#Loid's just broody here

[theblueeyedfirebender]

There is movement to his left. Swift and sudden and close, too close. Loid jolts, a burning hit of adrenaline crashing into his system. He tugs Anya behind him, his senses crackling ablaze. 

Yor has emerged from the kitchen, silent in that jarring, episodic way of hers. She wears the peculiar expression he’s seen from her a handful of times - flat, dark, penetrating - as if someone has snuffed the flickering warmth from behind her eyes, leaving her hollowed. Her movements are stiff, yet fluid, graceful and ghoulish. Long, pale fingers are wound tight around the hilt of a sinister-looking chef’s knife.

Loid swallows, reigning himself in. A prickle climbs the column of his spine, fine hairs rising along its path at the base of his neck. He hadn’t sensed her approach, not until she was within arm’s reach. Killing distance, a weapon in hand.

Soft, Twilight. You’re losing your edge.

He draws up to his full height. Keeps his sight trained on Yor out of pure instinct, even as she finds him in the shadows, and those ominous features shift back into the woman he married.

Even in near total darkness, her eyes are the color of cherry wine.

This woman is going to be the death of you. 

The thought doesn’t unnerve him in the way that it should. 

“What happened, Loid?” 

“Not sure,” he answers, pressing a palm to the back of his neck, willing the gooseflesh to recede. “There’s a flashlight in the drawer by the kitchen sink. I’m just going to step out and see what’s going on.”

Yor nods in response, taking hold of Anya’s hand. 

Trust is a foreign concept to a spy. A human compulsion trained out of them at the earliest opportunity. And yet it is surprisingly easy for him to step away, to turn his back and cross to the pair of double glass doors that separate their living space from the outside world. 

He is well aware of the kitchen knife still within the grasp of Yor’s free hand. He knows her curious strength, has witnessed her unusual talent with a blade. Still, he turns away, and his wife has every opportunity to sink the cold steel into his back, his neck, the base of his skull. She could end him - clean and effortless - and the greatest spy in Westalis wouldn’t even have time to react. 

Trust is a foolish, fatal mistake. One he makes consciously, deliberately, and without second thought.

Perhaps you would be happy to die at her hands, Agent Twilight. 

Loid pauses, studying the rain-flecked world beyond the glass. The bite of sharpened steel never comes.

- this WIP is taking too damn long, have a second teaser (first teaser can be read here)