A Little Broken [Three Trinities Haven Church]

[Oriena]

She felt his grip shift; the hint of pressure. Her breath caught, not in a bad way.

She could be surprisingly permissive, but most people never discovered that about Oriena. Just Nox, and even he still tiptoed around her mercurial moods – unless the horde was involved anyway. Almost nobody else took those chances with her because they had good reason to fear her reactions, though. Even Ori found herself unpredictable sometimes.

There wasn't much to read in his voice, but she was glad she couldn't see his expression. If he was afraid or simpering it only would have sparked irritation at his touch, and a very different response, but as a faceless presence from behind she had no real notion of why he thought he could take the liberty. So she let him. His hands were warming from her own body heat. She was more than aware. It made her think of how close he’d held his palms to the flames, and of how easy it would be for him to shift his hand around the front of her throat.

Clearly he didn't understand the correlation of his own power to the attacks. But she'd seen plenty of the same before: people who explained it divinely, like Claire and her Wicca, or those who clutched a talisman like Mik’s lighter. She didn’t blink at the destruction he spoke of.

“Mine was less dramatic. I grew up pretty local – plenty of things for a fourteen year old girl to defend herself from around here. I only had the fevers once though. Wasn't until years later I saw what they did to people like us, just because we exist.”