6 Fritzi

6

Fritzi

Otto kisses me, his lips soft and caring and full of his usual tender love, and any other night, I would fall into it. Any other time, the intentional palpitation of his mouth on mine would be enough to melt me into compliance, and I would give myself over to his touches and let the weight of him block out all else.

But tonight, I don't want tenderness. I stand again, dragging him up with me, and he complies, eyes pulsing in a brief question before I silence any remarks with my mouth on his, tongue delving deep. I taste him, sweetness from food he'd had earlier, but him , some headiness I can never quite name more than that it is the taste of my undoing.

His back hits the oak tree, and he huffs in surprise as I move to his neck, tasting, tasting, pulling the neckline of his tunic aside to lick the contour of his shoulder.

"Fritzi," he gasps, and tries to push me, tries to regain control. "I want to—"

I pull back enough to look into his eyes. I can't hide the tremor of fear beside this need, and so I show it to him, the fear that's driving me, has been driving me.

Holda took over the tattoo. For me, for him. I can see the outline of the tree through the neckline of his tunic, and I have to believe it will keep him safe now. Safer, at least.

But safe enough?

"Let me do this for you," I whisper. "I want to make you feel good tonight."

His eyes flash. Darken. "That is never a concern with you, Liebste." He hooks a strand of hair behind my ear. "But today has been a lot for you, I know. And tomorrow will be too. And I want to make sure you're taken care of—"

I silence him with a kiss. Nothing deep. Nothing suggestive, even, despite the clear intention humming in the air between us.

"Hush now," I whisper into his mouth, "and take what I give you, J?ger."

I know I don't imagine the pulse of heat in Otto's gaze, the flicker of his lips tugging up at the way I grab his wrists and smash them to either side of his body against the bark of the tree. Magic tingles along my arms, and I have vines crawl up the tree, intending to encircle his wrists and keep him pinned.

But before they even touch him, a spasm grabs my lungs, and I halt the spell.

My own wrists burn.

They're long healed, no scars even.

But I still feel the manacles.

The way I'd hung by them in Dieter's room, and then again, attached to the stake. His brand searing into my stomach, my thigh, my collarbone, over and over and—

My palm had been pressed to Otto's chest. The ink and the magic of the tattoo were not a brand , not a burning, not something forced on him—he'd chosen this, he'd chosen me, it's not the same—

Leaning against Otto, I go rigid, and he feels the change in me, coming out of his own stupor with a sudden inhale.

"Fritzi? What's wrong?"

Nothing. No, nothing , nothing here, not now— please not now—

I kiss him, but he doesn't return it, doesn't drop back against the tree.

"Fritzi—"

Fritzichen. Oh, sweet sister.

He isn't here. He isn't here . He's in a prison in Trier, or dead already, and he's gone, and he can't hurt me anymore .

My face ends up buried in Otto's shoulder. The crook of his neck. I take hard, gasping breaths, my whole body shuddering, and Otto's arms come around me, a warm, immovable wall.

"Liebste," he whispers into my hair.

I say something against his skin. Words tumble from my lips, sobbed words, and I hear them coalesce, "I did this to you."

My hand is on the tattoo. Just under his tunic.

Otto holds me closer. "Yes," he says. "We did this. Together."

I lurch back, tears burning my eyes, and then shame matches, burning my throat. I ruined this night. Ruined this moment. My hand fists in his tunic, and I glare at him for being unable to glare at myself.

"You'll get hurt," I tell him, like he doesn't know, like he hasn't foreseen the inevitable ending. "When we go up against the council. When we try to change the way magic is viewed and used outside of the Well. You'll get hurt because of me. Because of this." I put my hand over the tattoo. "Because you're bound to me, and I'm too selfish to push you away."

Is it the same? The brand Dieter put on me, the tattoo I put on Otto?

Otto cups my face in his hands, his focus making no room for me to look anywhere but at him.

"I have chosen to be here," he says. "You know me well by now. Do you truly think there is anything I would do if I did not want to do it? You are not the only selfish one. I'm here because I want to be. Because I chose you . And yes, I might get hurt—I probably will. But I will do so knowing that it's for a cause I have chosen. For—"

"Damn your honor, Otto." I try to shove back from him, but he keeps my face in his hands, which undercuts me trying to be angry with him. "You're marked by me. Tomorrow, you'll be bound to me. You say you know what you're doing, but what if you want out one day? What if all this destroys you?"

My chest kicks, a sob, and Otto's brows furrow.

"Destroys me? How so?"

"What if your god rejects you because of this?"

What will your kapit?n whore think? You, all damaged like this.

"What if your god rejects you," I'm talking too fast, spiraling, "and what if mine one day can't save you? We can't pretend gods haven't betrayed their charges in the past. What will we do when mine leads us to ruin and yours has turned his back on you? What will you do when"—I gasp, but he's still holding my face, catching my tears on his thumbs—"when you realize you've followed me down a path that leads to nowhere but desolation? You say you know what you're doing. But I don't think you do, not truly. Not—"

His turn to kiss me silent.

It isn't a gentle kiss. Not his usual tenderness, love spoken in touch. He kisses me now like he's fighting for dominance; I kiss him like I'm afraid this will be the last time, even though we've had dozens of times now.

He's bruising and vicious , and his aggression throws me back, stumbling across the grass, the foliage of the forest. He lifts me, locks my legs around his hips, spins us both so my back slams to the tree now. I'm aware even more of the lack of cloth in this outfit, legs bare where they belt his waist, shoulders and arms scraping the tree through the gauzy material.

"Friederike Kirch." My name is a reprimand from him that shoots down my spine like lightning, miring me in place between the hard planes of his body and the rough bark of the tree. "If either god, any god, abandons us, leaves us to wallow in some abyss or drift through whatever trials alone, then I will be there, with you. Because that is what I have chosen, that is what this bonding ceremony means to me: that all the forces of this world could turn their backs on us, but I won't forsake you."

A softer kiss. A promise.

I whimper, a hollow pulse of unraveling.

"I won't leave you," Otto tells me, and he is swearing to me now, trailing featherlight promises across my cheekbone. "I am yours more than I belong to any god or cause."

"And I'm yours," I manage through my tight throat, through the hum rekindling in my blood.

Otto makes a grunt of confirmation. I feel the rumble of it, but I buck against him, and he hisses.

"Say it," I demand.

"You're mine," he says instantly, like the words were there already, pressing against me even more, until there is no air, no space, nothing but him.

"Now, Liebste," he tells me, and that spark in his eyes is back, raging anew, a full bonfire on its own that incinerates me, captivates me. "I will take care of you."

It isn't a question.

I could fight him again. I could push for control, and give instead of take, but taking is giving with him, and I need, on some primal, disastrous level, for him to do this, to be the one to seize control.

I nod. I can't speak. Not anymore. There are no words, no tears; I am hollowed by my admission and my panic, and I think this is what the purification rituals meant to do: scrape away the murkiness so there is only room for light.

Otto grabs me off the tree and lays us both back on the ground, the spring-soft down of the forest cushioning our fall.

All of his earlier tenderness is gone. He seems peeled back, but where my peeling back is in exhausted surrender, his is frantic action, and he moves across me, alternating kisses and bites over my skin until I'm strung taut.

He brings me back to my body. With his fingers, I am only vibrations. With his tongue, I am only goosebumps. With his lips, I am only skin.

He tosses aside my skirts, spreads my thighs, and there is no reverence, just his mouth, hungry and demanding. My head rocks back against the undergrowth, spine bowing off the ground, fingers tearing into the plants, the dirt, until the air smells of new life and greenery.

And then he's there with me, pressing into me without pretense, and I know we both feel the difference tonight. This is no drowsy devotion, no slow build, no worship of skin and noise—it is fast and desperate and exactly what all my mismatched facets need.

I am his, and he is mine, and our lips find each other, sloppy and wet and swollen.

The bonfire was meant to burn the last of our impurities away, and if that's what fire does, then all the nights with him should have turned me to crystal glass by now.

My awareness widens. The little meadow we'd found is now bursting with plants, herbs—thistle and nettle—that have no business growing in early spring, and I feel the remnant of wild magic tingling along my veins.

I'll care about that later. If at all. Let this byproduct linger, let this one bit of magic remain, proof and witness.

Whatever we will have to face—whatever crusade Holda sees fit to shove us into, standing up to the council or changing the world—the one thing I know with certainty is that, at the end, when it's just him and me, I will do everything in my power to make sure he survives.