{"id":3117,"date":"2017-01-25T00:00:08","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3117"},"modified":"2017-01-24T23:29:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T04:29:21","slug":"two-01-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3117","title":{"rendered":"Two – 01"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

The door creaked softly open and she stirred, fingers bunching in the fabric of the pillowcase, immediately tense. This wasn\u2019t home and she knew that, though the bed smelled of him and it was comfortably dark, the room small and snug. Hecate reached for her magic but it eluded her, slipping through her fingers like the trailing edge of cloth, as if someone were walking away too quickly and she couldn\u2019t move quickly enough to stop them.<\/p>\n

Then she heard the sound of his tread, his breathing, and relaxed. The door clicked quietly closed behind him, keys jangling as he set them down.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you all right?\u201d she asked in a whisper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Matt said, a chair creaking as he sat down to take off his boots. \u201cI\u2019m sorry I woke you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already awake,\u201d she said, peeking out from the nest of blankets to watch him in the dimness. \u201cI heard you leave earlier. It was hard getting back to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

He winced. \u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all right.\u201d She studied him for a long moment, the way red and gold strands caught what little light there was in the room, the curve of his jaw, strong but not too sharp. Her fingers curled inward, fingertips brushing against the bandage wrapped around her hand. The place where he\u2019d cut her palm for the binding still ached, though it was a comforting ache, not like the pain in her side. The pain in her hand was born of love. The pain in her side had been born of hate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went up to the forge,\u201d he said. \u201cI just felt like I needed to. I\u2019d left so much unfinished, I needed to make sure that\u2014that\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat everything was the way you\u2019d left it,\u201d she whispered. His shoulders slumped slightly and he nodded, his hands falling limply between his knees, his boots unlaced now but still on his feet.<\/p>\n

Slowly, he rose, working his boots off, and crossed the floor to the bed. \u201cThis is still my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d she said, reaching a hand out for him as he sank down onto the edge of the bed next to her. His fingers laced through hers, squeezing gently. \u201cI don\u2019t want to take you from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just afraid.<\/em><\/p>\n

He looked down at her and reached down with his own bandage-wrapped hand to brush her hair back from her face. The fond smile on his face made her heart miss a beat and she smiled back, though weakly.<\/p>\n

Her smile faded. \u201cNone of this should have happened the way it did, Matt. I handled it badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure what choice you had,\u201d he admitted, looking away. He stared at the door, at their jackets hung up there. The hole in hers had been stitched up, though she could still see the faint stain where it had been soaked with blood\u2014her blood.<\/p>\n

If Pluton had managed to get it an inch higher, or an inch over…<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you thinking about?\u201d Matt asked, his voice quiet. She winced.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing that I should be, probably,\u201d she admitted. She inched closer to him, trying to conceal the pain that wrapped around her midsection as she moved. Healing would be slow\u2014she knew that. It was a price she was willing to pay this time, though. What they had managed to do was worth every extra minute, every extra hour, every extra day, week<\/em>…it was worth all of it.<\/p>\n

I killed a god of death before he could kill me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.] The door creaked softly open and she stirred, fingers bunching in the fabric of the pillowcase, immediately tense. This wasn\u2019t home and she knew that, though the bed smelled of him and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,242,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,181,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-02-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-matthew-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-Oh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3118,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions\/3118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}