked, as though seeing the shadow of what might’ve happened if she hadn’t bound herself to...

Anais watched him with a quiet, unwavering tenderness, as though there was nothing in the world more ordinary, nothing more natural than him allowing her to see him stripped of fur, of strength, of all the things he thought made him worthy. His pride stung through the bond like a muted echo and...

She watched him with that weary tenderness, eyes still bright despite the exhaustion dragging at her bones. “Why do you believe that you deserve less?..” she asked with a gentle frown, her voice quiet.. “It was not the first time you have saved me from monsters. Why did I deserve to be saved...

Anais wished she could do more. Even after giving part of herself, binding soul to soul, it didn’t feel like enough. He had fought and bled, had almost died for her, and now his pain crawled through the bond like a shadow, and she wished she could take it from him entirely, strip it from his...

Anais moved through the cottage with the kind of purposeful focus that came from terror wearing off just enough to let practicality take its place. Fear still trembled in her limbs, but her hands were steady now, her mind sharp. She gathered wood, knelt, struck flint, and coaxed a flame to life...

Anais felt something click into place when he said it. Not a spark, not a flutter, but something deep, something anchored. As if a piece of her had been wandering for years only to finally find where it belonged. Her breath hitched, her chest aching with relief so sharp it was almost pain. She...

Anais’s eyes went wide as Fingal convulsed, her pulse hammering in her chest. The magic she’d called filled the air like smoke, thick and heavy and alive, and she could feel it coil around them both, binding and burning in equal measure. Her lips trembled as she whispered the words again, the...

“Vey athra miir valen tua. Seyl’en vahl ren’dar tua. Sael’mir vaen doras a’nai. Tir shael veyen… kael’thra nai.” For a heartbeat, nothing moved. There was no sound, no breath, no whisper from the world around them. Just the trembling rasp of her own lungs trying to remember how to work...

“Fin—!!” The scream ripped from her before she even knew she’d made it. Her whole body jerked back as the daemon lunged, claws flashing, its monstrous weight crushing down on him. The raw and strangled sound of pain he made cut straight through her. Then came the silence. That silence. Her...

Anais stumbled back, her hands shaking so violently she almost dropped the small anvil she’d grabbed, but she hurled it anyway, striking the daemon's face with a clang that made the thing shriek. She didn’t stop. Another hammer, a half-melted horseshoe, she threw until her satchel was empty...

Anais flinched as Fingal lunged, the sudden violence jolting her like a spark through her nerves. She hadn’t even seen it clearly until the poker struck home, and now that she did, her terror was cast anew. The daemon moved faster than Anais could blink. Its entire body shuddered in a horrible...

Anais froze when his arm shot out in front of her, her body locking in place before her mind even caught up. The sound reached her a moment later, low, guttural breaths tearing at te silence, raking across her mind. Her grip on the poker tightened until her hand throbbed. Her whole body urged...

Anais stared at him for a moment, his words cutting through the haze of her panic. He needed her. She’d been moving only because his hand had kept her steady, her body following where her mind refused to go. But hsi words snapped something into place. Her heart still rattled in her chest like it...

Anais nodded, but it was forced, her body moving on the sheer momentum of his words rather than her own bravery. Her hands shook as she rose, her breath shallow in her chest. Every thump of her heart seemed loud enough to give them away. She picked her steps carefully down the stairs, the wood...

Anais flinched when his hands closed around her arms, not from fear of him, but from the urgency in his grip, the dread humming through his touch. It shook her. She stumbled slightly as he turned her, but obeyed without protest, swallowing down the bile rising in her throat. The house was...