[astro] It's a very dangerous and lonely thing, to be a spy [18+]

Quinn looked down, startled to feel the warmth of her slender fingers wrapping around his hand. After a day of gunshots and blows and blood and death, the tenderness of that simple gesture was so unexpected that he nearly laughed out loud with the shock of it. It was altogether different than the touch she’d brushed along his arm while she’d stitched him up, or even when she’d traced the pattern of goosebumps on his forearm. This was interlocking, her palm cradled against his larger one, and an inexplicable kernel of warmth kindled to life beneath his ribs.

She tugged him out of the room and down the stairs, his eyes straying to the flutter of her chemise’s hem against her bare legs. He hadn’t the faintest idea where she might be leading him, but he probably would have followed her anywhere then—including straight back out into the winter night, warmed by her presence and bewitched by her touch.

The washroom would have been low on his list of destinations if he’d had the mental energy to guess. But the moment he saw the whorls of hot steam spiraling from a pre-filled tub of warm water, he felt some of the immovable tension lift from his shoulders. Quinn’s lips twisted into a tired smile. War was a heavy cologne, and the scent of sweat and blood and death clung to him like the frost clung to the drafty windowpanes. He couldn’t blame her for wanting him clean.

“I hope you don’t think I was going to take to your bed covered in grime,” he said with a chuckle, leaning forward to dip his fingertips experimentally in the water. He let the droplets fall from his fingers into the bubbles in a pattern of little splashes, drawing in a deep breath of the perfumed steam. Gaze shining with a playful glint, he looked to Chloe as he pointedly began to remove his leather armor. “Are you sure you don’t want to join me?” he asked, quirking a brow as he dropped the leather to the floor. Even in his state of exhaustion, even standing there in his shirt with a missing sleeve, he still exuded an easy confidence, as though he were back in the bespoke suit she’d crafted to perfectly fit every angle and curve of his form. He saw the devilish twinkle in her blue-gray eyes as she hovered in the doorway and felt his smile broaden to a roguish grin of his own. “Since you weren’t waiting for me before,” he drawled, stepping closer, “I hope you’ll change your mind and wait for me now.” His tone had regained enough of its edge that it came across like an order—albeit a husky, lascivious one, saturated with the heat that had grown to a blaze in his chest.

The seamstress cast him a maddening smirk as a farewell, and he listened as her soft footsteps ascended the stairs. Even in her absence, he felt a retaliatory smirk pull at his own features, and he shook his head to himself as he finished stripping the rest of his soiled uniform. While a bath couldn’t melt away the horrors of the afternoon, it could alleviate a lot of its physical effects. He lowered himself into the water with a soft groan. The cold always found a way to creep in, even through the best made uniforms, and the temperature was searing hot on his skin after having been mostly outdoors for days.

He sunk below the surface, scrubbing his hair and scalp and face and beard with the soaps set aside, then set to work on the rest of his body. The tub was not made for someone of his proportions, but he made it work, meticulously ridding his skin of filth and blood in stages—first his legs, and then his torso and arms. By the time was finished and rose to his feet, olive skin tinged pink and steaming in the cold air of the bathroom, the soapy water was dyed an appalling shade of grayish brown.

Toweling himself off, he stepped to the sink. A soft laugh shook his shoulders when he saw the clothes Chloe had selected for him—black boxers and a white t-shirt, exactly reminiscent of the ‘uniform’ he’d sported during their fateful first encounter. So very wicked, he thought, stepping into the boxers. It didn’t seem to matter how much time had passed since that night; their time together remained as vivid a memory now as it had been the morning after, with all the raw, unadulterated heat flashing back in an instant. His body certainly remembered, too—just the thought was enough to accelerate his pulse and raise the hairs on the back of his neck, a heady shiver traversing his spine.

He pulled the t-shirt over his head, which did little to stave off the old house’s chill (although surely they had other, far more diverting ways to keep warm), then took one glance in the mirror before he returned to Chloe’s arms. Bed, he corrected himself, blinking tiredly as he studied his reflection. Her bed. His lower lip was still scabbed and tender, the cut at his temple was still angry and red, and his jaw sported nearly five days of scruff. No amount of scrubbing could rid fatigue’s dark circles from under his eyes. But he was far more presentable now than he’d been twenty minutes prior.

The door at the top of the stairs was closed again. This time he did not hesitate to knock; he tapped a curled finger against the frame, then slipped inside without waiting for her to answer.

Chloe had draped herself over the edge of the bed, the material of her nightdress cascading like water over her waist to pool around her slender legs. His breath caught in mid-inhale. He latched the door behind him and engaged the lock before sauntering across the rug, barefoot steps soundless as he approached. His damp hair, tousled from a vigorous towel-drying, fell in messy waves over his forehead when he looked down at her. A weary smile curved his lips, and despite the shadows under his eyes, a familiar wickedness sparkled in his gaze. He leaned down, bracing one hand on the mattress as he lowered his face close to hers.

“Thank you for waiting,” the general whispered, eyes flicking leisurely down to her mouth and back again. He brushed his lips against one cheek, featherlight, then moved to the other. “How can I ever repay such a kindness?”

He pressed his mouth carefully to hers, applying enough pressure to lean her back against the bed. One hand, still warm from the scalding bath, found the soft skin of her exposed thigh. He lifted a knee to the edge of the mattress, positioning himself over her, and studied her face as his hand inched higher on her leg, sliding daringly beneath the hem of her nightdress.

“You seem determined to ruin me indeed,” he said mischievously, climbing the rest of the way onto the bed. As he shifted his weight to his arm, a wince contorted his face before he could suppress it. Evidently his shoulder had been through a lot more than just the graze of a stray bullet, and it was beginning to catch up to him now. “Ah, shit,” he muttered. He lowered himself to the blankets on her opposite side, flashing her a sapped, defeated smile. “Your general is a little worse for wear, I’m afraid. It was a...long day.”

Quinnley Belvedere was a vision from her darkest fantasies when he entered the room. The sight of him in precisely the same attire as their first meeting send a thrill through her body. Anticipation rushed up and tightened inside of her chest. Hungry eyes took in the damp curls of his dark hair and the glimmer in his golden eyes from the faint lamplight.  Before she had a chance, he was before her. Eagerly Clover tilted her head upward, exposing the pale skin of her neck. She craved him, despite all of the exhausting events of the day, and energy flared up inside of her. The clever response died on her lips as his mouth found hers.  The familiar taste of him exploded across her tongue, a faint coppery hint the only reminder of the wound on his lip. Pliant as a willow stem, the seamstress bent back to his will. Fingers found his sides and twined gently into the cotton of the white shirt.

A wicked grin curled her lip as she readily pulled him on top of her. Hurricane eyes flickered over his face and caught the grimace of pain that distorted his features. Alarm coursed up through her and she glanced knowingly to his shoulder. “It seems I might have. Did I do so poorly of a job that I have rendered your arm useless?” She knew she hadn’t but she felt the pang of worry in her chest. Genuine concern clenched around her heart as he fell into his back. She rolled onto her stomach, arm pressed against his as she did so. Clover examined him fully before raising both of her eyebrows.

A delighted smirk played her lips then while mischievous eyes robes over the length of him. “So now you’re my general?” The words contained a mixture of surprise and teasing. Did he really consider himself to be hers? After just three encounters, was their relationship something more than both of them had ever anticipated? As she asked it, attempting to taunt him with what had to be a blunder, a small tendril of worry arrived in her mind. Clover had thought of no man but him for weeks. She had imagined them together on countless occasions. She had even wondered what he might be doing during ridiculously random times throughout mundane days. She had chided and scolded herself for such frivolities. Now, with an annoying glimmer of a hope she dared not admit to even herself, she wondered if he felt the same.

Surely, not, however. He was a flirtatious, charismatic and entirely fuckable general in the enemy’s army. He was not interested or even considering their relationship anything more than a convenient fuck that left them both satisfied.  Gaze searched his face and despite the tumultuous thoughts, lowered her mouth to graze his briefly. Blue eyes flickered mischievously over him but her smile gave away that it was only in jest. Attention focused on his curls and she couldn’t rest brushing them back with her fingers. There had been a faint wave to his hair at their first meetings but it was clearly coiffed to military perfection. Now it was natural, curls twisting this way and that. “I like your hair like this. It suits you.” Gaze met his again, holding before a shadow of blush dappled her cheeks. “And with the split lip, looks rugged.” She laughed. “All this…” clover wet her lips, “and I can’t even have you.” It was said playfully, not meant to convey any true irritation at his wound.

“I am truly sorry you had a difficult day. I hope my presence hasn’t complicated it.” Clover looked at her hands before her a moment, holding herself up on bent elbows. “And if you need to take Sergeant Percival back, I don’t require a babysitter. He seemed so dreadfully bored, despite taking his task very seriously.” She did not want to make the man seem insubordinate to his commanding officer. “Though I did manage to make him laugh.”

It was always remarkable how unremarkable the baseline felt after the rush of battle, when the high wore off and the adrenaline dissipated. For Quinn, the exhaustion was not like a rogue wave, crashing into him all at once, but rather like a slow tide, creeping in closer and closer with every splash upon the shore. It had been easier around his men to upkeep the illusion of tireless general. But here, with Chloe lying beside him, he found it much more difficult to maintain the act. It wasn’t just the warm blankets or the clean sheets or the blissful quietude; it was her, the way she somehow managed to calm him as much as thrill him, how the wild storm that constantly raged inside him had found a kindred tempest in her eyes.

It still seemed unbelievable that she was here at all—that his wicked seamstress, of all people, had emerged from the snowy wilderness on the edge of Earl’s Crossing. But as concerned as he’d been at how close she’d come to harm, and despite how hot his anger had inexplicably blazed, Quinn had never been so glad to have her there.

The enigmatic seamstress had had a glimpse of the true monster he knew he could be, knew he was. She had seen the thing that dwelled beneath the charming exterior, the darkness that few knew. And yet still she’d invited him to her bed. Still she did not shrink away, no violet at the first touch of autumn frost. She’d beckoned him. Drawn him a bath. Waited for him.

Lying flat on his back, he turned his head to look at her, as if he hadn’t quite convinced himself she wasn’t some phantom conjured by battle-weary wishful thinking. The sight did little to dispel the notion that Chloe’s presence was a hallucination; framed by the soft lamplight, she looked otherworldly. Was it just his weary eyes that loaned that gossamer glow to her silhouette? The wanting heat that burned like a steady furnace in his abdomen sent an abrupt flare of warmth up his ribs, and without realizing it, a smile quirked one corner of his mouth. His gaze traced the waves of her dark hair as it cascaded over her shoulders and framed her striking face. How he longed to make ruin of those tresses, to run his rough fingers through the silken strands and leave them wild and tangled from the fury of their passion…

But the steady ache in the top of his shoulder made itself known again as soon as he shifted positions. The general caught a flash of worry in her gaze, quick as lightning, and he raised his brows as he sat up and propped his back against the mound of pillows against the headboard. “No, no,” he reassured. “It wasn’t your stitching, it…” He paused, the look in his amber eyes darkening as his eyes snapped up to meet her stormy stare again. “I…fell on it first, before the bullet,” he explained, searching her expression. “I tackled a man to the ground to save one of my captains.” Of course, it had been far more than that. The memory replayed in his mind in a blur of white snow, a tattered green tunic, and bright red blood—two opposing men tumbling into the powdery drift, Quinn’s limbs hard and powerful against a woefully underprepared opponent. 

The weary general leaned his head back against the pillows and studied the shadowed lines in the tin ceiling tiles. “You know, you can study and practice how to fight and how to fall until you’re sure you’ll never hit the ground unless it’s your choice,” he mused. A hint of bitterness laced his words. It was clear he was no longer just talking about this particular incident, but a collection of them—some of which had left their scars, and all of which had eventually led to the clash today. “But the truth is that battle is ugly and unfair and unpredictable, and sooner or later everyone ends up bleeding in the dirt. The ones who keep breathing are just fucking lucky.”

Quinn reached up with his opposite hand, massaging the top of the afflicted shoulder. A bolt of pain shot down to his elbow, but he lifted his arm and rolled his shoulder back, pushing through it until he found a position that lessened the ache in the muscle. A beat of silence settled in the room like fresh snowfall on the fields, and he turned his attention back to the seamstress. “I killed that man,” he heard himself say, his gaze intensifying as the confession took flight unbidden from his tired lips. “Not the first of the day. Not the last.” He let the words linger in the chilly air, unsure why he had spoken them at all. Yet he was far more certain that keeping them inside would have felt…wrong. Not because he felt guilty or remorseful, but because he wanted her to know, wanted her to know him. 

He lapsed into quiet again and reached out with his uninjured right arm to trace a finger from her shoulder to her wrist, pausing when his touch came across the deep indigo bruises on her forearm. Fury turned his gaze molten. He thought back to the feeling of his revolver against that bastard Orik’s temple, how luck had spared the insubordinate soldier only for him to leave his mark on Chloe. He certainly knew who he wanted his first kill of the next day to be. Anger tightened his throat, and all he managed to say was, “I’m sorry,” as he gently took her hand in his. After a pause, the faintest crack of a smile tilted his lips, and he quirked a brow. “Did I hear you correctly when you said you got Percival to laugh?”

The confession tumbled out of him, like a slow trickle of an early afternoon sprinkle before the deluge the heavier rain would bring. She had expected him to brush it off, in typical militiaman fashion. Instead, he detailed the history of the injury that she had intimately repaired for him earlier that very day. The recount twisted into deep musings and the seamstress could not fail to hide the way her brows initially rose in surprise. With his swift rise to power and prominence in the Northam military, she had known he must be fairly intelligent and potentially possess some depth that her father had yet failed to squash beneath his boot. This moment of self reflection, however, was more than she ever anticipated him sharing with her. They were trained to keep such things to themselves. Emotions were weakness.

Yet here was Quinnley Belvedere revealing a dark piece of his darker soul to a rebel - albeit unknowingly. Clover did not dare interrupt, silent from a combination of shock and interest. Their eyes locked at his final confession, though the spy had already discerned that the man that had given him the wound was in a ditch somewhere outside. She searched his gaze, proximity close. Heat sparked between them, entirely different than their usual embers of lust. The cadence of her heartbeat changed and she longed for him to keep talking. It was not born out of some loyal desire for information for the Resistance. She wanted to know - to know what has transpired but mostly, to know him.

His finger trailed along her exposed arm and immediately gooseflesh erupted in his wake. A tremble coursed through her, clearly visible to the general at her side. The touch grazed the bruises, without hurting and her gaze flicked down to the deep violet and black that had formed from Orik’s hand. The silence stretched that between them and just as she licked her lips to speak, he did. The apology drew her stormy eyes upwards to search his. Why would he apologize for it? It happened…endlessly as a woman who came in contact with military men on a regular basis. The thought stopped mid-track as their fingers twined together. The sensation of falling happened, stomach clenching and the blush of heat dappled her cheeks.

“I did. My finest accomplishment.” Clover gave him a small grin, looking away to hide the heat of her face from him. “He is difficult to crack at first, but I managed it.” Silence ensued. Once a coolness had arrived back in her gave, the seamstress met his golden gaze once more. “You don’t have to apologize for it. It was not your doing.” Attention flicked to the fingerprint bruises on her skin. She moved her free hand to graze them almost absently as her thoughts were momentarily elsewhere. “It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last.” The words echoed his before she seemed to shake herself from the dark reverie that she had succumbed to.  The seamstress turned them, resting on her side and using her right arm as a pillow bent beneath her head. She’s free up her knees just slightly, brushing against his, so that her feet did not dangle over the side.

Slender fingers toyed with his, running over his nails, to the pad of his thumb and then along the length of his pointer finger. His skin was calloused and rough, but not unpleasant beneath her fingertips. She recalled, then, the feel of his hands against her hips and the deliciously firm pressure that had held her in place. Heat exploded through her, quickly quelled as their eyes met over the minimal space between them.  Clover had ordered the deaths of countless in the name of rebellion, of justice. Her hands on experience, however, was more limited. It would not do for the leader to have too much blood directly on their hands - increased the risk of discovery. Quinnley Belvedere on the other hand…She should ask why the militia was here. She should ask if they planned to establish a fort at Earl’s Crossing. There were so many important things she could inquire about - to help the cause.

“Is it difficult?” She asked softly, fingers still brushing along his idly. “The death - afterwards, I mean?” Was it hard to live with all the death for him? Because it really…really wasn’t for her. Every ambush she ordered. Every life she had taken. It was all in service of a greater good. It was necessary and she wouldn’t apologize for it. In fact, her dark monster reveled in, bathing in the sins she committed in the name of the Resistance. And she thought (did she dare hope in the hidden part of her?) that she had seen something in him on the field. A kindred spirit of malfeasance that hummed with a fury like her own.

A laugh curved the corners of Quinn’s lips, melting away some of the tension in his face. The thought of the seamstress cracking the stalwart demeanor of Sergeant Percival was certainly comical—although if anyone could get the terse, no-nonsense soldier to smile, it wasn’t surprising that it would be Chloe—but the amusement didn’t quite touch his eyes. “You deserve a medal for that achievement,” he drawled, shaking his head. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Or perhaps he does. You’ve proven his humanity, at least. Some of us weren’t sure.”

Despite their lighthearted exchange, the beat of silence that followed was still heavy with the weight of his unplanned confession…and the fury that still churned in his gut at the sight of the bruises on Chloe’s forearm. She must have sensed it too, because when the mirth faded from her face, her expression mirrored his. More than simply serious—it was open for him to read, yet all he could see was the darkness there, an impenetrable solemnity that he felt too. Shadows churned in his gaze as she spoke. “I never apologize lightly,” he stated, intending to sound matter-of-fact…but the exhaustion in his voice brought an intensity that was almost too harsh. “I…” He faltered, grappling for the right words. When he continued, his tone was soft. “I would hate to see you come to harm.”

I couldn’t bear it. The general leaned his head back against the pillows to stare at the ceiling. She already had come to harm and had the purple marks on her skin to prove it. The thought of how narrowly she’d missed the thick of the battle conjured that same anger all over again, even though he knew it was simply bad luck that brought her to Earl’s Crossing that day. His jaw tensed. What are you doing to me, Chloe Paice? At her touch, he swiveled his gaze back to her at last, struggling to tamp down the strange mélange of emotions that swelled behind his breastbone. Her deft fingers traced a path over his knuckles, the pads of his fingers, his palm—rough hands, strong hands, dangerous hands. Hands that had killed only hours ago, and he hadn’t even bothered to count the number. Hands that wouldn’t hesitate to do the same again. Hands that wanted to seek violent revenge on those she’d implied had hurt her in the past.

But also hands that wanted to feel her, that remembered the electric sensation of her skin, the curves and planes of her lean figure beneath the insistent pressure of his fingertips. Quinn didn’t just want to protect her, he wanted to celebrate her—her body, her sensuality, her wit, her talent. His attention flicked down to where their hands had entwined, and he ran his thumb rhythmically over the ridge in her wrist as her fingers still brushed against his. Heat began to build in his blood, but this time the warmth was different; it was a low simmer, strangely comfortable, like a steaming cup of tea in the dead of winter. Like coming home after a long mission away.

The softness of her voice belied the gravity of her next question, and Quinn did not answer at first. Instead, he shifted downward slightly against the pillows and used their intertwined hands to tug her closer still. The length of their bodies brushed now from hip to ankle, and when he turned his head, he could peer directly into the storm of her gaze.

He did so, gold meeting silver in the dim bedroom light, and drew a long breath before he answered. “No,” the general said, nearly a whisper, as though he had never uttered that particular truth aloud. Because, of course, he hadn’t. And it felt profound now, that one word…as though it were yet another wedge between himself and the rest of humanity, acknowledging to another soul that he was fundamentally different, perhaps even fundamentally flawed. Yet admitting this to Chloe, a working seamstress of all people who had endured her share of hardships but never outright war, felt natural. Almost…a relief.

Still, nothing was ever so simple. Because how was it that he could feel such stoicism after the bloodiest day in his recent memory, feel nothing when he reflected upon years of violence, yet still wake sometimes plagued with nightmares? Not even he could explain that, and for now, he kept that part to himself.

“I remember the first time I watched someone die. And I remember the first time I took a life.” Quinn searched her face for a reaction. “Old soldiers tell skittish new recruits that it gets easier to deal with, that you become desensitized with time and experience. And that might be true for them, or at least the ones who aren’t blatant sadists from the starting gate.” A pause. “But it was different for me. I never became numb because I never needed to. It was more like…more like I was fascinated by it all—the death, the dying—and that never really went away. Sometimes I’m glad it didn’t. Other times…”

He trailed off and almost laughed, but caught the dark mirth before it bubbled up from his throat. Instead, he reached over with his good arm and tucked a strand of Chloe’s dark hair behind her ear. “What does that make me, Miss Paice?” he asked softly. His callused fingertips lingered featherlight on her cheek. “Some kind of monster?”

Clover’s body slid towards him eagerly, until their limbs and hips touched. Each time she took a breath, she felt the heat of him against her. Their eyes held, as did her breath momentarily. The word left his lips, drawing her over a cliff that she did not know she teetered upon. The fall was as significant as the silence until she crashed into a pool of forbidden emotions. Heat flared up her back at the intensity of his stare and the way longing in his eyes. Lips parted as she remained silent, torn by her own tumultuous emotions. Quinn continued speaking and drawing her towards him.

Clover swallowed, unable to tear her gaze away from him. The seamstress shifted her leg and her foot between his. They were the same. He felt as she did. Her heart didn’t know whether to leap for joy or clench in despair. He was like her. He was like her when no one else had been. The general was a kindred spirit, a potential companion and he was…in the Northam militia. Like her favorite candy coated in cyanide. And even though she knows the threat, the risk, the inevitable demise - she can’t stop herself.

“Sometimes you’re glad because it makes it that much easier.” She nearly closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. His touch that ignited things inside of her. It was easy, not feeling that emotional tumult in the process of choosing to end others lives. It made decisions swift and efficient. Part of her reveled in the death she would cause, the destruction she would wreck upon her father’s regime. If it meant the loss of lives in the pursuit of her goal…well that was just unfortunate for them.

The fascination with death started the night of the last failed uprising, as she stood coated in her mother’s blood. Rose had seen a change in the young girl, she said. Her adoptive mother called it a mask, a response to what she had endured but Clover knew it for what it was - a dark monster inside of her being unleashed.  It had always been there but needed such a traumatic experience to be unleashed. It was not a mask - it was her true nature and sometimes it frightened her. “Other times it makes it harder because you should feel a certain way. While a… a small part of you does, it can be…difficult to locate that flicker inside of you.it can be terrifying, I’d think.” Clover breathed the words into the space between them, giving voice to her own thoughts. While that darkness inside her gave her power…at times her nightmares would twist from the body of her mother to that of innocents, to families whose sons she had slaughtered in the name of the Rebellion.

Clover physically shuddered at his question, having contemplated the same each time she awoke drenched in sweat from the night terrors.  Eyes searched the molten gold in his gaze as she brought her mouth to his. The kiss was soft and wanting and comforting. It promised an acceptance that she doubted he had anticipated from her - a seamstress. She deepened it slowly, keeping her desire in check. A different kind of need tightened inside of her and she brought her other hand to his face. Withdrawing, she kept their faces close but far enough so that she could see his eyes and hold his stare.

“It makes you a man, Quinn…” the rebel leader whispered. Her fingers brushed against the stubble on his cheeks before sliding back slightly to brush against his damp hair. She held his eyes, searching them as she felt her breath tighten in her chest. “And one I am very fortunate to get to share a bed with.” She smiled, gently and then her eyes went hazy, her mind elsewhere momentarily. Perhaps it was the stress, combined with the exhaustion of the day, that led her to continue. “Perhaps it makes you a little monstrous,” Clover’s words were so quiet, rimmed with darkness, “but aren’t we all?” The words left her before she could stop them, before she realized precisely who she was saying them to. Lucidity returned to her gaze and she blinked, giving him a sheepish smile before rolling onto her back. Their hands unclamp and their contact was mostly severed.

Heart racing, she let out an exasperated and exhausted laugh. What seamstress was monstrous? He was going to think her quite insane now, a little off her rocker but perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps it would free her from their emotional - no not emotional but physical - turmoil that he seemed to put her through.  Clover turned her head, haloed by dark hair, to meet his eyes once more. “Does that frighten you?” She asked, almost teasing - almost. “That I might also be a monster?” She meant it playfully, attempting to be coy but a true concern lurked behind her words. Men didn’t like powerful women, women with trauma and depth. Most wanted physical, superficial. And that was all she had wanted, all she had ever permitted herself to have and yet…something foreign stirred inside of her when he was near. 

He didn’t know what had come over him—whether it was simply exhaustion lowering his ever-present guard, or something else, something he couldn’t explain. The general, usually so self-assured and analytical, suddenly found himself treading on unfamiliar emotional terrain. He felt as though he were perched on a crumbling precipice above a bottomless void, peering through a roiling mist that shrouded any scrap of sense he tried to make of the foreign landscape. It had been a long time since Quinn had felt so…uncertain. So untethered. Around anyone else, he was General Belvedere, never a question in his mind as to who he was or what he wanted or what he had to do. But Chloe, with her gentle probing questions and inexplicably soothing presence, coaxed forth a side of him that had perhaps never shown its face to the firelight.

But as strange as this unexpected vulnerability felt, he wasn’t standing in the inky tempest alone. Whatever dwelled behind the storm of Chloe Paice’s gaze had entranced his demons with a siren song, cutting through the bars of the cage in which he kept them safely locked away. She was seeing a glimpse now of their wild shadowy faces, the flashing of their sharp teeth, the voracious glint of their unyielding eyes. And still she didn’t flinch away. He could feel her eyes on him even when he tore his own attention to the ceiling, and they were there, focused so intensely on his, when he dared look back as she spoke.

Her words startled him and soothed him in equal measure. Sometimes you’re glad because it makes it that much easier. A chill raised gooseflesh on his arms that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. Other times it makes it harder because you should feel a certain way. While a small part of you does, it can be…difficult to locate that flicker inside of you. A flicker of surprise flashed like lightning across Quinn’s features. How did she know? She had put into words precisely what he had grappled with since that day in the stables with Maria, when he’d watched the life leech from his father’s would-be assassin’s eyes. It was as though she had watched his memories and read his thoughts. Impossible.

But even as he worked through the uncanniness of it all, a feeble understanding dawned within. The intensity of her expression, the earnestness of her voice…it wasn’t just with sympathy that she had uttered those words, and it wasn’t merely an adept conclusion drawn from the few statements he’d murmured. No, this was a sort of confession of her own. And although he could not guess at what horrifying life experience might have loaned such gravity to her admission, their kindred spirits could not be denied.

The seamstress wasn’t afraid of him, she wasn’t disgusted or wary, she was the same.

The kiss she pressed to his lips was tender, reassuring. Even as it rekindled the heat that smoldered beneath his skin, it was far more than lust that burned behind the gesture. He returned it slowly, his own promise to her—a soul-deep understanding that the darkness they each knew was one they shared. It wasn’t Brigadier General Belvedere who responded to her whispers—and that wasn’t who she had asked, not really. It was just Quinn, his darkness on full display, with no front or excuse to explain it away. And what was even more radical was that he didn’t feel he needed to.

“Chloe,” he murmured, hardly louder than a sigh, just to taste her name on his tongue. When her hand found his cheek, he leaned into her palm; when her fingers moved to run through the damp waves of his hair, his heart skipped a beat. “How is it that you know just what to say?” he whispered rhetorically, peering at her through his lashes with both curiosity and bemusement. The weight of the darkness kept his expression somber. “But I won’t deny it,” he heard himself continue, as if caught in the same reverie of forgetting to whom he spoke. He reached up and traced a finger along her sharp jaw and downward, skimming over the pulse in her neck with the callused pads of his fingertips. “It would be a lie to pretend to be anything else.”

She extricated her hand from his and moved to lie on her back, but he kept his eyes on her face, her dark hair cascading over the pillows in gentle waves. Without the heat of her body brushing his, the night’s chill crept in, and he reached down with his uninjured arm to tug up the blankets and drape them over the both of them. With the smallest of winces, he threaded his left arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him beneath the quilts.

“It stands to reason that one monster should find itself in good company with another of its kind,” he replied matter-of-factly, his cheek resting against her hair. He found he didn’t care how or why a seamstress of all people should share so much darkness in common with a general; in that moment, and in the many moments preceding, it felt natural as the moonlight that softly filtered through the curtains. “But the truth is that very little scares me, Chloe, even when it should.”

A beat of silence settled over them until he released a breath he hadn’t intended to hold. “So what frightens a monstrous seamstress, I wonder?” He hadn’t intended to give voice to the dark thought. But with the question already posited, his previous surprise entangled with his curiosity and empowered him to continue. “And what summons it to the surface?”

The sound of her name from his lips was a caress of his soul against hers. She wanted to melt into those words, dissolve like ice into warm water.  Warmth and surprise slid over her as his arm curled around her shoulders. Clover glided against him, seeking his warmth and comfort. His word rumbled beneath her cheek as she settled it along his chest. His heart thrummed beneath her skin and through the thin fabric of his white cotton shirt. She moved her hand beneath the covers and found bad skin between his skirt and the band of his underwear. She settled it higher, beneath the shirt and across the planes of his abdomen.

“Very little, it seems.” Clover smiled ruefully. This was dangerous, lying in bed with Northam’s General and yet her heart pounded with excitement. However, a memory snagged her and she flexed her hand against his body, recalling the tight fingers that wrapped around her wrists just hours earlier. “But some things.” A pause, silence glittering in the moonlight. How many times had the current of anxiety tightened her stomach when in the room alone with a militiaman? How many times had they touched her without her consent? How many times would they continue to do so? “Hazard of being a woman in a man’s world.” She mused, darkly, closing her eyes as she rested against him.

How many times had she imagined slicing open their throats? How many forward men had she imagined putting in the ground, twelve feet deep? How many had she already had killed? Clover shifted against him, thinking on it, on that inquiry. She idly moved her fingers around, tracing the dips of his muscles and the raised scarred tissue of his healed wounds. Warmth began to curl around her, twisting in with the alluring song of sleep. She wondered, amidst the darker thoughts that plagued her, what it would feel like to fall asleep beside him. She wondered what it would be like to stretch awake next to him, to taste his skin in the morning light.

“Let’s pray you never have to find out,” she whispered, tone an enticing tease. But it was also true - it would be best for the both of them for him to never discover the hidden depths that resided inside Chloe Paice, to find her true identity and the truer one even beneath that. A shiver slithered through her and she snuggled closer in to him to ward off the intrusive thoughts. Clover closed her eyes, letting his warmth encircle her and she felt her breathing slow. The silence laid itself out before them for more and more moments and she took comfort in it. The awkwardness she had experienced with others did not present itself now. Instead, she reveled in it and did not want it to end - yet that kind of comfort was not permitted to someone like her.

“Now you need to rest, General.” She broke the peace between them, “I’m sure you have far more important matters to address tomorrow than the supposedly monstrous deeds a seamstress can commit.” She smiled against his chest, keeping her eyes closed. She listened for a catch in his heart rate, felt for a twitch in muscles that might reveal a suspicion of her. Nothing came of it and she settled blissfully against her enemy, content in his arms.

The sleep that eventually took him wasn’t dreamless. He dreamt of blood—a stone fountain of it, frothing pink and steaming in the frigid winter air—in every shade of red from mahogany to scarlet. Spilling into an empty square blanketed in blinding snow, its splashes melting through the drifts. A wind as cold as death. A sky as flat and colorless as the snow.

When he opened his eyes, the darkness of the bedroom was a welcome relief from the bright scene. The unsettled feeling left behind by the dream quickly gave way to the very real chill of the air on his face, the weight of the blankets draped over his body, and the subtle heat of Chloe Paice’s slumbering presence at his side. Quinn listened to the soft sighs of the seamstress’ breathing, deep and rhythmic, and slowly tipped his chin to look at her. She faced away from him, her hair an inky pool against the crisp white sheets, her lithe form buried so deep beneath the covers that he couldn’t distinguish the dip of her waist from the swells of heavy blankets.

It had only been a handful of hours since they’d both drifted off to sleep, but it had been late, and a general’s duties started early. He squinted through the dark to the clock on the mantle, but it still read 1:52—the same time it had displayed when he’d returned from the bath the previous night. Either it had stopped working overnight, or it had never functioned at all with no one to wind it.

Carefully, Quinn extracted himself from the embrace of the bed, slipping from its warm comfort into the cold room without disturbing his sleeping seamstress. His injured shoulder, stiff from hours of motionlessness, ached enough that he permitted a private wince in the darkness; in fact, his whole body was sore, feeling the effects of the previous day’s physical strain. Battle was never easy, not even for a highly-trained soldier in his prime. He longed to fall right back into bed, into Chloe’s arms, and sleep until the world forgot about General Belvedere and his mountain exploits. He paused in the half-open doorway, his attention pulled back to Chloe, whose face was only just visible in the soft light cast from the hall.

Chloe, who had drawn him a bath in the dead of night. Chloe, who had glimpsed his demons and waited for him anyway.

Chloe, who had confessed to kindred monsters of her own.

His arms erupted in gooseflesh as the hazy memories of their raw conversation began to sharpen. He felt the tilt of a knowing smile on his lips as he pulled the door silently closed and readied himself for the day.

The adjacent bedroom was larger than the one Chloe had chosen, furnished with a desk in the corner and an armchair upholstered in faded paisley positioned near its cold fireplace. Quinn’s trunk of belongings sat undisturbed on the foot of the bed, illuminated by the faintest sliver of dawn’s first light sneaking through a gap in the curtains. He dressed quickly, shedding his white t-shirt in favor of heavier layers—a skin-tight wool base on the top and bottom, a second long-sleeve shirt that buttoned from his chest to his collarbones, and then, forgoing his leather armor this time, finally slipping on his navy uniform jacket.

The house was utterly silent but for the occasional groan of the water boiler in the cellar. Quinn hovered for a moment at the top of the stairs, listening. Even the angry winter wind had calmed overnight. He held his breath for a moment as his gaze strayed to Chloe’s closed door. A strange pang of warmth sprang to life behind his ribs as he imagined her sleeping soundly beyond it, just as he’d left her, her soft breaths regular and deep and her face relaxed in slumber.

He pursed his lips and forced himself to descend the stairs before he succumbed to the overwhelming desire to slip right back through that door and join her beneath the quilts.

Sergeant Percival had yet to awaken to rekindle the living room fire, so the first floor of the modest manor was nearly as cold and dark as outside. Quinn slid on his gloves and pulled up his fur-lined hood before plunging into the frigid morning. His horse pawed the carriage house ground eagerly as he methodically prepared her to ride, and by the time he mounted and headed back up the ridge toward the training camp, the clear sky had brightened to a lush peach in the east.

The air was so cold that the smoke billowing from the fort’s furnaces was practically motionless, hanging still above the compound in frozen plumes. Quinn’s nose and cheeks stung against the chill as he crested the hill. He was granted entry by a soldier so tightly bundled he could only see the man’s eyes between his thick scarf and fur-trimmed hat—not quite regulation, but such a violation was far beneath a brigadier general to point out. And besides…it was fucking cold.

He handed off his horse to a second attending soldier and made his way immediately to Colonel Franklin’s offices. The wavy glass windowpanes glinted with lamplight from within, and Quinn let himself inside so quietly that none of the three men working in the comms room even looked up when he darkened the doorway. Sergeant Abbott was tucked beneath the desk, his lanky limbs contorted around the table legs and a cascade of nipped wires. A braid of black cables dangled loosely from the ceiling tiles above, and Abbott’s two companions were carefully threading the strands into the back of the elaborate console. Quinn leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest.

“No, no, to the left side. The console’s left, you idiots. Christ.” Abbott’s voice was muffled from his cramped position.

Quinn glanced to the clock on the opposite wall. 7:24, just before the winter sunrise. From the looks of it—and if the weary frustration in the sergeant’s voice was any indicator—the men had been there since Quinn’s departure the previous night.

“Feed me a little more slack,” Abbott instructed, tugging on the black cable. “Now a little more. Hey, did you hear what I said? More! What the fuck is wrong with—”

Quinn’s gaze drifted down from the dangling cable to meet the startled gaze of the blond cadet, who dropped the wires in favor of a dramatic salute. “General!” the young man uttered, more a squeak than a greeting.

Abbott smacked his head on the underside of the desk and cursed. He scrambled forward, prevented from rising to his feet by the tangled web of multicolored wires looped around his limbs. “Morning, General Belvedere. We’re…uh…as you can see, we’re in the middle of hooking up the new antenna…”

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” Quinn said, one side of his mouth curling into a half-smile. “Has Colonel Franklin been in?”

“No, sir. Not yet.”

“Well, carry on, Sergeant.” His gaze landed on each of Abbott’s cadets in turn, taking a little pleasure in their startled expressions. “Franklin and I will be in later this morning. Send word if you get the system up and running before we return…I’ll be overseeing facility operations until then.”

Quinn left the comms room still wearing that lopsided smirk. With a few hours of sleep behind him, he was less annoyed and more amused with the trio working to fix the radios, even if their overnight lack of success meant further delaying his contact with Thebes. He pulled up his hood and stepped outside again, where the cold hit him like a slap, but the early sun was finally bringing daylight to the camp and made the temperature a little more bearable.

Narrow paths had been cleared between the sections of the facility. Quinn embarked on one now, padding quietly toward the center training rings where a group of young recruits had begun calisthenics outside the half-burned armory. He should have been impressed by their ambition, rising at dawn after the previous day’s bloodshed; many of them had come close to their own ends at the hands of their rebel classmates. As he got closer he recognized two Omega soldiers presiding over the exercises…and quickly realized that the recruits weren’t simply warming up for the day, but were actively sparring beneath the smug observation of the Omegas.

Quinn stopped, watching from a handful of paces away. The general had participated in yard sparring—scrapping, as they’d called it—more times than he could remember during his own training, and in his youthful hubris he had never cared whether or not the fights were sanctioned. But now, as an officer and as a chief meant to oversee the militia’s training program, he knew the drawbacks and dangers were real, from injury to morale. Training was risky enough. Hurt recruits were unable to complete exercises to their fullest extent, leaving troops unprepared and vulnerable. And infighting was a major detriment to building the trust and reliance soldiers needed to survive as part of a squadron. This would not be excused under his watch.

The general sidled up to one of the Omegas from behind. “Getting some exercise?” he asked in the soldier’s ear, voice low and dangerous. The two Omegas leapt to attention, with the six—no, seven—young recruits stumbling back in much more obvious fear. Quinn pushed back his hood, revealing the stony expression on his face. “Or placing some bets, hmm?” He sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You reek like a distillery.” He appraised them in the soft morning light, noting the dark circles and bloodshot eyes.

“General, we—”

Quinn held up a gloved fist and drew a long breath, his benevolent mood fouled. “I’ll hear none of it. You are disgracing your position in the Omega squadron, and worse, you are embarrassing me. To be invited on this mission was the greatest honor of your careers so far. A stepping stone to the big leagues. And this is how you behave?”

Quinn’s tone was venomous, and the soldiers looked pale even in the pink glow of dawn. “If you want to act like drunken cadets, then maybe you would be better suited joining their ranks. I will be speaking to your captains about your demotions. And you all…” He swiveled to face the quivering young men, all of whom had frozen in petrified salute with their fists across their chests.

A thousand ways to put them in their place flitted through his mind, from simple latrine duty to forcing them to finish their fight under his supervision. He gritted his teeth. “I will not rob Colonel Franklin of the courtesy of determining proper consequences for your behavior,” he finally said, his brown eyes flashing. He suspected Colonel Franklin’s idea of punishment would be even worse than Quinn’s, as evidenced by the panic that blanched the soldiers’ faces. “Back to your barracks. Now.”

They scrambled away, their frantic breaths clouding like fog in the cold air…all save for one.

Quinn’s brows shot high onto his forehead. “You’re surely not stupid enough to have forgotten the consequences of disobedience.”

“N-no, General,” he stammered, his black hair sticking to his clammy forehead despite the temperature. “B-but this whole thing started—”

“I don’t give a fuck how it started,” Quinn growled, stepping forward to glare down at the much-shorter cadet. “Return to your barracks unless you’d like to find out exactly how seriously the High Commander’s forces take insubordination.”

The general turned on his heel to leave, but had barely taken a stride before the boy’s voice stopped him once more.

“I have information about the attack!”

The general spun. 

The boy, who was a full head shorter than Quinn, cowered into himself when the general marched up and glared down at him. Reddened from the cold and speckled with a fourteen-year-old’s complexion, the cadet’s face looked alarmingly childlike. A faint smear of crimson on his upper lip indicated that he’d wiped away a bloody nose, and his left eye was beginning to swell. His expression was so openly fearful that Quinn had a difficult time deciphering anything else but wild, prey-like panic.

“State your name,” ordered Quinn after a long moment of silence. His expression had gone from furious to stony. But as skeptical as he was that this child had any useful information, he had a duty to follow up on any lead.

“Pryor. Benny Pryor.”

“Where are you from, Cadet Pryor?”

“Chambrook, sir.”

Quinn recognized the name from the map he’d studied at Compound in Thebes—a settlement hardly populous enough to be called a village tucked along a dry creek to the north of Earl’s Crossing. Less than an afternoon’s ride away from where they stood.

“And what is it you’d like to tell me?” Quinn’s voice was surprisingly smooth, but the cadet had no trouble recognizing the navy-clad predator towering over him.

“It’s…complicated,” Pryor sputtered, glancing nervously to the right.

Quinn followed Pryor’s gaze and squared his jaw. The two Omega soldiers, tails between their legs, had retreated only a dozen paces and hadn’t dared stray too far without a dismissal. “Briggs. Hahn,” he called, and they looked startled that he knew their names (although they shouldn’t have been surprised; he’d read their surnames emblazoned on patches on their coats). “I’d like you to escort Cadet Pryor here to one of the lecture rooms and wait there for Colonel Franklin and myself.” Quinn looked back to the boy, who now physically trembled. “Cadet Pryor here should not be allowed to leave, and you’re to guard him, not harm him. Understood?”

The Omegas agreed and saluted, each seizing an arm of the frightened cadet. Quinn forced his jaw to unclench as he watched them march back toward the central buildings, trying to ignore the ache that had settled in his temples. He sucked in a sharp breath of winter air, letting the chill dissipate some of his irritation. Quinn wasn’t about to let foolish cadets and impossibly reckless Omegas sow more chaos on this mission than had already been planted.

This mission was his responsibility. Bestowed upon him by the High Commander himself. And it was more than just his reputation on the line; this was bigger than him, bigger than reckless rebellion and simple slaughter. The general’s instincts were as finely honed as the rest of him, and his gut was telling him now that the whole Earl’s Crossing situation was more than just a group of disgruntled goat farmers rising up with their pitchforks.

Quinn was still a man on the hunt—for answers. But he would settle for blood if he must.

————

Colonel Franklin’s personal camp quarters were modest by Thebes standards, but for a dirty training camp in the middle of fucking nowhere, the two-story log structure was a palace.

Quinn briskly trailed a stocky camp officer named Creighton, whose short legs carried him at an impressive pace across the grounds. The officer seemed startled when Quinn balled his gloved hand into a fist and pounded on the windowless metal door, managing to rattle it in its sturdy frame.

“Franklin!” he shouted after a beat of silence, narrowing his eyes. He met Creighton’s expressionless gaze and called the colonel’s name again. Hopefully the man hadn’t succumbed to his injuries in the night—

Just as the thought crossed Quinn’s mind, Franklin swung open the door. The colonel was dressed in a clean uniform and his posture was straight, although his face was even more swollen, his bruises more pronounced. “They warned me you were all business, Belvedere,” he croaked, cracking a smile that looked more like a wince.

“And just who is ‘they’, Colonel?” Quinn was clearly unamused.

“Your Ace captains.” Franklin managed a chuckle and motioned him inside. Creighton stayed posted outside the door. “Alongside high praise otherwise, I will add.”

Langston and Otto, the bastards. Had he been in a more pleasant mood, Quinn might’ve laughed. Instead, he frowned as he announced, “Colonel, we have a situation.” He described the odd encounter with the cadets and Omegas. “To be clear, I don’t believe this Pryor boy can tell us a damn thing. At least nothing we don’t already know. But I have a duty to investigate, and as he is under your charge, I thought you should be present for his questioning.”

Franklin nodded, his eyes gleaming even through his injuries. “You posted the Omegas with him, yes?”

“With instructions not to let him out of their sight.”

“Then…we wait.” At Quinn’s arched brow, Franklin continued. “He thinks his information gives him power. It’s an easy way to show him who’s in control. And the longer he waits, the more anxious he’ll be when we do come.”

“You know your cadets best,” conceded Quinn. The colonel had a valid point.

Franklin lowered himself to one of the utilitarian armchairs in the living area. The room was furnished sparsely, with only the basics—a couple of armchairs, a short sofa, and a lamp that was currently switched off in favor of the fireplace glow. “I’ve been instructed by the camp medic that I should rest, but I informed him that would be nigh impossible,” he said, taking a swig from a chipped mug.

Quinn remained standing but slipped off his gloves, flexing his fingers in the warmth of the interior. “I’m here to assist,” he reminded the colonel. “This is your domain, of course, but you’re no good to us maimed. Or dead. We need this post, and this post needs you.”

“Of course, General,” replied the colonel. “Any news yet on the comms?”

The general relayed what Abbott had reported earlier that morning, and the two men continued to converse. Franklin summarized the weeks leading up to the event; Quinn revealed his goals for the rest of his squadron’s stay; and together they came up with a protocol to re-establish the fractured training camp.

————

Winter brought the golden light of sunset early this time of year, and the western sky was already glowing peach by the time Quinn finally had a chance to pause.

He sat at Colonel Franklin’s desk, shuffling through the papers that had gone askew during the attack. Between personnel fixes, several visits to the comms room that was fully functioning at last, and an afternoon of camp officer briefings, it had already been an impossibly long day. 

A young soldier brought him a tray of meager rations from the mess hall, and he took that moment to close his eyes and breathe in blissful silence. He ate the porridge and bread quickly, glad for something in his empty belly. But the interruption and the sustenance, welcome—needed, even—as it had been, made it all the more difficult to regain his focus.

He wanted to leave. He wanted to order his horse readied and then gallop down that steep ridge straight back to Chloe’s arms.

Not arms. Bed, he quickly corrected himself.

He stilled, eyes unfocused even as they stared in the general direction of the ledger in his hands. She would have spent the day with Sergeant Percival again, in good hands. Would she be waiting for him when he returned? Would she forgive him for stealing away in the darkness of pre-dawn? He’d forgiven her when she’d done the same all those months ago, the first night they’d spent together. A smirk tugged at his lips as he recalled finding the gift she’d left for him…and the message scrawled on the back.

Your wicked thing.

His throat tightened, first with carefully bridled desire, then with a pang of uncertainty. 

Does it frighten you? That I might also be a monster?

A shiver shot down his spine. Her words reverberated through his mind as though she’d spoken them all over again, a whisper in his ear like a phantom. Night had a way of coaxing forth secrets, of tricking a person into believing the darkness was a shield. And maybe it was. But it could just as easily be a dagger, one that plunged straight between the ribs, deep, and then twisted for good measure. Quinn wasn’t sure which the previous night’s shadows had decided to be. The general wasn’t accustomed to ambiguity when it came to these sorts of relationships. Had he shared too much of himself? Chloe had proven herself not so easily frightened, yet he had never divulged those particular feelings to anyone.

Still, the echo of her words thrilled him in a way he’d never known before, stirring his own lonely darkness. He wanted to meet those demons of hers, he wanted to—

“General?” Abbott’s voice interrupted his thoughts like a bucket of ice water thrown over his head.

Quinn calmly put down the ledger as though he’d been intently studying it, not simply looking through it for the past several minutes while his thoughts strayed to Chloe Paice. “How can I help you, Sergeant?”

“We received a message from Thebes, sir. High Commander Walther himself has requested a correspondence with you at 19:30.”

The general nodded once and glanced at the clock. It was approaching half past five. He’d hoped to wrap everything up early…or at least earlier than last night. Plus…fuck. The cadet, Pryor, was still waiting in the lecture rooms with potential knowledge of the rebellion. “Confirm it, Abbott,” he instructed, suppressing a sigh. It wasn’t like he had much choice in the matter.

Abbott saluted and left Quinn alone once again. He leaned his head back in the tall chair and allowed himself to close his eyes, imagining the feel of shrugging off his heavy uniform, stripping down to cotton and linen, and tangling his limbs with his waiting seamstress. It was certainly unusual to have something—someone—to look forward to while he was deployed away from Thebes. Chloe, he was certain, would only smirk at his distracted state and then strive to make it worse, taunting and teasing until her general was incapable of any thought other than her…

He gritted his teeth and snapped back to work, reluctantly banishing the wicked woman from his mind. There’s time for that later, he thought, and in the flesh. 

His briefing with the High Commander lasted longer than he would have preferred, but with the benefit of a clear and secure connection at last, Quinn was able to deliver his initial report with the man directly. The High Commander seemed distracted (although it was difficult to tell at this signal distance), which was in some ways a blessing; in others, it meant Quinn had a hard time getting a read on the already-guarded man. At the very least there were no complaints. “Admirable work, Belvedere,” the Walther man had said, his voice flat and crackling in the tinny comms room speaker. “We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

————

Benny Pryor sat alone in a barren lecture room, the winter wind howling through the rickety old windows like a despairing ghost. His arms were crossed tightly across his chest in an effort to disguise his trembling, but whether his quaking was due to the creeping chill or fear, Quinn couldn’t determine.

The general stood between the two Omega soldiers posted on either side of the entrance and peered through the small window in the locked door. Colonel Franklin, looking surprisingly energized considering the length of the day and his condition, clapped an enthusiastic hand on Quinn’s injured shoulder.

Quinn gritted his teeth at the ache that radiated down his arm from his hidden wound. “Do you prefer an individualized approach, or a united front?” he asked, his expression stone.

The colonel scoffed good-naturedly, as though he’d been looking forward to this all day. “Green as this kid is, I hardly think it matters,” the man quipped. “Unless you have a preference?”

Quinn considered. While he didn’t expect anything to come of this interrogation, he also didn’t think it wise to underestimate anyone at this early stage. After all, hadn’t the uprising taken the camp by surprise? Someone, somewhere, had done something right to get as far as they did. “All right,” he said at last. “Together may present a more…authoritative front.”

“Especially with you here,” Franklin added, sliding a key from a crowded keyring into the lock. The colonel paused in the doorway, turning to meet Quinn’s gaze over his shoulder. “The cadets…I’ve heard they’re calling you The Executioner, you know,” he said quietly, eyes glittering. “What did I tell you?”

“Remind me.”

“That your name would go down in the history books after yesterday,” Franklin murmured, his split lip curving into a feral grin as he pushed into the room.

Not exactly my name, Quinn thought sardonically as he followed Franklin inside.

Benny Pryor appeared even younger in the cold blueish light of the classroom than he had outside that morning. The space was dim and dusty, with long-dried muddy bootprints mottling the concrete floor. It was no Mother’s Lament, but it would make do for an interrogation room in these unusual circumstances. Quinn sauntered to the back, behind Pryor, and looked to the colonel with a nod to kick things off.

Somehow, Colonel Franklin managed to look more terrifying with his battered face and heavy limp. “So you knew about the attack and did nothing, said nothing,” the man drawled, leaning down to stare into the petrified boy’s eyes. “You are personally responsible for the deaths of your fellow soldiers, then? You’re taking that credit? You’re proud of that?”

“N-n-no!” stammered Pryor. “It’s not like that!”

Quick as a whip, impressively so, the colonel shot out his hand and gripped the boy’s throat. “Then explain it to me,” he growled, fingertips pressing mercilessly into Pryor’s neck. “Please.”

Pryor made a strangled sound, fighting against Franklin’s grip until the colonel released him. The boy gasped, hands immediately cradling his bruising neck, and hardly had time to catch his breath before Franklin backhanded him across the jaw.

Quinn lurked behind, silent, watching.

“My bunkmates,” the boy murmured hoarsely, the words thick.

“What about them?”

“I didn’t know until afterwards—”

Smack.

Pryor launched into an explanation that was half-sob, half-panic, and Quinn watched the irritation steadily creep into Franklin’s demeanor as the boy rambled. The story itself was less than remarkable—something about his bunkmates sneaking off after camp curfew, how they actively seemed to exclude Pryor from their activities—and it was far more interesting to watch the change come over the colonel, how the hardened military man quickly switched from simple no-nonsense to furious and cruel. This man took far more pleasure from torture than Quinn ever had. He had a feeling this Pryor boy knew precisely what he was in for. Or perhaps he was simply that naive.

“Colonel,” Quinn drawled suddenly, stepping forward just as Franklin was about to strike the cadet again. The annoyance in Franklin’s gaze might have been startling if Quinn hadn’t seen it a thousand times before in hundreds of other pairs of eyes. It faded a little when the general raised his eyebrows. “Might I have a moment with Cadet Pryor?” he asked silkily, although the query was simply an order in disguise. “Alone.”

The boy’s shoulders tensed at that last word as though the syllable had physically collided with him.

Franklin’s expression behind his bruises was now carefully neutral. “Of course, General Belvedere.”

“Return in an hour,” Quinn instructed, at last stepping in front of the boy, hands clasped behind his back. “Not before. Oh, and you may dismiss the Omegas posted at the door.”

The door closed behind the colonel with a menacing click. Only the Pryor’s frightened breathing and the wail of the wind broke the silence of the room. Quinn allowed the quiet to drone on and moved soundlessly to stand before the cadet. “Here’s the thing, Benny,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Maybe you don’t know this yet, but we take matters of military intelligence extremely seriously. I am here on orders from High Commander Walther himself to gather as much information as I can about this pathetic failure of an uprising, and that includes following any and every lead, however uncredible it may be.”

A long pause followed, Quinn’s gaze not once leaving Pryor’s. “You want to know what I think, Benny? I think you got scared. You were afraid of facing the consequences for your ill-advised scrapping and thought this might win you some favor from your superiors instead of trouble.”

The boy choked back a sob, but shook his head rigorously back and forth.

“No?” The general’s brows shot up in surprise. “Then I’d like you to tell me. And don’t feed me that same tired bullshit you just tried on your colonel.” His eyes flashed. I am a different breed, they seemed to say, dark and dangerous.

Pryor launched into his tale—only this time, he started in Chambrook, his home village. Studying the boy through narrowed eyes, Quinn listened as the story unfolded. The previous spring, just after Pryor’s thirteenth birthday and just before he was scheduled to report to his mandatory training, he’d stumbled into a secret meeting of a handful of the village elders. They hadn’t told him what they were whispering about, but he’d stuck around to eavesdrop through the weathered chinking between the logs of the walls. “I-I only heard a little,” he confessed, “and m-my uncle, he was saying something about wanting ‘it’ to happen before I had to report to camp…b-but I didn’t know what he meant. I thought it was maybe my Hatcheting, but then it never happened and then I had to leave at the thaw.”

Quinn had heard of the Hatcheting ceremonies in stories from his father’s distant travels; it was a tradition mostly found in the dense woods of the mountains farther north. It was a coming-of-age ritual in which pre-teen boy was sent into the forest with a singular axe with the goal of chopping down the largest tree he could manage. When he dragged the felled tree back to his village, his family and neighbors greeted him with a full day and night of celebration. It was even said the size, shape, species, and number of branches on the tree could foretell things about the Hatcheter’s life and future. Backwoods and superstitious, the general thought. But he couldn’t overlook any piece to this puzzle just yet. No matter how ridiculous it seemed.

Still, Chambrook elders potentially getting involved? That meant the entire region could be compromised. The boy prattled on, voice cracking. He had very likely just condemned his entire village to a gruesome end.

“How is it that you find yourself surrounded by all these suspicious gatherings, overhearing potential treason,” Quinn pressed quietly, “and yet not only do you fail to report any of it until it’s too late, you seem to expect me to believe you were never a part of it?”

Whatever color remaining in Pryor’s face drained completely away. Quinn drew out a long-bladed knife from a sheath on his belt, its silver sheen in the dim light dulled by patches of brownish dried blood.

“If you cry for help, no one will hear you,” the general said, his tone as icy as the wind that leaked through the poorly-insulted windowpanes. “Your escorts are gone. Your colonel is gone. No one but me to hear your last words. So I recommend choosing them carefully.” Somewhere in the distance, the camp clock chimed thrice, a menacing knell. “Have you ever heard anyone reference ‘Clover’?”

Pryor’s eyes were glued to the edge of Quinn’s knife.

He repeated the prompt. “Clover. Have you ever heard that word? That name?”

“No…”

Quinn lunged forward, viper-quick, dirty blade suddenly pressed to Pryor’s neck with such control that it indented the tender skin without breaking it. The boy cried out. Leaning down to whisper directly into his ear, the Belvedere general spoke the name again. “Clover. Think hard, Benny.” It only took the smallest increase in pressure to draw fresh blood, little warm beads spilling over his knife and dripping down the boy’s skin.

“C-clover? I don’t know, I don’t know—maybe—”

“ ‘Maybe?’ ” Quinn inched the blade slowly to the side, extending the narrow crimson line. Superficial…so far. “Think.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

The question was barely a whisper. Desperate and terrified. Part of it thrilled Quinn; this was exactly where any interrogator wanted a subject to be, and with Benny Pryor, it had taken very little effort at all to get there. But more than anything he found he was annoyed. Irritated. Exhausted. It was tempting to simply plunge the blade deep into the boy’s neck without another word.

“That’s up to you, Benny,” replied Quinn instead, his face unreadable, tone flat. “What connection does Clover have to Chambrook?” It was a risk with someone so young and impressionable to put specific ideas in their head. A subject under duress might give up their secrets if they thought you already knew something, but they were also liable to confess to anything to get the pain to cease, the threat to end. Saying what Quinn wanted him to say was just as unhelpful as silence.

“I think…I think I might’ve heard them say something…”

Fuck. Pryor had taken the bait, thinking it would get him out of this.

“It might’ve been the name…”

“The name of what?”

“The operation.” Pryor’s voice cracked. “Yeah, yes, the uprising.”

Heaving a sigh of disappointment, Quinn withdrew his blade and stood up straight. Rivulets of blood rolled down the boy’s neck and stained his khaki collar. The boy looked relieved, not realizing he’d just signed his own execution.

The general’s next question was smooth as poison. “And were you part of this uprising? Did you participate in ‘Clover’?” When the boy took too long to answer, Quinn snatched his wrist and yanked his arm up and out, twisting the forearm viciously. Pryor screamed, and the limb fell limp. “Did you participate?” Quinn asked again, this time loudly. He flashed his knife again, resting it against his cheek. “Did you participate?”

“No! No! I didn’t! I swear! I didn’t, I never did!”

“But you didn’t report it,” Quinn muttered, almost to himself. “If you had, this whole thing might have been prevented.” The look of abject guilt on Pryor’s pockmarked face made the general want to hit it off him.

As if on cue, the camp bell tolled four times. Four AM. A reminder of just how exhausted he was…and worse, with a flash of Chloe’s lithe form before his mind’s eye, what this pathetic camp louse had deprived him of that night.

Colonel Franklin opened the door with such exuberance that the heavy metal panel slammed back against the wall with a bang. “An hour, as promised,” he said slyly, stepping up to the scene. His eyes flitted from Quinn’s knife, dripping blood onto the floor, to the boy—arm at an impossible angle, dangling limp in his lap; the slim scarlet line across one side of his neck; new bruises along the jaw. “My, my, you boys have been productive,” the colonel commented, sounding pleased. “I was afraid it would be too late by the time I returned.”

Quinn did not return his smile. “I have what I need. The boy is a traitor.” Pryor let out a devastating wail. The general wiped the flat sides of his bloodied blade on the thigh of his trousers and sheathed it once more at his belt. “He is yours to do with as you wish, Colonel.”

Without another word, Quinn departed, brushing past Colonel Franklin just in time to see the unmistakable sparkle of bloodlust contort the man’s already-wounded features. He breezed past the two Omegas, who had diligently returned to their posts (probably hoping Quinn would not make good on his threat to demote them), and burst into the cold night.

Morning, he thought grudgingly. The weight of the day and the interrogation slowly settled over him like fresh snowfall, leaving him disgruntled and cold. He wouldn’t have time to saddle up and descend the ridge into town. Though that’s all he wanted to do—find Chloe, find a decent mattress, find some fucking peace. Instead he would have to settle for the visiting officers’ quarters, seething and alone.

Fortunately, he was so exhausted that he barely registered the shitty excuse for a mattress and threadbare wool blankets that awaited him there.

Unfortunately, he was only able to snag a couple of hours of shuteye before his duties called again at sunrise.

————

The following day was yet another jumble of orders and meetings and reports and comms. With Franklin partially out of commission and his Ace captains split between the camp and the town, Quinn felt like the ringleader of a particularly chaotic circus.

By the time 19:30 rolled around for his report with the High Commander over the radio, the general had to level himself with several deep breaths. He did, of course, have the information from Cadet Benny Pryor to convey—and a plan of action to propose in follow-up.

“We’re in agreement that Chambrook will need to be taken care of,” crackled High Commander Walther’s voice over the speaker. “Likely the neighboring villages as well. Unfortunate about Clover.”

The call dragged on for over an hour, until finally the density of the evening clouds interfered with the signal enough to force them to wrap up in a hurry. Quinn escaped the dank comms room as quickly as he could, called for his horse, and maneuvered through the gates with as much self-control as he could muster. He sucked the frigid air deep into his lungs and eagerly shoved thoughts of work and duty from his mind, filling it instead with images of the seamstress awaiting him at the manor. A kernel of warmth ignited deep in his belly. The sensation was such a welcome change from the ice that had dwelled there all day that he couldn’t bring himself to be apprehensive—he’d been gone entirely too long, and far longer than he’d promised, but surely he was worth the wait. They were worth the wait. Especially in this hellhole of a town.

Sergeant Percival greeted him outside this time, taking the mare’s reins with his good arm as Quinn dismounted. “I heard you ride up as I was bringing in more firewood. Wondered if you’d be back tonight, General,” the sergeant said, his face passive as ever.

The general heaved a sigh, allowing a little of his exhaustion to show to a fellow trusted soldier who understood the condition. “How is Miss Paice?” was the first question that fell from his lips, before he could think to say anything else.

“She is well,” Percival replied, twisting the leather reins around his hand. “Retired for the evening, I believe.”

Quinn thanked the sergeant and went inside, taking the stairs two at a time until he found himself facing that same closed bedroom door. This time, at least, he was marginally more awake, and he stood in his full winter uniform, weapons still belted at his waist. He tapped twice with a curved finger on the door frame.

Was it his imagination, or did it take an age for the handle to finally twist, for her face to appear in the opening?

A small crooked smile tugged at his lips at the sight of her—fucking finally—and he placed his palm against the door to push it open and step inside before waiting for an invitation. He nudged it closed again with a little too much force from his elbow as he spun around, then backed her against the floral wallpaper and pressed his mouth to hers in a fervent kiss.

“Hello, Chloe,” he rasped as he pulled away, searching her eyes in the lamplight. “I missed you.”

Sunlight filled the room with a shimmering warmth because the occupant had forgotten to completely close the curtains the night before. She stretched catlike, beneath the thick quilts the weighed her down. Immediately, the spy knew she was completely alone and gave a groan of disappointment. How had she slept through his departure? She had never slept through movement around her – not since she was a child – not since her mother died. Was murdered. Rose had all but beaten the deepest sleep from her and yet here she was, well rested and alone. Despite the irritation and surprise at her situation, Clover felt a smile curling her lips. 

That bastard gave her a taste of her own medicine and it was bitter indeed. An ache settled low in her stomach, the culmination of unspent desire from their exhaustion the previous evening. She pushed away her disappointment with the quilts and slid from the bed. The seamstress stretched and winced as the muscles beneath the bruises rippled. She cast her eyes down to them and ran her opposing hand across them. It hadn’t been that long since a man bestowed unwanted bruises upon her. Mr. Inking, if she recalled correctly, was the last one to express his displeasure at her fees, crushing her left hand beneath his. She smiled as she remembered how his horses had somehow escaped their locked enclosure six months later. Rummaging through the small pile of clothing procured from the baker, Chloe chose the green skirt that was thick enough to stave off the chill and a sweater with minimal holes along the hem. She pulled on a thick pair of navy stockings and the rest of the clothing. Hair was tied tight and back from her face, twisted into a messy bun, that was messy enough to convey her rank but tight enough to not irritate her all day. The façade was such a balancing act, a tight thread that she walked over a gaping cavern.

Opening the door, Clover paused and listened. There was someone in the house - a faint shifting noted when they heard the doorknob turn. One breath. Two breaths. Pale lips smiled as she recognized Percival’s footsteps coming into the foyer from the sitting room. He looked much improved, undoubtedly more well rested after the engagement with the townspeople. Since their murder. Since their slaughter. Setting the idea aside, the spy steadied herself. She descended the stairs, pausing at the last three steps. 

“Come to escort me to breakfast?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, enough with the ma’am, Sergeant. I’ll tolerate Miss Paice but Chloe is much preferred.” He surveyed her for a moment, clearly displeased with the request. He had been raised well, but not wealthy. He carried himself with pride but a bit of trepidation around people whose station was superior to his – which he thought she was just through her association with his general. She smiled and made it to the main floor, looking up at him. “You’re far less menacing than your companions when your arm is in that sling.” He raised his brows, almost daring to look offended.

“I can assure you, miss, that I can be quite menacing.”

“Without a doubt.” She waved her hand and drew on the new cloak that Marigold had sent to her. It was as finely made as she could expect from a smaller town. It would do. “But not to me. I’ve mended your clothes and fed you. We’re bonded now.” The charm she readily hid glimmered through her facade momentarily and she opened the door. 

The pair stepped into the cold morning air, and she looked, briefly around, as if Quinnley Belvedere would manifest and whisk her back up the stairs. He’d murmur something wildly inappropriate against her neck – something that would make a Chloe blush but would make Clover laugh. Wind whipped against her neck, causing her to draw her cloak around her tightly. They made their way to the makeshift mess, which was far busier at this hour than it had been the previous evening. The trek was frigid, but fortunately the snow had been packed down and didn’t attempt to seep through the stitching of her boots. The soldiers hadn’t entirely cleared the path of the drifts, but the bodies were gone. They had likely been dumped in a mass grave, a warning to others contemplating rebellion. Their blood still stained bits of snow - covering it would have sent the wrong message to the survivors. Rebellion was death. Northam wanted its citizens to know what would happen if they thought they deserved more than their station. 

“Did you manage to get some sleep?” Chloe inquired as they got closer to the baker’s shoppe.  
“Like a babe. I always sleep well after battle.” 
“Undoubtedly.” She paused, casting a glance up at him. Sleeping well after delivery a killing order could be difficult. She would toss and turn – or at least she used to. Now…now she also slept like a babe, mostly. Clover wondered how long it had taken Percival to sleep well after battle. “How is your shoulder?”
“Nurse said I have to keep it in the sling for three weeks. Minimize its mobility.” Clover recalled her first dislocated shoulder during combat training. Rose had only let her splint it for two weeks. 
“That will be here before you know it. Your wife will have you churning butter in no time.” Percival’s surprise flickered across his face at her comment. 
“What?” She asked, moving to the line at the baker’s. “Did you think I’d forget what we talked about last night?”
“No.” He said, if only because he did not know what else to say. 
“I enjoyed our time together. Like I said, we’re bonded now.” Clover smiled beautifully at him with white teeth and full lips. She noticed the twitch to his mouth before he stood beside her in line. It was nice to be able to genuinely enjoy the recruit of someone – if he could be recruited. Establishing trust and a potential kinship were cornerstones of some of her most successful recruitments. If she could recruit Percival, that would be a big win for her – someone in the higher reaches of Northam’s military. The benefits would balance the risk…

Their turn finally came and there was the same woman that delivered Marigold’s clothing to the brick house. She offered them toast smattered thinly in butter with a slice of salami that was nearly see through. There was hot water for tea, though it had lost a bit of its warmth and was not quite strong enough. The sergeant and the seamstress ate in comfortable silence before Clover brushed her hands along the hand-me-down skirt to remove the lingering crumbs and scant bit of grease from the butter.

“I promised the baker I’d assist her today, to make myself useful until the roads are cleared. I doubt she’d have need of a sergeant. You could attend to other things and meet me back around dinner?” Her guardian opened his mouth to protest. She cut him off quickly with a grin and a swish of her skirts around her ankles. “Surely you’re of much more use elsewhere and how much trouble can I get into at a bakery?” The dazzling smile returned. “I might be able to get us better dinners for the trouble.”

“I don’t think the General would approve.” The man began, shifting slightly. The concern on his face was genuine, but Clover knew it was more out of a fear of retribution from his commanding officer than worry for her.

“Fortunately for me, I am not in the militia and therefore General Belvedere does not have the privilege of ordering me about.” That earned her another twitch of his lips. 

“I can see why he fancies you.” Percival muttered softly to her. Chloe’s dark brows rose above her stormy eyes. That surprised her and very few things did.

“Who says he fancies me?” She laughed, allowing a blush to dapple across her cheeks and nose. The sergeant did not answer but merely cocked his head at her. “What? He was merely being kind, as a courtesy to his sister.” Still, he remained silent while she rolled her eyes. “You’re insufferable. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Clover rose and moved towards the counter, leaving the military man sitting on the worn chair with a slightly irritated look moving its way across his features. Marigold appeared from the back, surprised to see the seamstress, as she set down a few loaves of steaming bread to feed the final round of soldiered breakfast. The woman’s eyes were rimmed in red but now dry as a bone. She hadn’t slept in what appeared to be days, though the spy suspected some of it was the trauma of the prior evening’s event.

“I did not expect ya to return.” The woman’s voice was soft as two other workers began finishing up the breakfast for the stragglers. 

“I am a woman of my word. And it appears that you could use the help.” She smiled, gently and shyly. “I am a seamstress though, so firm direction will be necessary. I don’t want to hinder more than I help.” And that was all that they spoke to each other even through the lunch rush. Marigold’s assistants knew the complexity of the routine and they relayed most of the instruction to Chloe when necessary.  They prepared a thick cabbage stew and served the leftover bread from breakfast. After the soldiers all shuffled out, all the workers took a respite to eat the leftovers, warm their bellies and prepare for the evening meal.

“Where is your son?” Chloe asked, lowering herself next to Marigold on a wooden crate in the back of the shop. She cradled the steaming bowl in her hands after she had dropped pieces of bread into it. 

“With a friend. She lost her husband.”

“Is he…is he alright after the…” she brought the wooden spoon to her mouth, dancing about the subject like a ballerina.

“He will be. We’re resilient.” Chloe smiled at the woman’s words but focused on her watery cabbage stew that only had a few bits of actual vegetable in the broth.

“I’ll say. They slaughter your family and now you serve them.” The seamstress mused, keeping her eyes on her bowl. Marigold stiffened beside her and turned her head, clearly searching the woman’s face beside her. The woman’s guard went up, locking down her emotions immediately. The reserved fear that all women in Northam had. Rebellion was one thing. Rebellion as a woman was completely apart. “What?” Chloe asked, finally turning to her, meeting her gaze steadily. 

“You hold no love for them.” Marigold whispered. Chloe held her gaze and remained silent. “Yet you reside with them.”

This was the tipping point, that crucial moment in a turn, in a recruitment.  But she knew it was too soon. Too quick to be secure. One to two days more and then the offer could be made. For now, the seed would be planted, must take root, before she could pluck the fruit from the tree.  And fortuitously one of the workers interrupted, advising that the butcher’s apprentice had procured meat for sandwiches in the evening and a cheese delivery would arrive shortly. Marigold jumped into action, with only a backward glance at her companion. 

Chloe sliced the proffered meat, adding in the designated spices. The sandwiches would be served warm with melted cheese on top as an offering of victory to the troops. As she worked, the spy allowed her mind to wander to thoughts of the roguish man that had held her the night before. Imagined his arms pulling her close again, his stubble rough against her neck. She imagined that same ease of conversation, in between languid kisses and a gentle caress. As she worked, she recalled the conversation they had engaged in – how daringly foolish it had been to divulge information that could raise his suspicions. But it hadn’t. He had pulled her closer, held her tight. And left her in the morning. That caused a wry grin to dance across her lips – but only as payback for her hasty departure after their first meeting. He would make it up to her tonight. She was sure of it. A splatter of grease drew her back to her task and she finished the remainder of the day without individual interaction with Marigold. 

When Percival arrived at the end of a grueling workday, she sauntered around the counter with a stuffed sandwich in her hands. She had swiped a bit of extra meat for him to help him heal. She beckoned him aside and sat him down in a chair. As she had the night beforehand, she unwrapped it for him, so it was easier for him to eat with his single available hand. 

“So, you survive leaving me alone – not maimed or chastised by your commander?”

“Didn’t see General Belvedere today.” He responded; eyes cast down at his sandwich as he took a big bite. Surprise flickered through Chloe but she attempted to not let him see it when he raised his gaze back up to her. If the sergeant hadn’t seen him…worry seeped into her, and she brushed it aside. He wouldn’t be too busy tonight. He wouldn’t be covered in grime and blood. He wouldn’t be exhausted from battle. He would be there, in all of his -  “This is good.” The man derailed her train of thought with his sandwich comment. She smiled at him.

The house was quiet when they arrived back and Chloe feigned exhaustion, excusing herself after she had washed her undergarments in the bathroom. She stood in her bedroom, door cracked, twisting the edge of her nightgown between her fingers. The night entered its darkest state and still, he did not arrive. Clover collapsed on the bed in irritation, rolling her face into the pillow with an exasperated groan. Why did it even matter if he showed up? It wasn’t like she needed a lay – they had just slept together a few nights ago. And fuck, what a heated exchange that had been. Rolling onto the back, the rebel leader stared at the ceiling above her. This was for the best. This was the best thing that could have happened. The longer she was around him…the more likely it would become that he would notice an inconsistency. Though, Clover smirked to herself, there were no inconsistencies, or there hadn’t been. She was immaculate as Chloe Paice – except when Quinnley Belvedere got her alone. He beckoned her forth, lifting back her armor and devouring her whole.

“God fucking dammit.” She groaned aloud to the night. “Fuck fucking Quinn.” She breathed, settling into the bed, succumbing to sleep and the thought of how his hands might wake her up when he returned.

————

Bright, glittering light broke through the space of the curtains, and she turned away from it, towards an empty bed that remained cold with the lack of a general to warm it.  Clover drew herself into the chill air without the protection of the quilts to protect her. Perhaps he had gotten bored of her. Again, for the best. Perhaps he thought her unusual after their confessions the prior night? Shaking the thoughts from her head, the woman focused on dressing herself for a day of recruitment. Eagle’s Crossing was a good midway point through which information could funnel steadily, if done carefully at least. It wouldn’t be heavily suspected by the military for the women in the town. They viewed women as inferior, incapable of acts of bravery and rebellion. Sure, some women had been executed for treason but for minor infractions and not for large feats of rebellion. It was why Rose had never been suspected and why Clover’s identity remained so well concealed. Women couldn’t lead – at least in Northam’s eyes. They could partake in the military academy training but how many active women remained in the ranks after graduation?

Chloe wore the same green skirt with a different shirt that had a bit of detailing at the edges of the sleeves. She fingered the embroidery of dainty blue flowers before cinching them down with the pale ribbon threaded through them. She could tell by the quality of the garment that it had been treasured by someone – someone probably dead. The hem was tucked into the thick band of the skirt before she pulled her stockings up and over her knees. They were a creamy white, barely showing signs of wear. The seamstress plaited her hair in separate braids before twisting and pinning them up together. It would keep it well out of her way while she worked in the bakery.

Percival greeted her much the same as the day before but did not resist her when she proclaimed she would assist in the bakery yet again. He gave her a nod as he exited, likely seeking out another of his unit in order to assist the transition. The spent the morning as they had before, preparing for lunch. This day someone – a tracker most likely – had found a deer. The butcher had slaughtered it, prepped it, and sent it over for a heartier stew than the day before.  Chloe was in charge of dicing some onions to sauté with the cubes of venison. It would make for a filling lunch, so a lighter dinner could be made.  The workers, down one from the prior day due to a fever, dished out the stew into wooden bowls with a few scant pieces of bread for dipping. When the sergeant showed up, she slipped him an extra bit of bread with a wry smile before returning promptly to work.

They broke for lunch and contrary to the prior day, Marigold sought her out quickly and drew her into the back before she could even make herself a cup of venison stew. Chloe raised her brows and looked around. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I watched ya all day. Ya serve them with a smile, happily but ya question me and mine when I have a family ta protect?” Marigold snapped, keeping her voice low even though no one else was around. Clover’s eyebrows shot up and she had to keep herself from grinning. Easier than a whipstitch.

“We all have roles that we play to survive in Northam, do we not?” Clover retorted, steadily withdrawing her arm from the other woman’s grip. “As women.” She added, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

“And what has such a role got me, huh? A dead husband? A dead brother? More mouths to feed and less money?”

“And whose fault is that? Theirs? Yours?” Clover dropped her voice, stepped slightly closer. “Or is it Northam’s? Is it Commander Walther’s and his oppressive regime?” The words were spoken and couldn’t be drawn back. This could get her killed – but so could breathing in the wrong man’s direction. At least this worked towards a greater good. Marigold’s eyes grew wider and she gripped her own elbows. A twinge of fear entered her gaze, but her eyes remained steely, resolve hardening.

“And what do ya knowa rebellion? With ya soft hands? With the Executioner as a lover?” Marigold hissed, clearly viewing Chloe was a willing participant in the Northam hierarchy.

“Rebellion takes many forms, as I am sure you know. You didn’t fight yesterday, did you?” Marigold remained silent as the seamstress spoke. Clover let the air crackle between them. “But I’ve seen the way some of these crates are packaged. Just enough room for munitions to be tucked between some loaves, sacks of grain, hardened cheeses.” Marigold stiffened, casting her glance to the crates that had not yet been unpackaged but had fortunately not been searched by the militia. “The true Rebellion could use a clever woman with your skills.”

“True Rebellion?” Marigold asked, interest dancing across her face despite herself. “Thatsa fairytale.” Clover smiled, genuinely then and cocked her head.

“Then allow me to be your fairy godmother.” The spy whispered, before the pair of women retrieved their meal and sat down in a secluded area of the back shoppe. They discussed many things, mostly Clover answering as many of the baker’s questions as she reasonably could. Clover’s cover was always that of a medium-ranking officer in the Rebellion. She never divulged her true name, for the sake of the resistance to continue long after her death in the event of her capture. She would be Chloe Paice, a mediocre recruiter for the resistance – never Clover.

Their lunch ended sooner than Marigold desired, but she knew the importance of maintaining a façade. Clover knew that while the initial recruitment had gone according to plan, it would take significant follow-up. The seamstress had promised the village what aid they could manage without drawing attention – food, clothing and time to heal in exchange for information that she would overhear now that the military had established Eagle’s Crossing as a stronghold.

The dinner rush went smoothly, and Clover was buoyed by the elation that this entire venture had not been a complete waste of her time. At that thought, her mind traveled to Quinn. If she hadn’t managed to turn the baker, would it still have been a waste since she had been with him? The spy snorted to herself and continued to hand out sandwiches. How foolish was she to long for him – for his touch, his mouth, his voice? She was the leader of the Rebellion against her father, against Northam and he was the High Commander’s favorite general. Stupid. Fucking stupid.

Percival arrived to draw her from her brooding and from the bakery. It was earlier than the prior day, confusing the woman he was charged with protecting. She wiped her hand on the apron, before untying it and hanging it in its appropriate place. “Is something wrong?” She asked, rounding the side of the counter.

“A missive was sent that you might require additional supplies since your stay was extended.” Percival said, watching as she packed some food in her small satchel. She had swiped some sandwiches for both her and the sergeant, as well as some cheese and soft baked crackers that Quinn might like if he came home tonight. Home. Quinn. Again, she found herself performing silly actions because he had somehow occupied her thoughts constantly just because of one (amazing) night in bed. Percival’s words did nothing to quell the foolish lust she had for the general as she rose.

“Did you see him today?” The inquiry attempted to convey a casual question, but an undercurrent of need laced her words.

“I did not, miss. He has been attending to rather important matters today. I believe coordinating with the High Commander.” He could see the way she shrugged her shoulders and despite the slight smile on her lips, the military man suspected she was disappointed by his response. Shouldering her pack herself, due to his injury, Clover followed him to a little shop towards the gates to the town. He rapped on the door with his knuckle and someone appeared shortly after to unlock it, permitting them entrance.

It was a fine store, nothing to rival Thebes in the slightest, but possessed several items that might suit a woman of her size. Premade clothing and shoes, along with a few trinkets littering the shelves. She perused the racks, cabinets, and shelves – touching a few pieces of fabric to discern their quality. A new pair of stockings would be helpful. She longed to select a few more but had not brough the coin with her. Rummaging through her satchel for the coins, she felt Percival’s large hand on her shoulder.

“It has been taken care of, Miss Paice.”

“Absolutely not. By whom?” She asked, holding the one item she had selected. Percival merely raised a brow and Clover rolled her eyes.

“And you should get whatever you need. Not just that.” He indicated the socks. Clover frowned and opened her mouth the protest before realizing that whatever she bought would be money in the woman’s pocket who owns the shop. Money for her and her family to rebuild. Sighing with evident displeasure, she selected a few more items before Percival escorted her home.

They ate together companionably, chatting and Chloe listening to more about his life prior to the academy and after his graduation. He seemed as though the labors of battle didn’t affect him when he was home with his wife, but here, Clover could tell that something nagged at him. She pondered, briefly, if she should probe at the chinks in his armor but decided against it. She bathed and towel dried her hair, combing her fingers through it repeatedly until it hung straight. She returned to the sitting room, letting her hair dry in front of the fire. It twisted slightly as it dried, wanting to curl slightly despite her best efforts. After she was warmed again, the woman gathered her new purchases and her satchel, standing on the first step of the stairs. Dark head turned back to look at him.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that the fire grew too low in the sitting room this morning. I know you slept on the couch. You best not catch a chill while I sleep, or you will never hear the end of it.” At her chastising, Percival smiled almost sheepishly. “I mean it. Go on.” He laughed then and she ascended the flight of stairs.

————

The room was colder than she remembered, perhaps not warmed by the thought that he would come to her tonight. She did not hold out any hope that he would. It was for the best. It was for the best. She repeated the words as her mantra as she stripped herself of her clothing and opened the parchment her new items were wrapped in. One thing that had caught her eyes was a soft chemise and a thicker robe that paired with it. The socks would keep her feet warm during the night as well. Drawing the fabric over her head, she heard someone coming up the stairs. Heart began to pound anxiously against her ribs, daring not to hope. The knock on the door sent her pulse racing as she drew the robe closed across her chest. She waited there, on the precipice of a cliff that part of her longed to leap off and another desperately wanted to flee from. Tying the sash with slow fingers, Clover found her feet carrying her to the door. Hesitating, only briefly, she turned the handle.

Clover looked him over as he let himself inside. Stormy eyes swirled with an anticipation that she had not permitted herself to feel the entirety of the day - after his lack of arrival last night. It crept up in her, that heady need, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. A desire to rush to him filled her, to throw herself at him. He’d catch her, hand beneath her and the other on her neck. She’d drag him to the floor or he’d press her against the door. Their mouths wouldn’t part from each other’s flesh or lips. He’d growl her name and she’d cry his out, along with the slurry of curses he always managed to draw from her in the height of her ecstasy. He’d ruin the new nightgown, tearing the thin strap from the bodice. Their hands, their mouths, their need were all frenzied. Sweat would coat her skin and the monster inside of her would find its kindred, would slam into that same darkness with a roar of rapture. All of this rushed her as he shut the door behind him.

Eagerly, the seamstress followed his steps until her back pressed against the wall and his mouth descended on hers. The taste of him exploded across her tongue and she gave a ragged exhale when he withdrew. The rough sound of her name sent a visibly tremble through her.  Stormy gray eyes met his glittering golden gaze. Fuck. Fuck fuck. Fuuuuuuck. He had slipped out of bed like a wraith, and she had every intention of making him earn his way back, if just for the fun of it. Instead, she had been in his presence for mere seconds and already she was putty to be molded by his hands. The seamstress couldn’t hide the wicked grin that played her lips, but she could keep herself in check – for a moment.

“General.” Silvery eyes flashed dangerously as she barely let her teeth graze her lower lip. Today had been surprisingly successfully regarding the Rebellion and she was alight with excitement, with a fervor that bubbled beneath her skin. Lightening cracked along her nerves and that excitement fueled the desire she had suppressed since the prior evening.  Despite it all, the lucid dream, the sight of him, the ache of want, Clover remained still. He has missed her. A knot tightened in the pit of her stomach, while heat exploded from her core. He had missed her. He hadn’t forgotten her. He had missed her.

The silent moment stretched out, until she saw just the faintest hint of concern in his eyes. Suddenly, the heat of him was too much, the sight of him cleaned and well-dressed was overwhelming. And god damn, if she didn’t get intoxicated just at his scent – vertiver and faintly citrus. What was another night or two? Reason began to slip away, giving way to all of the fantasies that she had imagined while working in that bakery. A final fuck to satisfy her urges, to alleviate this ache that she carried with her.

One last time.

“How much did you miss me?” She breathed, hands slipping beneath his jacket and dancing over his shirt. She twisted the fabric into her fingers and pulled him close, before pushing him around swiftly and against the wall. Her hands relaxed their grip and resumed roaming. Clover pressed her body against him, relishing the way it felt against her and damning her decision to tie the robe on. Quinn was like water after a desert, a roaring fire after a Cold snap. Powerless to resist his pull. Tilting her head up, her lips brushed against his. She searched his face as her hands toyed with the buttons of his shirt and ran along the waistband of his trousers. Taunting, teasing, wanting. Her mouth found his neck, above the tight collar of his uniform. She trailed upward until her teeth nipped at his ear. “Was it to the verge of madness?” Withdrawing, Clover stepped away. She broke all contact with him and hovered just out of reach, waiting.

It was a grand catharsis to fall back into the storm of her blue-gray gaze. After a very trying stretch of time away, with all the demands of duty and state taxing his rapidly-thinning patience, General Quinn Belvedere was more than ready to be carried away by the tempest of Chloe Paice again.

The sound of his military title escaping those lips of hers sent a delighted shiver down his spine. Fuck. Quinn inhaled the scent of her hair—lemon, which he recognized as the shampoo from the house, and then darker notes of spice, an intoxicating scent that seemed to be uniquely hers. His lips brushed the tip of her ear, and when he felt the mischievous smile spread across her face, his own mouth curled into a complementary smirk. “Yes, Miss Paice?” he prompted in a low rasp.

He lingered with his head bowed for a moment before pulling back to meet her eyes in the dimness, his face still just inches from hers and tilted as though he might not wait for a response before kissing her again. His amber gaze flicked down to her mouth and up again when she didn’t answer right away, and similarly he stilled, his expression faltering a little in question. But all at once she seized the front of his uniform coat, and his heartbeat was spurned into a gallop. The seamstress made quick work of his jacket buttons, and his mouth stretched into a feral grin as her fingers knotted in the wool of his shirt beneath. He threw his shoulders back to give her easier access, and he bowed his head once more to her slender neck, where his lips pressed urgently to the pulse drumming beneath her jaw.

Chloe pulled him against her insistently, and he was happy to oblige. Like a dancer, the well-trained general adeptly stepped with her as she twisted him around, making sure his boots avoided her bare feet. His back struck the wall hard enough to rattle the dusty pictureframes and he flashed a hungry grin. A delirious hum vibrated low in his throat as she tucked her face into the crook of his neck, teasing at the tender flesh and playing over the stubble until her teeth found his earlobe. Her nimble hands, too, danced unabashedly at his waistband. His breath hitched; and when he released the air, it escaped in a deep, mischievous chuckle.

Quinn bit his lip when she stepped back, as though that might help maintain his rapidly fraying self-control. She was just inches away, taunting him with her electric proximity…but it was her words that detonated the unbearable explosion of heat through his body. Was it to the verge of madness? He made no effort to hide his voracious gaze as it swept from her face to her toes and back again.

Fuck. Fuuuck.

Amber eyes turned molten, wanting, predatory. He didn’t break their stare, gold meeting silver, as he reached out to grasp the knot that secured her robe. In a gesture that he performed slowly, agonizingly, he pulled the tie loose. His fingertips slid beneath the lapels and followed the fabric up to her shoulders, where he eased the garment down her arms. Callused hands gripped her bare shoulders then, and he traced her exposed collarbones with a finger. Electricity raced up his arms like heat lightning in the summer sky.

Their heated breaths mingled as his mouth hovered just a finger’s breadth from hers. His voice was a heady rumble in his chest, the thunder to the invisible lightning that crackled between them. “Beyond madness,” he murmured, “straight to the very edge of ruin.”

Without preamble, the general seized the cloth of her nightgown at the waist and pulled her hungrily against him. His mouth crashed into Chloe’s with such fervency that it forced her to lean back as he pressed forward. He held her upright with his grip on her dress—how easy it would be to rip the delicate material free, to feel the seams give way to the strength of his hands as he tore it from her body. He toyed with the limits of the garment’s structural integrity with a desperate tug, and its hem rose ever higher on her thighs with the gathered material in his grasp.

He released his hold abruptly and took a step forward, guiding her slowly toward the bed. With the first step, he unbuckled his belt of weapons and draped it carefully over the arm of the closest chair. With the second, he shrugged away his winter jacket and let it fall to the floor. With the third, he lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it away—too distracted to pay any heed to the ache in his wounded arm. The evening air was chilly against his bare torso, but that only served to emphasize the blistering heat of the fire beneath his skin. Chloe’s appraising gaze stoked the flames.

“You missed me,” Quinn said huskily. It wasn’t a question. A dark, confident smile quirked his lips, and he moved closer yet again, stepping out of his boots and kicking them aside. He reached out, slipping a hooked finger beneath the narrow strap of her nightgown. Teasing. Wanting. But as much as he would have reveled in hearing her admit aloud that she’d yearned for him in his absence, the matching gleam in her eyes said it all. He already knew she had. “Show me how much,” he growled, an order as much as a challenge, his expression lascivious and self-assured.

The words between them had precisely the desired effect and a wicked half smile twisted her lips. Clover melted beneath his fiery gaze, igniting as a thin piece of paper thrown into a roaring fire. She had expected him to pounce as the predatory gleam glittered in his amber eyes. To her infinite surprise, the General painstakingly removed the knot from her robe. Years of training were now utilized to remain still, keeping her excitedly nervous energy under wraps as he began to undress her. The woman wished desperately that their clothing would evaporate into mist around them. Instead, his fingers moved so slow she exhaled softly in frustration. The spy was unable to suppress the shiver that ran the course of her body when his hands slipped beneath the lapels and removed her robe from her body. It made but a whisper as it fluttered to the ground around her feet. Gooseflesh erupted along her arms and it certainly was not caused by the evening chill.

The small curve at the corner of his lips created ripples of desire inside her while his fingers sent electric shocks along her collarbone. A hurricane swirled in her eyes as they drifted from his mouth to his amber gaze and back again. Clover did not even have a chance to gasp at his proclamation before his mouth claimed hers. The words cut bone deep, twisting around her and fanning the flames of her lust.  And that kiss wrecked her. Her lithe form bent to his will, crushed between his mouth and his hand fanned at her back. Their bodies collided and she loathed that he still had all of his garments on. Her hands found their way back into the rumpled fabric of his shirt, holding him just as tightly as he held her.

Clovers hope that he’d remove the green chemise we’re dashed when suddenly he broke their contact. Yet while his hands abandoned her, the silent wishes she harbored were coming to life. Weapons. Jacket. Shirt. And he walked her back until she was nearly at the bed, lamplight making him even more appealing. Fuck. What she wouldn’t give to kiss down those tight planes of his chest, his stomach and to run her tongue along his hipbone. He moved as though his arm was no longer a factor and the idea filled Clover with anticipation. All the desire that had formed a knot in her over the past two days was going to be released now, by his nimble hands.

Finally. Fuck. Finally.

A singular brow rose above turbulent gray-blue eyes at his statement. One side of her mouth kicked up and she parted her lips slightly to deny it, but was only further distracted by the movement of his finger beneath the strap of her clothing. Eyes flicked downward, examining his waistband, free of the belt, and taunting her with this proximity. The issued challenge startled her and that lascivious gaze darted back to his face. Clover stared at him with parted lips, wanting but waiting. Heat exploded inside of her as his words raced about in her mind. Fuck. Something about his confidence spoke to her own secretly self-assured nature. Words were meaningless now - for both the general and the spy communicated better without them. At least for now.

Maintaining eye contact, Clover moved deft hands to his sides before fingers danced downward. She toyed with his pants, traveling over the skin and then the fabric in a zigzag pattern. One hand made swift work of his buttons and zipper and pushed them down. She drew him towards her with one finger in the waistband of his underwear, leaving his britches behind as she stepped backwards and then slowly turned them. His calves pressed against the wood of the bed frame as she inched the remaining article downward. The seamstress longed to examine the effect she had on him, but kept her eyes dutifully holding his. Need pulsed in her veins with each rapid beat of her heart.

She saw the desire grow in his golden gaze, twining with the darkness that called to her own. Quinnley Belvedere seemed to know what thrilled her, what pleased her and how to get just what he wanted from her.  Holding that stare with a grin playing her lips, Clover lowered herself to her knees. Before she pleasured him, she gave him a wicked smirk. The noise he made as she took him into her mouth sent a shiver down her spine. The seamstress drew out his moans with her tongue and her lips, feeling his hips buck slightly against her movements. Desire built in her with each minute that passed as his vocalizations filled the quiet room.  She worked him artfully to swells of pleasure, taking him to the verge of madness. And there she stopped.

She did not take him over the edge but instead rose back to her feet with slow, tantalizing kisses along his hips, abdomen and chest.  The rebel leader stepped back using all of her willpower and dragged her thumb from the corner of her lip to the midline. Gray eyes swirled with flecks of blue as she met his eyes once more. “I missed you.” She admitted, running her teeth along her bottom lip. “When you didn’t show.” Feet remained planted as she reached out to brush two fingers against a scar along his good arm. “The bed was so empty and my thoughts all that kept me company.” Her tone was teasing, like one of a jilted lover left behind. Gaze danced enticingly as she trailed her hand upward. Then she took him in her other hand suddenly, elated at the gasp that hissed through his teeth. “Don’t ever keep me waiting again, General.”

Another wave of searing heat crashed into him all at once as the seamstress took hold of him—a wildfire roaring to life beneath his skin, ignited by the lightning strike of her touch. She felt almost like battle. The rush, the excitement, the sudden and overpowering need to make her his…only this was somehow more intense than any battlefield, driven not by instincts of wartime survival, but instead a desire so all-consuming it was a wonder the earth itself didn’t quake beneath his feet. Like his body was coming alive again, unrestricted and unrestrained, thawing from too many hours in the frigid winter outdoors and too many hours away from her. As though he, General Quinnley Belvedere, were carved specifically for this purpose, his bones and muscles and limbs tailor-made for this moment. For this baffling and beguiling seamstress of Thebes who was so much more than what she seemed.

It was all he could do not to devour her right there, but it seemed Chloe Paice had the same aim, and in fact was eager to beat him to it. The general collided with the bedframe at her guidance, drawing his fingers down her bare arms as she pulled back with a wanton smirk that was nearly enough to undo him on its own—that was, until she slowly dropped to her knees.

Oh, fuck.

It was the last word that reverberated through his mind before Quinn’s blood went molten in his veins, scalding him from within with every frantic beat of his heart. The moment her knees touched the carpet, the second she exposed the evidence of his desire from the confines of his trousers, he was lost—lost to the promised madness of passion and pleasure, to the carnal haze of lust, to the incomparable sensation of her mouth that left him gasping. A melody of deep moans rumbled unbidden from his throat. At the slow coaxing of her lips and tongue, his hips came to life of their own accord and rolled forward, muscles rippling. He gripped the edge of the bed frame with one strong hand while the other tangled in her dark hair from above, until he was on the euphoric verge of…well, madness.

A shudder of ecstasy—and desperation—raised gooseflesh on his arms when the seamstress rerouted her mouth’s attention to his hips and the chiseled planes of his abdomen. Fuck, fucking fuck. He raked his fingers through the damp waves of his hair, brushing the mussed locks from his forehead. She’d left him on the cusp of rapture by design. That damned wicked thing. But as keenly felt as it was, the frustration boiling in his blood was merely a prelude of what was to come next. He had a feeling it would be worth the wait.

I missed you. A thrilled shiver bolted down the general’s spine at the confession. His face, glistening with sweat in the cool air, darkened with an impish expression that said, I knew it, without uttering a single word. Another wave of gooseflesh erupted across his skin as her touch continued to roam. When she took him suddenly in her deft grasp again, he inhaled sharply through clenched teeth and drew his lips into a pained but predatory smile. His hand slid to the back of her slender neck and he squeezed, resulting in her chin tilting upwards as he pulled her closer. The general peered into the blue-gray storm of her eyes, delighted to find familiar shadows lurking in their depths. “Giving orders now, are we? Remind me which of us is the general, hmm?” He laughed, gaze flashing with amusement and mischief and need. “Allow me to make it up to you.”

This time, he reached straight for the front of Chloe’s nightgown, where the soft V of the neckline grazed the top of her breasts. “Come here,” he purred dangerously. He pulled forward—not gently—and twisted, steering her to the edge of the mattress accompanied by the pop of cotton thread giving way in delicate seams. When the back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress, he hiked the hem of her nightdress up to her hips, then her waist, his hands inching up the bare flesh of her sides as he did so.

Quinn’s smile turned feral, a flash of white teeth. He eased the seamstress onto the bed, her bare legs hooked over the edge, and for a heady moment he simply studied her from above, voracious gaze sweeping from her eyes to her toes and all the erotic hidden places in between. Slowly, with a control that belied his hammering heartbeat and electrified nerves, he lowered himself to his knees before her, watching as her expression changed, as her lips parted, as her eyes darkened with need. She wanted him, just as he wanted her. He placed one hand on each of her thighs and eased them apart, his golden eyes flashing with the fire of stoked desire and anticipation.

Where the seamstress had brought him right to the edge of his pleasure, of ruin, Quinn had no intention of exercising such restraint. The floodgates were open, the hurricane had made landfall; he was no longer interested in the verge of anything—he would take her straight over the precipice, and they would tumble together headlong into whatever lay beyond. He might play, he might tease...but he would certainly and unabashedly devour her. And that’s precisely what he did. 

No holding back. He grinned against her at the sounds his mouth was able to coax forth. Still he didn’t stop; slow and quick, tender and rough, and everything in between. The general took what he knew from their previous clandestine encounters and amplified what he knew would make her whimper, invigorated by the writhing of her hips and the quivering of her thighs against him. His desire built in tandem with her pleasure as it rose and intensified, until at last it crested—and he withdrew with languorous kisses down her inner thighs, surfacing with a positively devilish smirk.

Supporting himself with his good arm, he leaned over her on the bed, a brow quirked high on his forehead. Her flushed complexion and mussed tresses gave him more than a little satisfaction; it made him want to do it all over again, to have her at his mercy as he guided her to ecstasy. “For rapture,” he whispered to her, bringing his knee up to the mattress between her legs. He lifted himself forward and hovered over her horizontally, their chests brushing with each inhale. With his free hand, he traced a line from her temple to her jaw and then down to her chest, where he pressed his palm firmly to her sternum. He held it there for a moment, watching her face and feeling the flutter of her heartbeat, then placed a bruising kiss on her waiting lips.

Pulling away, his breaths ragged, Quinn dipped his mouth to her ear and spoke so low it was practically a growl. “Frighten me, Chloe Paice,” he whispered. “Show me your monsters. Let them out.” His teeth found her earlobe. “And show me just how wicked they can be.”

Quinn’s laughter beckoned her into the darkness, a low rumble mingling with a need that rivaled her own. Pleasuring him had only served to heighten her desire, a thick knot right between her hips and a warmth settling between her legs. The truth of his tease did not elude her and she permitted a dangerous smile to play her lips as he held her by the neck. She released her hold on him as the velvet command slid over her skin, fingers tearing the chemise he had just purchased for her. Breaths grew laborious as his hands crested up the swell of her hips, baring her soft skin. No protests were made as he eased her back and then coaxed her legs apart, revealing the serpentine tattoo along her inner thigh. She watched as he studied her form, in a heady way that reminders her of the time he had drawn her in his bedchamber.

A sharp thrill electrified her limbs as he lowered himself between her legs. And oh, fuck. It was even better than she remember. She moaned loudly to the ceiling, hands tangling in the thick quilts and the remainder of her nightgown. The path to her ecstasy was not a straight, for the general guided her slowly around turns and then sped towards the edge before drawing her back. Over and over he coaxed her pleasure deeper, higher with soft draws of his mouth and the delving of his tongue. Clover cried out in climax, not once but twice in rapid succession at his efforts. Legs trembled against his shoulders, hips arched and then fell back against the mattress. The general was as adept with his tongue as he was with a sword, leaving her a trembling mess chest heaving and sweat beading between her breasts as her chemise lay bunches around her waist.

Hurricane eyes glittered dangerously as he came to rest over her. Clover did not miss the evident satisfaction on his face and that stoked the fire high once more. He took pleasure in her climax. He took it as a challenge and succeeded all expectations. Dark hair was tousled, lips swollen and glistening while his eyes burned gold and rimmed by darkness. Fuck. He had ruined her, completely and utterly devoured her with a military precision she was fascinated by. The general’s expertise in the bedroom, his exceptional skill between her thighs, was a marvel. She thought she remembered the quivering of her limbs from the last time, but she was so wrong. The seamstress attempted to control her breathing and the pounding of the hammer that was her heart. For rapture. For ecstasy. She felt his hand above her chemise, the tear from his early tug pressing against her flesh. The kiss stole her remaining air and she inhaled sharply when they parted. The ache, the snapped tension from his exploits, began to settle anew inside of her. She felt his mouth slide to her ear and Clover could not believe the words he uttered. The command sizzled inside of her, burrowing deep and awakening the monsters that were held on such a short leash, held at bay by nothing stronger than a thread when he was near. The darkness she kept hidden raged against her failing hold and Clover struggled to find the well of logic, the common sense that allowing this with him was the antithesis of her whole purpose. But the tides of calm waters had given way to turbulent swirls of black smoke, slamming against her shields.  The dam broke and something forbidden mingled with her desire now, carrying her to a level of need she had never experienced before. Gray eyes flicked to his as he hovered above her once more.

The thrill of someone wanting to know that part of her was temporarily overwhelming. A different sort of heat kicked her heart rate up once more, sending a blush across her cheeks. What if he was a match for her? The thought came suddenly, destabilizing her foundation. No one had noticed her sins, let alone wanted to experience the entirety of her wickedness. The rebel wondered if a subconscious piece of him knew what he asked for, truly understood. The monster inside of her demanded blood and death. It hungered for vengeance and sated itself on retribution. The feral beast was a sight to behold in all its glory, but now, now he would see how it took its pleasure - and have it in slow, tantalizingly equal measure.

Faster than Chloe would have been, the spy twined her leg around him and shifted. With his wounded arm giving her an advantage, she flipped their positions while careful to avoid aggravating his injury. One leg was pressed between his and the other held firmly at his side. The result of his devotion pressed against his own thigh and a deep throb pulsed between her hips. Hands tangled in his curls and she gave him a hard kiss, running her tongue along his before taking his lower lip between her teeth. The tang of copper flooded her tongue from the reopened split on his mouth from the battle. Clover held herself aloft with one hand as she wiped the blood from his lip with the other, before taking her finger into her mouth. Eyes never moved from his.

“I thought very little scares you, Quinn.” She breathed his name, finally, into the night between them and his blood stained her lips crimson.  Clover moved to straddle him, careful to not give in to the desire to ride him through the night - not yet at least. She trailed her fingers slowly over his chest and down his sides, feeling the raised collection of scars. The seamstress lowered her head, allowing her mouth to work against the tender flesh at his neck. Trailing down, she knew there would be marks tomorrow as the skin turned red in her wake.

“Though you might be afraid by how much you want me still, even when I’m through with you.” She whispered, voice a sultry purr of need.

Clover removed the damaged nightgown, lifting it over her head swiftly. She held it in her hand as she towered over him, lascivious gaze roaming over his body. Invisible sparks danced between the silver and gold stare before she slid away. “Sit up.” She commanded, with all the authority of the leader he didn’t know she was. A gleam entered her eyes as a predatory curl just barely turned one corner of her swollen lips. “Move to the headboard.” Again, she did not broker any protest. Once he was close enough, she stopped him. Slender fingers trailed down one arm as she moved behind him and utilized the torn fabric to bind his hands together (gently) behind his back. She made certain not to pull back on his wound, but there was enough tension that he could not free himself from the expert binding she wrought around his wrists. Lips moved to his ear from behind him as she trailed one finger down his back, reminiscent of their first meeting. “The rules are simple, Quinn.” Clover’s voice dropped the liquid sweetness of Chloe completely. She permitted him to rest against the pillow at his back.

“Don’t move.”

The general of the rebellion proceeded to use her hands, mouth, teeth and hands to elicit noises that she hadn’t heard from him yet. And still, he obeyed. She coaxed him to break and still he didn’t. But finally, she could sense his control was fraying at the seams. Clover settled herself across his lap, holding herself aloft on her knees. The heat of their bodies mingled, all of the chill from the winter air lost to them. And he broke then, just slightly, shifting his hips in an effort for the release she had forbidden him from for far too long. The wickedness from her inner monster darkened her gaze as her hand snapped up, lightning fast, to grasp his chin. She tilted it up, forcefully, as a languid smile curled her lips. “What did I say, General?” Her voice was a threat, husky and deep. Fingers held a punishing grip on his chin, the stubble pressing into the pads of her thumb. Hand shifted around the curve of his jaw, tangling into his hair and tugging his head back, causing his body to arch just slightly and brush her own.  Mouth lowered to speak against his, taunting him with each word. “Soldiers who don’t follow orders are punished.” The moment stretched taut and the spy wasn’t certain that her own tenuous control would hold. The molten gold of his eyes flashed a dangerous amber. His monster roared to life there, finally, after all of his expert control. The same wild power surged - the one she had witnessed when he approached her in the snow, covered in blood. Pulse pounded in her ears and a part of her she refused to recognize that something in her was now forever her, somewhere she knew she was lost to him.

“And how should I punish you, Quinnley Belvedere, for such insubordination?”

If it hadn’t already been made abundantly clear, Chloe Paice was wholly unlike anyone Quinn Belvedere had ever met. And despite the charged words he’d growled in her ear, he had certainly not foreseen what she would do to rise to his challenge.

The binds around his wrists were tight but not uncomfortable. It would take a bit of maneuvering and some well-placed strength to break free of them, but he found that he didn’t want to—at least not yet. He writhed against them playfully, more for show than out of actual discomfort, and flashed her a grin of intrigued surprise. The sensation was altogether new to him; he was not one to shy away from occasional submission in the bedroom, but to find himself completely at his partner’s mercy was another situation entirely. A shiver raced down his spine, part thrill and part uncertainty, which only served to stoke his flames higher at the prospect of bending to the seamstress’ whims.

For a man so accustomed to bearing the weight (and perks) of power, it was bizarrely intoxicating to relinquish it. His skin heated all over again from the heat of her expression as the storm of her gaze raged over the entirety of his bare form. Her demeanor had changed completely. She’d doffed her well-crafted mask, allowing him a glimpse of an entirely different Chloe than the one who presented to the world as a demure tradeswoman on the Avenue. Gone were the last dregs of trepidation in her actions; vanished was the subtle reticence in her voice, so faint he hadn’t even noticed it was there until it was absent. A woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it, who didn’t give a fuck about his rank or his title or his family name.

At last, the general found himself thinking. Gooseflesh erupted in waves over his flushed and glistening skin as a carnal smirk curled his lips. This was the woman he’d beckoned from the shadows. The woman his whispered words had freed from the confines of her cage.

Her command to keep still was so forceful that it was almost a dare. Quinn’s teeth snagged his lower lip, where a bead of fresh blood welled from their bruising kiss. He lapped at it slowly with his tongue, the metallic tang of iron filling his mouth. He would obey her order, playing the part as well as any duty-bound soldier. Even with his arms immobilized, he still managed to give off the air of a predator—his eyes dark with desire, his mouth smeared with crimson, his sculpted chest heaving with deep but controlled breaths.

Stubbornly, expertly, pridefully, he refused to move as she had her fun with him. Quinn had been trained not just in how to control his body in combat, but also how to withstand torture. Of course this was nothing like an interrogation (although in the moment he may have argued that her relentless teasing and touching and coaxing was its own particularly cruel type of torture), but the same techniques were proving useful—so useful, in fact, that the seamstress had her work cut out for her in getting him to break. He might have looked more satisfied with himself had he not been so distracted, his nerves blazing with electricity as her fingers and lips moved with equal fervor over the planes of his figure. But even the best-trained officer had his tipping point, and he could feel his body begin to betray his efforts. His jaw clenched as he fought not to writhe; his muscles trembled with the force of his restraint, begging for the release she so skillfully teased. At last his hips bucked, rolling against her on their own accord, and his throat emitted a low, strangled groan as if to say, Please.

Chloe’s fingers buried themselves in the stubble on his jaw then. The threat in her voice awoke something in him that made him sit up straighter, trying to close their gap. But she held him at bay by tangling her hand in his hair and forcing his head backward, prompting his spine to arch up toward her involuntarily. A gasp hissed through his clenched teeth. Quinn was keenly aware of the warmth radiating from between her thighs as she straddled him, hovering, a tight inferno building low in his hips. His self-control was faltering fast. Soldiers who don’t follow orders are punished, she muttered against his mouth, their hot breath mingling. His smirk broadened to a terrifying grin at that, his amber eyes flashing with a savage gleam even in the shadows. He could feel his own well-trained demons stir to blazing wakefulness, and he knew she saw it too—her expression shifted to one of wild anticipation, of recognition that ran bone-deep. And with her final question—how should I punish you, Quinnley Belvedere, for such insubordination?—he realized this had been her goal all along. 

And she was so distracted with taunting him that she didn’t notice his hands working at the binds behind his back.

The knot was tied expertly, but this was not braided rope, with strands that had no give at all; it was a woven garment, its fibers and weft very capable of stretching, constructed with delicate cotton thread in narrow seams that were already damaged from his own hand while it had still clothed Chloe’s frame.

“I don’t take orders from anyone, Chloe,” the general whispered hoarsely, speaking for the first time since she’d commanded him to be still. The moment drew out longer as their breaths mingled, the tension so thick he could have sliced it with a blade. He sat up a little straighter, his swollen lips brushing hers as he murmured darkly, “So consider me a rebel.”

The ruined chemise fell from his wrists, and he brought his newly-freed arms back around so quickly that it elicited a gasp from the seamstress as he wrapped them around her in a crushing embrace. In the same motion, he rocked forward and twisted his legs beneath him, lifting her up and around as though she weighed nothing until her back was against the mattress. His injured arm was the last thing on his mind as he braced himself over her. The wicked shine of unguarded surprise in her silver eyes was potent fuel to his roaring fire, and he had the audacity to smirk right back. And at long, agonizing last, he took her—and she him.

Straight to rapture and ruin.

The sound of ripping fabric met her ears shortly after his words and surprise danced across her features. It was short lived as a delighted and wicked smile curled her mouth. A rebel. If only he knew. All thoughts fell away as they came together in a fury of passion so powerful it was likely heard by her poor sergeant downstairs. Every single moment was beyond what she had fantasized about when he hadn’t shown the previous night. And Clover murmured his name into his shoulder at first, before saying it much more fervently and repetitively at a louder volume multiple times throughout the course of the next few hours.

The seamstress slid out of the sheets after…whatever round they had just completed. She moved to the little sink in the small privy that did not contain a bath. She ran some water over her fingers before placing it along her neck to cool her heated skin. Her other hand held her hair back up temporarily before letting the dark mass tumble down her back. She turned to eye him and his half-covered form, taking in the languid appearance of his limbs.

“Your apology is accepted, General.” She finally murmured into the dead of night around them. “With such reparations, I don’t think I will be as upset in the future with broken promises.” The moment the words left her lips, her mouth kicked up on one side. She had acknowledged, to both of them, that she anticipated some time of continued trust between them. It surprised it deeply, the admission of a desire to continue to see him. Because in the burning light of day, the rebel leader knew that such plans were folly. Foolishness. With the afterglow of their union and the night intense around them, Clover could let loose her monster - as foolish as it was.

It didn’t take long for her to saunter back over and climb onto the mattress beside him. The cool water on her skin and the poorly sealed windows had allowed a chill to brush against her. She sidled up beside him to steal some of his warmth, bare skin and bare skin. Lean legs tangled along his as she slipped her body between his and his arm. Absently, nimble fingers traced along a myriad of his scars until the ragged edges of one drew her focus. “How often do your lovers make you enumerate the ways in which you obtained these scars?”

She tilted her head up to look at him. Stormy eyes swirled as they met his molten gold gaze. “Do your daring deeds impress them? Or are they frightened for you putting yourself in harms way as you conquer our enemies?” She was always careful to include herself as a part of Northam. Chloe was a loyalist. Chloe was dedicated to Northam and High Commander Gregory Remington Walther. Clover longed to shove a blade so deeply into his chest that it would break at the hilt. The thought of his other lovers made another thought cross her mind.

“Speaking of lovers, you’re a bit old to not have been wedded off to an eligible Northam lady.” She twisted, propping herself onto the elbows and looking down at him. She appreciated the way his fingers brushed against her elbow and her arm. Heat stirred again, briefly. The tease was well meant but also curious. It was well known that the Belvedere heir was, well, without an heir himself or even entertaining the prospect of one. Clover was sure that irked her father. He was quite insistent on propagation of good, strong and loyal Northam genes. “Or do you have a betrothed and I am an unwitting mistress?” Clover feigned shock, as if the idea of bedding a married man offended her. It didn’t. But Chloe was careful not to draw attention and that particular included the ire of angry wives.

Whatever had broken free during their unguarded late-night conversation now amplified their electricity to such a degree it was a wonder the air around them didn’t ignite. What had been good before, beyond good, had utterly transcended whatever expectations Quinn had harbored throughout their stretch of separation. Their tangled limbs and glistening skin and frenzied breaths were more than just poetry, although certainly it was that too; it was a storm, like the one that churned in Chloe’s blue-gray gaze, like the one that raged deep within Quinn’s chest. Passion and darkness and anger and power. Lightning and thunder. A deluge of pleasure that thrummed with a new, thrilling undertone of danger.

The feeble electric light seemed to sizzle, bathing their forms in golden fire as their bodies entwined over and over again. The sound of his name on the seamstress’ lips sent shocks of satisfaction through him as their mutual ecstasy climbed, and over the course of the next several hours, the general growled out her name so many times it became almost like a prayer. And certainly, as she slid bare from the twisted sheets, she looked the part of a goddess. Satisfied though he was, his eyes roamed over her form hungrily as she sauntered into the privy, the dark waves of her hair cascading down her slender back as her hands leisurely relinquished hold of the tangled tresses. Teasing him from a torturous distance, like the wicked thing she was.

Heat flared in his core in response to her display, and he felt a smirk tilt his lips as she turned to assess him as well. Quinn lay across the mattress as though it were a throne—confident as ever, yet languid and relaxed in the afterglow of their tryst. Raking a hand through his hair only served to muss the locks further, and wavy strands settled messily over his damp forehead as he leaned his head back against the headboard. The chill of the room sent a shiver down his spine as the searing fire beneath his skin gradually calmed to smoldering embers, but he felt a warmth on his wounded bicep that he investigated with his opposite hand. When he pulled back, his fingertips were stained with red. At that, he grinned shamelessly and held up his crimson fingers like a badge of honor as Chloe approached. So lost he had been in their hurricane of lust and pleasure that he hadn’t even felt the scab break open. Fortunately, the bleeding had already stopped, leaving only the wet trickle of blood behind.

“This is most excellent news,” Quinn drawled in response to the accepted apology. “Especially wounded though I am, and how I’ve bled for you now.” He shifted slightly to the side and tugged away the blankets, making room for her as she returned to the embrace of the bed…and his arms. “I’ll remember that for the future,” he whispered into her hair as she nestled into the crook of his good shoulder. He inhaled slowly and allowed his eyes to flutter closed, savoring the feel of her skin along the length of his body. The steady warmth of her staved off the cold, and bafflingly, he found himself already dreading his inevitable departure in the morning.

Looking down, he watched as her fingers traced the constellation of scars on his abdomen and chest. A chuckle tumbled from his lips at her question. “The brave ones ask,” he said, “and I never tell.” It was true; most of the women he took to his bed were curious, but in a distant way. They were so far removed from the violent realities of the militia, of war, that the truth behind most of his scars would have spoiled the mood. “Honestly?” He paused, mulling it over. “I think most of them only see the uniform. They don’t see me outside the walls of Thebes. They don’t see what the uniform means, just what it looks like.” His voice dropped, low and intense. “Not like you saw me. Never like that.”

Another shiver ran through him, having nothing to do with the temperature. He was almost grateful for her next question, the mundanity of which sounded odd enough from the seamstress that he quirked a mischievous smile. He met her gaze curiously when she twisted to face him, her eyes silvery in the shadows. “I never pegged you as a gossip, Miss Paice,” he teased, drawing idle shapes on her upper back with a curved finger. “But no. I am unattached. Famously so, in fact.” His smile broadened, almost haughty. The Belvedere heir knew exactly how compelling a subject he was for the ever-turning rumor mill. “Why, do you have any recommendations? I imagine you learn all sorts of interesting things about your clients, in your profession. I’m sure you know everything there is to know about Thebes’ eligible bachelorettes.”

The general ran his fingers over the stubble on his jaw, amber eyes glittering but his expression otherwise unreadable. “And is there a Mister Chloe Paice I should know about?” asked Quinn nonchalantly, although something in his gut twisted a little as he voiced the question. “Surely a competent tradeswoman like yourself is in high demand.”

The future. His acknowledge of some sort of continued relationship set her heart racing despite her knowledge that this should be the last time they dallied together. A future between a brigadier general and the leader of the Rebellion again the High Commander of Northam was doomed from the very start. And yet here they lay, wrapped in each other and the vulnerability of their union cloaking them. They had seen each other, truly peered into the dark depths of their wounded souls and found a surprising intimacy that neither would ever be able to shake.

“I am a seamstress in Thebes, General. Gossip is a currency that many women and men utilize while in my shoppe. I take their coin while they exchange the latest news.” Clover smiled, idly running her finger along the gnarled skin around his bicep from what had to be two separate gunshot wounds - or arrows- she wasn’t certain. The unique feel beneath her fingertips kept her occupied momentarily, before she continued. His words made her laugh and she turned her stormy eyes, swirling with amused blue, towards his gaze. “Famously so?” The spy echoed before pushing herself up to brush her lips across his. “I was unaware I was bedding someone famous. If I was a gossip, I wonder what the elite ladies would say if I divulged my evenings with the solitary General Belvedere.” Eyes twinkled dangerously but without any real threat. It would be just as damaging to her reputation as it would be to his.

Clover appeared to ponder the request before shrugging. “There are a number of ladies available of whom I have no doubt have already made their interest clear to you. Maria would be more apt at playing matchmaker than I would. I just design dressed, General. The nuances of high society are not my forte.” The statement was amusing considering she was from the highest rank in all of Northam. With her mother’s death, Clover would have been the leading lady of her father’s regime. The sudden thought made her mouth tick up slightly, wondering if she would have ended up in Quinn’s bed, as his wife, had everything taken a different turn.

“Most misters,” the response came from her slowly as her attention turned to another scar, “do not particularly appreciate a woman that can out-earn them. And I don’t have any interest in bowing to the commands of a man.” Clover spoke before really considering the words. They were not Chloe’s. They were not the well practice mantra that she sold to other men and women. So instead, silver met gold and she gave him a wicked smirk. “Well, there are exceptions to that I suppose.” Eyes glittered dangerously as she recalled falling to her knees before him at his command and his subsequent firm grip on her waist in the bed after escaping his bondage. Heat flared inside of her and Clover diverted her gaze, staring at the window that would undoubtedly permit light to enter through the drapes in mere hours.

“I must admit…” idly her fingers danced along his skin, “this is not at all what I expected my wool evaluation trip to become.” The seamstress twisted back again, drawing him to lie flat beside her. A quick stretch pulled at her limbs before she curled against him. The night’s silence began to creep towards them, until she bid it back, just once more. “Tell me something, Quinnley Belvedere.” The way her tongue formed his name was a lover’s gentle caress. “Something you haven’t told any of those other trysts before me.” Clover closed her eyes, comforted by the slow rise and fall of his chest and the curl of his hand across her waist.

He couldn’t explain why his stomach had suddenly tied itself in a knot. On principle, the prospect of taking a married woman to his bed wasn’t particularly bothersome. He didn’t make it a habit, but it also wouldn’t have been the first time someone with a spouse had let lust get ahold of them. General Quinnley Belvedere could usually get away with whatever he wanted, and he knew very well he carried the reputation of being a high-ranking Casanova amongst the Thebesian darlings. The rumors were exaggerated—he did have important duties to attend to, which consumed quite a bit of his time—but he never bothered correcting the whispers. If nothing else, it was another layer of armor comprising his ironclad status, an excuse he could use to explain away anything and emerge unscathed. Still, when Chloe revealed that there was no particular Mr. Paice waiting for her at home, he felt his breaths come a little easier, the tension in his gut loosening all at once.

He flashed a devil’s grin at her comment. “Consider me honored to be an exception to your rule,” the general said huskily, hunger gleaming in his eyes at the memory of her doing just what she said she had no interest in—dropping to her knees before him. His gaze fell pointedly to her lips. He squeezed her waist a little tighter, pulling her closer against him, and whispered, “The ‘other misters’ are fools not to see the value in you.”

In that context, he could have been talking about her sexual value—and indeed, Quinn would be the last to deny her exceptional (and daring) deeds in the bedroom. But even as he uttered the words, he knew the sentiment went much deeper than that. She may have played the demure seamstress before, but he was aware now that version of her was a well-crafted façade; behind their closed doors, Chloe hadn’t hidden her wit and skill and intelligence and, dare he say, darkness from him. And while he knew plenty of men who would find that threatening, Quinn Belvedere was enthralled. In fact, the feeling seemed to be mutual…where other women would find him intimidating, perhaps even frightening in some respects, Chloe was undeterred and fascinated. 

He looked down, watching as her fingers danced across a handful of his scars—the twin bullet wounds, long since healed over; the small patch on his shoulder where he’d suffered a burn at the Academy; the jagged seam where an inexperienced medic in an active battlefield had attempted to sew a laceration closed with shaking hands, only for the terrified soldier to be struck down with shrapnel and leaving Quinn to pick up the needle himself. In that moment, he knew if she’d asked, he would have told her any of the stories of the marks on his skin. No hesitation.

At her confession regarding the unexpected outcome of her trip, the general quirked a brow. “Sergeant Percival accompanied you to the shop in town, though, yes?” he asked. “I’d hoped you could pick up a few samples of wool, at least. So your trip wasn’t a complete waste.” His brown eyes glittered impishly, and he gave her shoulder a squeeze. He eased down into the pillows at her pull, sliding his legs further beneath the sheets. She snuggled up to him as he reached over to the nightstand, switching off the dim lamp and blanketing them in plush, chilly blackness. Exhaustion washed over him in a languid wave; he relaxed against the seamstress, their sated bodies melding together as though they’d been designed precisely to fit against one another and no one else.

Their faces were so near that he could feel Chloe’s warm breath as she spoke, her voice a sultry purr that stirred up a flare of heat behind his ribs. The way her tongue pronounced his name—soft, as though it were a prayer; intense, as though it were a roll of thunder—prompted him to tilt his head forward, his lips brushing featherlight against her mouth as she finished her question. No one had ever spoken his name like that before. He shifted slightly until he could look into her eyes, which he could barely make out in the dark as his eyes continued to adjust, and for a long moment he simply studied her in silence.

“You confound me, Chloe Paice,” Quinn murmured, the sincerity in his tone a strange contrast to its intensity. “I can’t say I’ve felt that way about anyone else I’ve ever brought to my bed.” His lips brushed hers again, nearly but not quite a kiss, and he smiled against her cheek—lasciviously, dangerously, although it was too dim and he was too close for those nuances in his expression to be detected. “I can’t wait to figure you out,” he whispered devilishly, moving to her ear, “and make no mistake, I will figure you out.”

This time, when their mouths met, it was deep and bruising—but he pulled back before it could escalate, letting the explosion of heat dissipate into the night like embers scattered on the breeze. He tightened his grip on her waist and pulled her closer, and they nestled together beneath the blankets until sleep came to claim them.

The unsettling dreams of blood and combat and death mercifully left him alone that night. The faintest light of early dawn glowed between the gaps in the curtains when he eventually woke, spilling across the carpet in narrow swaths of pale pink. Quinn closed his eyes again and listened to Chloe’s soft breaths next to him, pretending for just a moment longer that he didn’t have to get up, that he didn’t have orders to give or duties to fulfill. The bitter twinge in his chest at the prospect of leaving her again only intensified as he finally eased out from beneath the quilts. And although he attributed it to the dread of the cold and the work, he also couldn’t keep his eyes from the seamstress’ slumbering form as he tread naked across the room, retrieving his uniform and boots and weapons from where they had hastily discarded them the night prior.

The general bit his lip against a surge of heat at the memory, slipping into the corridor and into the neighboring room before he could give in to the temptation of awaking her with a kiss, of telling all his soldiers to fuck right off so he could rediscover every inch of her in the light of the morning.

When he made his way downstairs, he discovered that although Percival was nowhere to be seen, the sergeant had already lit the fireplace in the living space. Quinn stepped into the washroom and combed through his mussed hair with damp fingers, taming the unruly locks as best he could. He emerged to see Percival entering through the front door in a burst of icy air.

“Your horse is tacked and prepared and waiting for you out front, sir,” said the sergeant, who looked about as tired as Quinn felt.

“Thank you, Percival.” The general donned his gloves, steeling himself for another day at Camp. “I’m anticipating the main company’s departure back to Thebes at sunrise tomorrow. If you could prepare Miss Paice for the journey…”

“Absolutely, sir.” The sergeant cleared his throat. “Will you be stationing anyone at Camp? Forgive me, sir, but I’ve been…a little disconnected here in town.”

Quinn nodded. “Captain Smith has volunteered to stay behind for a few weeks to work with Colonel Franklin and to help with recovery efforts. I will assign a few of the Ace cohort and a select handful of Omegas as well. As much for punishment as anything else. Let them think they’re being relocated permanently…which, they might be. I haven’t decided yet.”

A hint of a smirk flashed over Percival’s features, so quick Quinn wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all. “Very good, sir.” 

Quinn couldn’t quite resist a glance up the staircase. “I will send word if anything changes. But for now, plan to escort Miss Paice back home.”

“I will proceed as planned unless I hear differently.”

“Thank you again, Percival. I appreciate your dedication, as ever.”

Quinn tightened his jaw and stepped into the frigid dawn. He drew up his fur-lined hood against the wind, which was just as well; it kept him from glancing up at the second-story window beyond which he knew his seamstress slept. It was better this way, he thought. Knowing there was a non-zero chance that something could arise to delay his own departure, it was a clean—but temporary—goodbye. Leaving Chloe now, knowing Percival could accompany her back to Thebes with the larger caravan of troops, was the safest and most prudent course of action.

Still, she would be miffed that he'd snuck out on her again. A smirk played on his lips as he steered his horse up the snowy ridge.

Now I get to make it up to her.