To Hunt What We Are

To Hunt What We Are --There are men who die. And men who are allowed to live.Rusk is the latter.After five hundred years, surviving doesn't equal living. The name they give him-Cairnwarden-insinuates better. Duty. Purpose. Respect. Honesty woven through the silk of polite lies. Because Cairnwardens are not respected. They are not remembered. They exist in the way you accept mold growing in your home: because it must, though you want it to stay hidden and spare you its filthy work. Standing between man and that which claws through the veil in the night-fae monstrosities and gods long dead breathing abuse into young mouths, hungry things wearing words as a disguise.He has killed vampires who whispered like princes before him. Casters that begged with the hands of a child. Forgotten more names than most men will know in a lifetime. But for all the years he puts behind him, something in him grows ever more paper thin. Doesn't splinter-no, he's too far gone for such courtesies-but fades. The humane elements die first. Sloth. Empathy.Until he meets Anora.Anora Dawn, Princess of Gwynfara is not a person the universe should have ever allowed to live. Let alone like this. Radiant as the sun. So goddamned nice. Kind, in the ruthless way that she grabs injustice around the throat and rattles until it offers up its secrets. She moves through pain without turning away. Talks about change like she can punch it into the bones of the world and force it to stay that way. Hunger. Inequity. Architecture designed to keep people empty and struggling against one another--she gives names to the buildings and then dismantles them with two hands, like the very act isn't condemning her to repeat suffering she will never know.Rusk has seen optimism offered as tribute to cynicism and watched it wither for centuries.She doesn't let him.Pulling the job to rid a street of vampires out of muscle memory, Rusk accepts. Violence doesn't ask questions. Clean and convenient. It wants only what he's been comfortably giving it for decades. The den won't be his first or his last. There's no pretense of heroism buzzing in his ears. But the stillness at the center of it-the nothing left behind after something writhing and full of death has been ripped open and silenced-that's where she finds him.Bright and burning.Not careful.Not safe.Their hands touch and something old inside of him-dry and dead these past centuries-waters.He doesn't fall in love like other men might. There's nothing delicate about it at first. No sonnets buzzing beneath his skin. It's knowing. Pulsing into life when he watches her smile at people society kicked aside and curses he mouths because she never stays broken. Hearing her. God, hearing her weave plans like tapestries with words rough like rocks and refuses. She's dangerous. Brave. Impossible. And for the first time in five hundred years of existing, Rusk wants to know what happens if this world lets something like Anora win.So he lets himself care about her.Humanity isn't something he asks for. Doesn't accept as repayment or as a covenant between king and servant.He chooses it.With Anora clinging to life in his arms, he is soft in ways he hasn't been with others. Humans he's spent centuries buried in dirt. Gentle with his words. Listening. Letting her guide him back to her world instead of rushing her with selfish, needy curiosity. He learns her. Breathe in synchrony with the rhythms of her voice. Studies the landscapes of her silences. Careful. Loving in the way he presumes most men fear to love their truest parts. Patient.Because with Anora, Rusk makes sure to hold her so that if the universe ever tears her from his hands, he remembers how it feels to be fully alive.He loves her.Perfectly. Without irony. Without inserting distance where he should suffocate her in devotion.And that is where he falters.The world isn't kind to people like Anora. Women who seek to unravel the silent, agreeable violence that keeps civilizations "e;at peace."e; Counselors murmur. Aristocrats step back, honey dipped concern glossing over spent wrath. The magical stir. Older. Worse.Change threatens power. And power, as it has a habit of doing...Resists.Letting her in bleeds him piece by deliberate piece. Reminds him of what humanity cost him so long ago. There are parts of Rusk best left buried, and heart is clearly one of them. He kneels behind her bulwark of stubbornness, repaired with thin threads of silver hope, and does his best to keep her safe.He would never raise his voice at her. Interrupt her with the chaos of his demons. Allow even a fraction of his darkness to bruise her skin. Always patient, always charging her entry fee of trust before he came clawing with needs and wants.But for those who wish to hurt her...He laughs.Skulls ring out like wind chimes under Rusk's fists.Souls burn poetic and red at his mercy.Monsters like him never change.Not without blood sacrifices and old magic that dwells beneath dying cities.But Rusk will become whatever he has to to keep her safe.Push back against hands that reach for the princess as though she's the key to wiping monsters like him from the world. Fight for her when her enemies grow too hungry for justice.Allow her to light him up like a supernova while he hides quietly in the darkness.She is his reason for far too long to let the world tear her away now.If that makes him a monster in the eyes of others...Then Rusk will gladly embrace what they assume he's been for centuries.Damn them all.