Ravensblood Forest before the devil knows you’re dead

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There was an untempered flare of …what was that? jealousy as Arturo witnessed Dakarai commune with Lotte in her native tongue: a beautiful gathering of syllables and words that made no sense to Arturo but were easily the most lovely thing he’d ever heard because they came from Lotte. For a moment, the gangster looked between Dakarai and Lotte who was coughing nearby, his red-orange gaze as feral and hot as a wildfire as he processed his irrational reaction to their shared language. He could not commune with Lotte in her native tongue and in a rare instance of insecurity within the gangster the coywolf wondered if that would work against him. Surely, Lotte already knew that he could not speak her lovely words! and still she chose him. Arturo’s look was sharp at Dakarai as the ebony male explained that it was Finnish and one of three languages of his natal pack, as if Arturo needed to hear how accomplished of a linguist Olive’s beau was (because that wasn’t helping Arturo who was suffering silently through an untimely and unfortunate bought of insecurity). He knew why this was, simply because he had given Lotte the most important thing, something he had never given Duana (whom had been a fling and eventual lover but only out of his duty as father to their children): his heart. Lotte was his strength but she was also his weakness. She alone possessed the power to raise him up or destroy him and leave him to ruin. Dakarai’s suggestion did not fall by the wayside and Arturo looked to his beloved nightingale with a softened inquisitiveness in his gaze. “I am no healer, nightingale, but Dakarai has a reasonable suggestion,” Arturo praised the ebony man, offering him a glimpse out of the corner of his eye before his attention gravitated back to Lotte. “Will you let us try? See if it eases your pain?” Her physical pain at least. As for the emotional: Arturo wasn’t even sure where to begin.

“Lotte,” Her name left his lips softly, a low, affectionate whine, uncaring that they were not alone but instead in company. He would not hide Lotte or what she was to him from Teaghlaigh: he had no reason to. Just because he had not been forthcoming about his love life didn’t meant he didn’t have one; and though it felt undeniably good to be reunited with her this was not how he had wished it to happen. Not at all. He bowed his head so that he might, very gently, nudge the underside of her chin, offering her cheek a lingering press of his nose and a few affectionate swipes of his tongue. “You will heal, nightingale,” He murmured with confidence and knew that even if she did not, even if she could never sing for their children that her place was beside him. It was her’s rightfully and even the mere idea of turning her away appalled and sickened him. “Never doubt that your place is beside me, Lotte. It is where you rightfully belong on a throne crafted only for you.” He murmured (perhaps a bit poetically) in hopes of reassuring her that he and Teaghlaigh would accept her.

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