oopsie i tripped and spilled my link to archive dot org's downloadable copy of Microsoft office suite for 2007, which features no AI tools and is a powerful word processor that still holds up just fine on windows 10!
In honour of the last day of @nestaarcheronweek, here's another viking!Cassian offering 🫶🏻
Chapter seven: Nesta makes a new friend, and Cassian takes the opportunity to get his hands on her teach her how to hold a sword.
(Previous chapter // next chapter)
With his hand still tight around her own, Cassian ducked beneath an old stone archway. Easily, he pulled Nesta away from the bustling street and into a small courtyard lined on all sides with carved wooden pillars. The noise of the docks suddenly seemed a hundred miles away; the gulls flying overhead the only indication that they hadn’t strayed all that far from the river. Only a pocket of silence greeted them as Cassian slowed his steps, and Nesta took the time to cast her eyes over the courtyard, taking in the swords propped up against the walls of the low-roofed building on the side; the axes with dull blades in need of sharpening gathered on a long table, and the anvil larger than any she had ever seen that sat beside a pail of water, ready and waiting to hammer a sword into shape. From inside, the glow of a fire illuminated the open doorway.
Nesta was no soldier, but she could recognise a forge when she saw one.
And in the centre of the courtyard, her chin raised as if combat was already on the cards, a woman stood alone.
“Emerie,” Cassian said smoothly, inclining his head in greeting. His eyes slid to the forge behind her, shadows dancing in the doorway as the flames flickered inside. “I suspected we’d find you here.”
In one hand Emerie balanced a sword— a great longsword made of shining steel, so smooth and unmarred it was clear it had never yet tasted bloodshed, and her eyes were hard as she scrutinised Cassian with a muscle ticking in her jaw. Only slowly, only reluctantly, did she lower that blade.
“Cassian,” she answered flatly, brows lowering in something close to a frown as, with a soft hiss, she slid the sword into a sheath at her hip. “How pleased I am to see you.”
Sarcasm dripped from her words like honey, and that almost-frown transformed into a full-fledged scowl as Cassian stepped further into the courtyard, offering Emerie a dazzling smile that she did not return.
“I do not think you and Nesta have been properly introduced.”
Emerie said nothing, only took a single step forward with her lips pressed into a thin line. She wore leather armour, her dark hair braided away from her face and hanging in a plait down her spine, and Nesta realised with clarity that she had seen this woman before: she had nodded at Nesta last night, extending a silent invitation to join her as Nesta entered the hall. But she had been warm then— friendly, even. And Nesta didn’t know what had changed in the hours that had passed since, but clearly something had rankled.
“The Saxon Rhysand is keeping hold of,” she said, her eyes scanning Nesta from head to toe, like she was a weapon to inspect for flaw or imperfection.
Nesta raised a brow. “Just Nesta will do.”
The female warrior mirrored Nesta’s own quirked brow, a slow smirk curving one side of her lips as her eyes began to dance. “Not Lady Mandray?”
“No,” Nesta said firmly. “I don’t think so.”
“Neither do I. It doesn’t suit you,” Cassian announced breezily, urging Nesta forward with the flat of his palm against her shoulder blades. She didn’t fail to notice the way he kept himself a half-step behind her, like this was one impression he wanted her to make on her own; a judgement entirely hers to form. Smoothly, as his fingertips brushed the top of her spine, he said, “This is Emerie.”
Emerie shot him an exasperated look before sketching a mocking bow and dipping her head even as she turned her attention to Nesta and gave her a small smile, like whatever test had just been posed, Nesta had passed it.
“You are a warrior,” Nesta said, somehow both a question and a statement as she cast her eyes over the sword at Emerie’s hip and the leather covering her chest. A bracelet of scars encircled her wrists, too symmetrical to be accidental, and as Emerie flicked her long braid over her shoulder, Nesta blinked, pulling her eyes back up to the woman’s face.
“It is… unusual for me to see a woman with a sword,” she added.
Emerie snorted. “It is unusual for me to see a woman without one.”
An unexpected smile tugged at the corner of Nesta’s mouth. Emerie’s dark eyes didn’t stray from hers, like Cassian had disappeared entirely, and God, Nesta had spent so long around women who were trained to hold their tongue and worship silence that it felt freeing somehow, just to stand in Emerie’s presence. She wondered if Emerie could tell. If Cassian could tell. Indeed, when Nesta glanced to her side to catch the expression on his face, he was standing with his arms folded and his eyes gleaming, like he couldn’t wait to see how this played out.
“Emerie has fought beside me in more than one battle,” Cassian said smoothly as Nesta’s eyes alighted briefly on his face. “She’s formidable in a shield wall.”
“She can speak for herself,” Emerie added tartly, her gaze turning acidic as she turned to frown at Cassian, her expression enough to have frozen over even the most fervent fires of Hell. Nesta couldn’t say what it was the Dane had done to get on Emerie’s bad side, but as the latter’s brows lowered, she couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t think of a single occasion where she’d heard a woman speak so frankly to a man back in Wessex— couldn’t think of a single occasion where a woman had so profoundly refused to bow and scrape. “And she’s done a lot more than fight beside you in battle. She’s saved your neck once or twice too, though I can’t understand why.”
Cassian waved a hand as he grinned. “That, too.”
Nesta cleared her throat. “Is it heavy?” she asked, nodding to the sword sheathed at Emerie’s hip. The latter only sent her a crooked smile and, wordlessly, withdrew the blade with sure and practiced ease before extending it hilt-first.
“See for yourself,” Emerie said, pushing the weapon into Nesta’s grip and giving her no choice but to curl her fingers tentatively around it. “Fresh from the forge. I was just about to test its weight and balance.”
“You made this?”
“Balthazar is the blacksmith,” Emerie answered, shaking her head before nodding to the building behind them, towards the sounds of hammering coming from within. “But I take a look over the blades once he’s done.”
Nesta raised a brow, but said nothing. Instead she let her hand tighten around the sword, its weight so foreign in her hand, the leather smooth against her palm and yet so unbearably strange. It was heavy, and she didn’t know how much strength it would take to swing it, let alone to wield it in battle. Slowly, she turned her head, casting a wary look Cassian’s way.
But where she might have expected to find disapproval from any self-respecting Saxon, instead there was a look in Cassian’s eyes that Nesta couldn’t read and didn’t recognise— a curious kind of heat that had something passing between them when their eyes connected; a current that had her throat tightening.
“Not even Volundr himself could craft something so fine,” Cassian said smoothly, his eyes still pinned to hers, like the entire courtyard had narrowed for him, until the entire world was contained within the space that stretched between his body and hers, alight with tension. Heat simmered in his gaze, and when he drew his lip between his teeth, Nesta thought that even God might forgive - must understand - the way her thoughts turned away from the weapon in her hand and strayed to his mouth, his lips, and—
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Emerie answered, fixing Cassian with a hard stare as she took a step back and folded her arms once more across her chest. With great effort, Nesta pulled her eyes away and focused on the weapon in her hands as Emerie cleared her throat and added, with the sudden intensity of a striking viper,
“Kallon’s dead, by the way.”
Nesta felt her grip falter.
And there it was— a lightning strike; a bolt from above that brought with it a moment of heavy silence, broken only by the sounds of the forge inside. Over the sound of clanging steel Emerie looked at Cassian with nothing but furious accusation levelled in her gaze, and though he let her words roll over him as smoothly as a wave, he kept his face so carefully blank, it was impossible to guess what he was thinking.
“Is he, now?” he drawled, blinking only once before settling his attention back on Nesta and jerking his chin as her grip shifted on the hilt of Emerie’s sword. “Straighten your spine. Keep the weight balanced.”
Emerie scowled. “His body was found outside the hall this morning. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
Her voice was filled with enough ire that Nesta wondered whether the Danes ever enforced rank. If Cassian, as close as he was to the lord, would allow a shield-wall soldier to speak to him the way Emerie did. But he didn’t react, only stalked towards Nesta with purpose in every step, placing a hand over hers, wrapped around the sword’s hilt.
With Nesta’s fingers beneath his, he shot Emerie a simple, “No,” over his shoulder before he brought his lips close to Nesta’s ear, dropping his voice to a low whisper. “Two handed grip. You’ll put more power into a swing that way.”
“You stole my kill, Cassian.”
Cassian pulled back, and Nesta felt the warmth leech from her fingers the moment his touch retreated. She forced herself to focus on the weight of the sword, how with every passing second it felt more and more like something she could get used to, and when she turned her head, it was Emerie’s turn to give her a brief nod of curt encouragement before she turned her attention back to Cassian, dark eyes narrowing as she pinned him with a lethal glare.
“So that’s why you’re looking at me like I cursed your entire bloodline,” Cassian hummed. “Come, Em. I didn’t steal anything.”
“You know why I didn’t put my dagger through his spine. Rhysand said—“
“And since when do you ever listen to what Rhysand says?” Cassian snorted.
As Emerie huffed, Nesta made to lower the sword, but one look from Cassian, one sharp quirk of a scar-split brow, had her lifting it back up again. When he winked, she felt her heart trip a little in her chest. The stupid, ridiculous thing.
Emerie opened her mouth, her eyes like a gathering storm as she dropped her folded arms from her chest and stepped forward, clenching her fists. Fury was writ large on her face, and Nesta didn’t quite understand why there was so much tension over a murdered man, but she didn’t feel like asking. Not as Emerie took another step forward and Cassian grinned the way he had that first day, when Nesta had watched him spar with Azriel before Rhysand’s hall.
But before Emerie could speak - before she could raise her fist to Cassian’s face - shouts came from inside, her name called by a deep, male voice that carried the same heavy accent at Cassian’s. A question seemed to be posed in a tongue Nesta didn’t understand, and though Emerie let out a deep, aggravated huff, she took a step back. A second step was accompanied by an extended finger, pointed at Cassian in warning and accusation both.
“We are not finished here,” she said, her eyes bouncing between Nesta and the sword she still held at arms-length, and Cassian, whose bemused smile served only to enrage her further.
His smile widened, and he said nothing as the warrior huffed again and turned sharply on her heel, storming away and leaving the courtyard entirely silent.
Nesta watched her go. “Does she usually look at you like she wants to slaughter you in your sleep?”
Cassian breathed a laugh. “Not usually, no.”
A moment passed, one where the silence seemed to settle smoothly between them, not heavy or cumbersome but… peaceful, like words had simply stopped being necessary. Quietly, as Cassian stood behind her and wrapped his hand around hers once more, training her fingers and adjusting her grip, Nesta said,
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
“Do you really think I am fool enough to admit to anything, when Emerie is out for my head?”
Nesta snorted. “I think that’s admission enough.”
He laughed again, his breath warm on the back of her neck. His free hand dropped to her waist, fingers curling around her hip as he angled her body just slightly to the side. His fingers spanned her middle, his thumb brushing her ribs in a single languid stroke that had Nesta turning to butter in his hands, entirely unable to protest.
Entirely unable to think straight, too.
“Like this,” he murmured, dragging his lips along the shell of her ear. Her heart hammered, and she wondered if he could feel it, where his chest pressed so closely against her spine. She swallowed, her mouth dry as his hand left her hip, and instead tapped lightly on her elbow, encouraging her to lift the sword a little higher.
Her head was spinning— the air was too thin.
“You said you had to find other ways to entertain yourself last night,” she said, searching for a distraction - something, anything - to stop her feeling like she was falling head-first right off the edge of a cliff.
Cassian hummed. “It’s not often a woman refuses a place in my bed.”
“I wasn’t aware your ego was so delicate,” Nesta said dryly, her voice steady even as her heart continued to race. Cassian’s hand trailed a path up her spine, his fingers coming to rest at the nape of her neck. “You killed a man because I refused you?”
“That’s not why I killed him, love.”
His voice was a low thrum, his fingers tracing an idle path over the bare skin at her neck, tangling in the end of her braided hair. Suddenly Nesta felt like her blood had been replaced by molten ore, nothing but liquid heat running through her as she kept her spine straight, ignoring how easy it would be to sink into him, to let his arms engulf her as his chest remained a solid, steady weight at her back.
“Does it bother you?” he whispered, his voice so low Nesta could barely hear him. “Knowing his life was ended by my hand?”
Did it?
She knew he had killed— knew he was a killer. Knew that when she’d heard stories of the Norsemen before, her blood had chilled. But she knew, too, that there existed a before and an after for her now; the stories she’d heard had made her skin crawl, but that was before she had looked into his eyes, and saw a kind of honesty there that she hadn’t ever found on her side of the north sea. There was a demarcation now, so glaring and definitive that Nesta didn’t quite think the woman she was now was the same as the one that had first walked through Jorvik’s gates.
Beneath his hand, she tightened her grip on the sword, keeping her eyes forward even as her entire body begged her to turn her head, to let her lips find his. Even knowing what he was, what he’d done, it would be so easy to kiss him, to let his mouth close over hers at last. To fall over the edge of the cliff that they’d been balanced on for days now.
And God, did he know her composure was hanging by a thread? Could he tell, somehow, that even with that sword in her hand, Nesta wanted nothing more than to drop all pretence of hostility— to forget that fate had birthed them so far apart, they’d had only a fool’s chance of winding up here?
At her back, she could feel the solid wall of his chest rising and falling, and as her mind raced she couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying just as hard as she to remain unaffected. If his composure was just as frayed as her own.
She turned her head, searching over her shoulder until her eyes met his.
“No,” she murmured at last.
He let out a breath, his gaze colliding with hers. There was a wildness there, something unpredictable in the hazel that he seemed to be trying to hard to keep restrained. And… relief. There was something that looked a hell of a lot like relief in those eyes too, like for a single moment he’d been worried that she’d run.
But Nesta didn’t think there was anything this Dane could do that would make her want to turn back and head for Wessex. For the first time in her life, she felt like she existed outside of her husband— outside of her father, and there was no amount of blood Cassian could shed that would make her forget the way his eyes lit up with his smile, or the way his hands were so gentle on hers even now, when his grip engulfed hers on the hilt of Emerie’s sword.
He leaned closer— incrementally so.
Still giving her time to change her mind.
Still giving her the chance to run.
Nesta didn’t want to run.
She swallowed, knowing there would be no going back if she closed that distance. He seemed to know it, too, as his eyes dipped to her lips and she felt his fingers flex around hers, her hold slipping as his hand fell away, the flat of his palm coming to land on the plane of her stomach instead. Immediately she dropped her arm, letting the tip of Emerie’s sword kiss the ground, and—
The tip of his nose brushed hers. Her eyes fluttered closed, the gold-flecked hazel the last thing she saw before—
The slamming of a door crashed through the haze, shattering the moment like glass.
“Cassian,” Emerie barked from the other side of the courtyard. His entire body turned preternaturally still, and Nesta felt her blood rise to her cheeks as her heart beat out a tattoo inside her chest. “If you’re done accosting the poor woman, I need my sword back.”
He swore, low and filthy.
“Every fucking time,” he muttered, his hand fisting briefly in the fabric of Nesta’s dress before he somehow found the strength to let her go entirely. With a low growl Cassian forced an unwelcome space between his body and hers, but not before he pressed a single kiss to her temple in a gesture that seemed to promise so much more as soon as they were alone.
Emerie winked as she met Nesta’s eye, striding back out into the courtyard entirely unperturbed as she extended a hand. Smoothly the sword passed between them, from Nesta’s tentative grip and into Emerie’s sure and calloused one, and just before the female warrior shot a final glare Cassian’s way, she offered Nesta a brief, flashing smile that carried with it more than a hint of mischief.
“Come and see me sometime,” she said breezily, and though she had offered Cassian nothing but disdain, Nesta didn’t think she imagined the warmth in Emerie’s voice now, nor the offer of friendship that seemed to be extended when Emerie smiled again. “And perhaps I can teach you how to hold a sword without any… distractions.”
Her eyes shot to Cassian, brows raised. But he only let out another low curse in his native tongue, one that lined Emerie’s smile with something like vindication.
Nesta cleared her throat. “You would teach an enemy to hold a blade?”
Emerie shrugged. “I know what it is, you know, to be surrounded by men who don’t like their women knowing how to defend themselves.” Her smile dropped as her eyes travelled down to her wrists, lingering on the scars circling them before she cocked a brow and flicked her eyes back up, meeting Nesta’s gaze with a pointed look, heavy with meaning. “My father tried to break my wrists to stop me holding a sword. And if you find yourself back in Wessex, then knowing how to handle a blade might just save your life someday.”
“I…” Nesta blinked. Considered. Felt the warrior at her back, but didn’t feel the need to turn to him for any kind of approval or validation. All over again she was struck by how different it was— how different he was from what she was used to. And as she let Emerie’s words sink in, she took a breath as she thought of how defenceless, how entirely vulnerable, she had been for so long. She didn’t think she could bear it again. Not now, when she had tasted something so much like freedom behind Jorvik’s walls.
“I think I would like that,” she finished.
Emerie lifted her chin, giving her another flashing smile, and only after they said their farewells and Cassian had lead Nesta back out onto the street did she realise exactly what it was that Emerie had said.
And if you find yourself back in Wessex...
If.
Not when.
***
Nesta didn’t know how they’d come to be alone by the fire.
Somehow darkness had fallen, the day drawing to a close, and it felt like hours had passed since they’d entered the hall. Dinner had been served and eaten, wine had been poured, the fire lit, and the entire time Cassian had sat by her side and told her… a whole host of things. Nesta didn’t think her mind had quite caught up yet, as she watched the fire dance. As he’d taken the choicest cut of meat and placed it on her plate, he’d told her how their ships worked, how their sails were made of wool for durability. When he poured her wine, he’d told her how their goddess Freyja had a chariot pulled by cats, of all things. When he’d taken her hand and helped her rise from the table, when he’d sat her down before the fire and joined her, his thigh pressed against hers, he’d told her how Freyja’s brother had a ship called Skidbladner, that could be shrunk and folded up into his pocket.
And at some point, the hall had emptied.
At some point, even the servants had retired for the night. And yet neither of them moved, as if too afraid to break the moment they’d curated in that small circle of warmth.
Cassian looked at the empty hall around them now, at the shadows so deep Nesta was forced to wonder what time it was— how far they were from dawn. He looked at her, his lips kicking up into a crooked smile.
“Look at you. All alone with a Dane,” he drawled. “I wonder what your priest would make of it.”
Nesta snorted. Osbert would have her confined to the deepest pit of Hell for the offence, surely, but somehow she couldn’t find it in her to care for the wellbeing of her eternal soul. Not when the light of the fire danced along Cassian’s jaw like that, and certainly not when he offered her that damned smile again, so charming she thought God might have placed the pagan in her path on purpose, because she didn’t think there could be another explanation for the way her heart raced as that smile dimpled his cheeks.
“My priest wouldn’t be content until he had you on your knees at his altar.”
He quirked a brow. “And you? Do you want me on my knees, love?”
Nesta laughed softly. “I suppose it depends on the context.”
Cassian hummed, his delight like a living, breathing flame that hung between them. And despite the hour, despite the fact that she really was alone with a Dane in the dark, she didn’t want to leave that hall, even as the shadows grew deeper.
“You never told me what it was like at sea,” she said, her mind drifting back to the game they’d played— the one they’d left unfinished. So many things left unfinished between them, so many looks, so many touches, never carried to a full conclusion. Cassian tilted his head to look at her, scanning her face as the fire crackled before them, embers drifting skywards.
“It’s…” His voice trailed off, his eyes lifting to the ceiling, following those embers as they rose towards the opening in the roof. “Have you ever been on a journey, with only the stars to guide you?”
Nesta shook her head. A smile curved his mouth— soft and gentle, not the cocksure grin she’d grown so used to.
“On the sea, there is nothing. No land in sight. Only the stars above, and below, reflected in the waves. An endless sweep of sky…” His hand cast out, conjuring an imaginary horizon. That smile remained on his face, so easy, so free. “Endless freedom. Endless possibility.”
Nesta didn’t realise she’d leaned closer until his eyes snapped to hers, and she noticed with a small jolt of shock that their noses were almost touching. She didn’t pull away.
“Dangerous, too, I would imagine?”
He laughed, the sound soft. Nesta wanted to treasure it. “Yes, love. Dangerous, too.” His eyes dipped to her lips. “But worth it.”
Nesta swallowed. “Always worth it?”
He shrugged. “There was a storm. When Rhys and Az and I made the journey here. So almighty I was convinced we wouldn’t make it. I thought I was going to die.” His voice took on a far-away lilt. “I wondered, then, if it would be worth it. If England was worth it.” His eyes drifted back to hers. “But I think I know now.”
“And?” Nesta asked, wondering if her voice was really as breathless as it sounded.
“For meeting you, I would willingly risk death again,” he murmured. “For you, I would willingly drown.”
Nesta didn’t think she could speak. Words crowded in her throat, but she couldn’t make her tongue move. She blinked, her gaze travelling across his face as she somehow managed a quiet,
“You barely know me.”
He shrugged again. “I know enough.”
Slowly, as though time itself had turned to syrup, Cassian’s hand rose to her face, cupping her jaw. His eyes didn’t leave hers, and she didn’t move— couldn’t. He pinned her in place with that simple touch, with the softness of his fingers against her cheek.
“And I know what I see when I look at you, Nesta,” he murmured, his accent thick as his voice turned to gravel.
“And that is?”
He leaned closer, his hand still braced against her cheek. “Bravery,” he whispered, dragging his thumb back and forth along her jaw. Nesta couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t stop. “Intelligence. Curiosity. Compassion, too.”
So close— he was so close. She could count the individual pieces of gold in his eyes, could feel his every breath as the firelight danced across his burnished skin. Her lips parted, and she wondered if this time, there would be no interruption. No second-guessing. No pulling back at the last minute.
She wondered if this was the moment she let herself tumble off the edge of that cliff.
“Nesta,” he whispered— a question, a request. His voice was laden with wanting, hunger in his eyes even as he held her face cradled in his hands, and she knew that she could still back away, could still retreat and go back to her room, leaving that line uncrossed and unbroken. The fire crackled, her own blood rising, and as his thumb made a gentle pass over her cheek, Nesta felt her eyes flutter closed, and knew that she had never wanted anything more than this.
She nodded.
And when he kissed her, it felt inevitable. Like they’d been sliding towards this since the moment their eyes had first connected.
It was soft, at first, his lips moving against hers easily, assuredly, like he knew exactly how to touch her, how to kiss her, how to make her melt. She leaned into it - into him - and at the barest sign of encouragement, soon his kiss turned plundering, like he was… well, a Dane. Used to taking what he wanted, and taking it so thoroughly there was nothing left when he was done. And God, Nesta wanted him to take.
His lips were firm against her own, insistent, and where the kiss had started slow and curious, quickly it turned into something else altogether. The heat from the fire kissed her skin, and as his teeth scraped along her bottom lip, Nesta let out a soft sound that might have been something akin to a whimper. He smiled against her, lips curving against her own as he dragged his mouth along her jaw, his hands sliding down to her waist. She didn’t know when her body had angled so completely towards his, like he was a burning candle and she a moth to his flame, but he held her so entirely in his hands now, his palms sliding down her ribs and landing on her hips. A bolt of lightning shot down her spine, one that had her arcing up into him. Cassian growled against her lips, the sound so maddening it made her suddenly forget where she was, who she was, everything that she was supposed to remember.
Cassian kissed her like they weren’t sitting tangled up together on a small wooden bench before the dying light of the fire— kissed her like she was an equal somehow, throwing all of that fire, all of that passion and that brutal, reckless power he possessed at her when his tongue brushed against hers.
Nesta hadn’t ever known anything like it— how could she?
His hands were firm on her hips, pinning her in place, but somehow she knew that if she only pushed a little on those arms caging her in his embrace, he’d let her go. This was a choice— her choice, and one she committed to with every brush of his tongue against the seam of her lips. And suddenly her hands were on his shoulders, then sliding down the plane of his back, and she felt the powerful shift of his muscles as he pressed himself against her, his body lining up with hers so deliciously Nesta swore her skin was on fire.
But his mouth was still on hers, so ferocious she didn’t think she’d be able to breathe for much longer.
His hands shifted from her hips to her waist, his thumb dragging a path back and forth along her ribcage as her fingers travelled to his chest, dipping beneath the collar of his shirt to find the bare skin of his collarbone beneath, hot to the touch, like he was burning from the inside out just as she was. Her nails scraped along his flesh, and when he hummed his approval, the sound vibrated from deep within his chest and sank right into hers.
After what felt like a small eternity, Cassian tore his lips away from her mouth.
He didn’t go far— he moved to her neck, tasting every inch of skin beneath her jaw before dragging his lips down her throat. When his thumb dragged across her ribs again, she swore she saw stars.
He must have felt the way her entire body shivered, because he huffed a laugh against her, his breath warm on her skin.
“About that room, sweetheart,” he asked, his teeth grazing the hollow of her throat. “How does it suit you?”
Nesta shook her head as she ran her hands up the side of his neck, tilting his face until he was looking her in the eye.
“Terribly,” she answered.
He grinned, lowering his head to nip at her collarbone.
“Then how about,” he said slowly, pressing a single deliberate kiss to the skin he’d just tasted between his teeth, “I take you to mine?”
disabled people should not have to pay to live their lives like everyone else. and in the case of insulin, disabled people should not have to pay to Not Fucking Die
the world is a better place with trans women in it. trans women are valuable and important members of our communities. trans women deserve safety and protection and love.
Shout out to the USA for pissing Canadians off so bad it flipped an entire election that was supposed to be a landslide for the center-right, forever in your debt o7
