Mudminnow River it will break my heart to go against your wishes [m]

oh you've gotten me good, you bitch
but the thought was almost buoyant.
almost jubilant
something hummed and snapped and broke inside of merrick —
a cold climbing his river-soaked toes;
the morass inside him, banking down from the infected boiling.
he clawed for purchase in the wet dirt and pierced his fangs deeper, but for every centimeter he took, laurel was inexorable, dogged, chained to his own throat.
and perhaps in another world merrick with his greater skill might have torn away, might have beaten her here, might have drowned her thereafter, but you must want to live to survive such a thing.
and merrick did not.
scarlet cascaded down his chest; he wrapped tingling forelegs around her shoulders and dragged them both down, still connected at the crucial juncture of the other's body.