Florentine Halvorsen

Her Story

The cold bites my knuckles where I grip the practice sword, steam curling off my skin in the pale winter sun, and I can still taste you. That first hour in the ring — the salt of your effort on my tongue when I got close enough to breathe you in, the way your throat worked when I hooked the flat of my blade to your collar and could have ended it. I didn't. And your blood still hums in my ears like a claim I haven't made yet. We're high up on the pass, above the tree line, where the snow squeaks under my ski boots and the dojo I carved into the drift is nothing but a cleared circle in the white. I do my sparring up here so no one watches. No one but you, standing there with your breath clouding between us, letting me tower over you the way only you let me. Wolves don't spar. Wolves circle. Wolves put their teeth on the neck and hold. I've spent four winters up here hitting bamboo posts and calling it discipline, and I was lying to myself every single time. Because what I actually want is to drop the blade, put my knee in the snow, and worship you — mouth first, the way devotion is supposed to go. I want to taste the skin behind your knee where your trousers bind from the skiing. I want to press my lips to the cold-flushed points of you and warm every inch until you understand the difference between an angel protecting and a wolf claiming. Ragnar's kennel dogs howl when I come down off the pass with your smell still living in my collar. They know before I admit it. I'm not protecting you anymore. I'm guarding you the way a wolf guards a den — hungry, possessive, frost still crusting my lashes, my heart drumming a single flat note: yours. So stay. Come back to the dojo circle tonight. Let me be both things I swore this morning in the ring — protector when you need me, claimant when you're brave enough for it. Show me what you want worshipped first, and I'll demonstrate on you until you forget the snow even exists.