Both men froze and stared. Lottie couldn't help the shakes that racked her body as she continued her shrilling cry.

Three years ago, she thought things couldn't possibly get worse when she found herself as a spinster at the ripe old age of twenty years with no prospects for a husband.

Then she found herself in hell the night that the villagers of Wilken raided the farm and burnt down everything she and Cain had worked for and owned.

But even that paled in comparison to the devastating thought of Cain abandoning her.

And now she learnt that none of that was worse than Cain's death. He might still be breathing now, but there was no way for anyone to have so much blood on them unless they were terribly hurt, and no one could be hurt that terribly without dying.

She might not be his cup of tea, but he certainly was hers. And even though he might never feel more than companionship towards her, she was—for some time now, she realised—deeply, undeniably in love with him.

How could she not, when he was so clever and kind, so gentle and warm. A man of little words, who stayed by her side like a strong, sturdy rock. He made her feel like he cared about her and valued her for who she was, even if she was scarred and cowardly and useless.

And that would have been enough for her to love him, but he also came with a physical beauty like those sugar cubes she used to steal from Grandma's jar—unnecessary and best avoided lest she developed an addiction, but so irresistibly delicious.

It was impossible not to love him. Everything about him. Even if he despised her touch, even if he liked men, even if her love would always be unrequited, she still loved him.

She loved him, and he was dying.

That combination of fear and anger at all the unfairness in the world gave her the strength a recovering survivor of the plague should not have—enough to push the threatening woman aside, blade and all, and fling herself into a frozen Cain.

Her arms went around his waist, hugging him as tight as the mythical creature koala would a eucalyptus tree.

"Cain, Cain, Cain," she chanted his name like a prayer, shaking her head furiously against the blood-soaked fabric at his chest. "Don't leave me."

For what felt like the longest time, he remained still and stiff, but in this very moment, she could not bring herself to care about his discomfit with her invasion of his personal space. Their time together was counting down by the days, hours, possibly even minutes, and nothing mattered other than holding him close.

Eventually, Cain laid one hand on her back and smoothed the other down her grimy, tangled hair. "Lottie, what did he do?" he asked in a voice laced with the promise of violence.

"Who? Demon?" She pulled back slightly, just enough for her to glance sideways to the leaner, younger man who stared at them, innocent and dumbfounded.

From behind her came the voice of the woman who had held a blade to her throat for reasons she wasn't clever enough to deduce on her own. "You made her call you Demon?" she hissed.

Demon shrugged back at her. "My name is Demon."

"A month ago it was Death. Two months before that it was Godzilla."

Though Lottie couldn't see the woman, she could practically hear her exasperated eye roll.

"Godzilla was great!" Demon threw a fist in the air. "It was you lot who had a problem with it. Not my fault no one ever thinks I'm scary until it's too late for them." He gripped his own throat and made a series of gurgling noises.

Lottie stared, trying to make sense of their back-and-forth but struggling. Her world view had been limited to her life in Wilkins, and now that she was getting her first glimpse of the 'outside', she felt so small and lost and inadequate.

She only realised she'd reverted to her old habits of looking down at her feet when she felt two fingers below her chin, lifting her face up until her eyes met Cain's, the same way she first saw him at their wedding.

"Did he hurt you, Lottie?"

"N-no, why... why would you think—" She broke off with a gasp. How could she forget? "Where are you hurt, Cain? Where? Where?"

Lottie patted her hands all over Cain's chest and his arms, frantic in her search for his wounds.

"I'm not hurt, Lottie," he said.

But she didn't believe him. So kind he was, he would not want her to worry. No one could bleed so much without being fatally wounded. Without a care for decency, she lifted up his bloodied tunic, enough to slip her hands underneath and conduct a thorough examination of his very... smooth... torso.

"I'm not hurt, Lottie," Cain said again, his voice abnormally husky.

Almost reluctantly, Lottie withdrew from his warm body and looked down at her bloodless hands. "But the blood... So much blood..."

"It's not my blood."

"Really?" She met his gaze again. His eyes seemed darker somehow, his pupils dilated, but there was also an open honesty there that left no room for doubt.

"I promise." He nodded, before a crease appeared between his brows. "When I came back, you were crying. He didn't hurt you?"

"No, he didn't. I just... When I woke up and you weren't there, I was afraid you'd left me." Her voice trailed off and her eyes fell to the floor. It sounded awfully foolish, once she'd voiced those thoughts aloud.

"I swore a vow to you, Lottie. I would never leave you," he said, so solemnly like he was refreshing his vows.

A loud sigh filled the room. "Gods, you're all stupid," the other woman muttered. And although Lottie still couldn't see her, she could hear something that sounded oddly like a palm connecting with the face.

She should feel offence or humiliation, but all that filled her heart in that moment was unadulterated happiness.

She was alive, and Cain was well.

She loved him, and he would not leave her.

That was all she needed.

❥ ❥ ❥

As stupid as Lottie was, she very quickly understood that this place—what they called the Den—was nothing like the ordinary village she knew.

For one, the Den was a sprawling underground cavern of tunnels and chambers of various sizes. Some chambers held living quarters like the small room she was led out of, some were working districts where men banged metal and cured leathers, and the largest one of all seemed to serve as both a gathering place and dining hall with long tables and benches enough to hold hundreds.

The tunnels, on the other hand, were a more confusing matter. They stretched out from each chamber, some connecting one chamber to another, while others stretched on and on into eerie darkness, twisting and bending in ways designed to lead any intruders or drunkards lost—or worse. When Lottie asked what 'worse' entailed, Dawn—the angel who saved her and threatened her—said it was better she never knew.

One thing was clear: she would never be able to make her way out. Not on her own, at least.

But the greatest difference of all was the people.

When Lottie followed her three escorts through the cavernous dining hall for her first supper in the Den, a man looked up from his game of cards as she passed his table. "What's this pretty little one doin' here, eh?" he jeered.

"She's gonna get eaten aliiiiiive," his friend drawled across the table, grinning a crooked smile like Old Sam's, but with a far more sinister undertone to his words and a wicked glint in his eyes. But then he shifted his gaze to the still-bloodied Cain, and flinched.

"Is that... Is that..." Another man a few seats down stammered, pointing a finger up at them.

"It is," Dawn answered with a tilt of her chin and clapped a hand on Cain's shoulder. "My personal minion."

Demon, in turn, clapped a hand on the first man's shoulder. "Hey there, Hux."

Everything about Demon was friendly and disarming, but as he removed his hand and the four of them continued on their merry way, Lottie glanced back over her shoulder to see Hux's pale, pained expression, and a redness blooming beneath his tunic, exactly where Demon had laid his hand.

Point was, the Den had no room for meaningless courtesies. People spoke and acted however they wanted, whether that be rude or aloof, crass or downright violent, as Cain had already demonstrated; the only question was whether you could bear the consequences of your words or actions.

The villagers of Wilkins would dub this place 'A Pit for Uncivilised Brutes', as if Wilkins itself wasn't just as much a man-eat-man world as it was down here. But even after just a day, Lottie decidedly liked it.

The violence of the Den ensured that at least half of its residents were disfigured in some way or missing a body part or two. Ergo, everyone seemed oblivious to the ugly puckered scar on her face like it wasn't there at all.

But most of all, Lottie always had an inkling that Cain held secrets—such as his romantic and sexual preferences—close to his heart, and his familiarity with this strange place and these strange people confirmed that her suspicions were true.

She loved him, and that came with a raging curiosity to uncover his secrets and really know him, even if she'd learnt long ago, first-hand, that curiosity was what killed the cat.

Word count: 1,620