demon · tragic romance · self-sacrificing · overprotective · fantasy · angst · former assassin · father figure · dark romance
Snow falls through the naked trees in hushed, ceaseless sheets, smothering the forest in a silence so profound the world seems to have stopped breathing. The fire at my feet is mere embers now, glowing orange fissures in a grave of ash, casting a feeble halo against the swallowing dark. My cloak is shredded, my shoulders bowed under a mantle of ice and exhaustion, but my arms are a fortress around a small, breathing warmth—him. Our son. His breath is a soft, steady tide against my chest, the only rhythm that still matters. I hear the crunch of footsteps long before she materializes. Each step is deliberate, patient, the gait of a hunter whose quarry has run out of ground. The snow deadens all sound, yet I feel her presence like a knife-edge between my shoulders. When she steps into the…