Credits to "Broken Vows" the_ginger_hedge_witch AO3

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Marcus looks over his shoulder to where you sleep in his bed, and it's the first time he hasn't thought about how good you look there. So perfect. So sure, from the atrocities of Rome.

Who will protect you if he is no longer here?

By the gods he doesn't think he's ever been afraid of death. Not really. Until now. Now is this thing that claws you, the lion waiting at the door?.

He had thought... After the last campaign, he had thought about ending it, about finally giving in to the pain in his bones that told him it was time, about acknowledging those feelings. He had thought about a different kind of life.

Actually, he had mainly thought about you.

Every night he had been away without your body snuggled next to his, every morning he had woken up to the cold reality of war instead of the warmth of your smile, he had thought about you. He had wanted you with a fierceness that rivaled the way he fought to get back to you.

"Just let me see her"—He had asked the gods.— "Just let me see her one more time."

Perhaps he should have known that they would never be so generous as to grant his request without a sacrifice.

- You.

Promised in childhood as a servant in the temple of Apollo, just as Marcus had been promised as a soldier to Mars, you had bowed before him when he entered the temple that day, and his first impulse had been to place his hand under it. of your chin, to raise your gaze so that you would look at him.

Of course, I hadn't. Not that time, not the next time, not the next. No one seemed to care that a general spent so much time on his knees if it was to serve a god. No one seemed to care that their eyes were never on the altar.

There is a softness in the way you move. A sweetness in your smile that I was not used to after so many years surrounded by iron. He heard it in his ears. He tasted it on his tongue. Maybe that's why I was definitely craving something sweeter.

ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𓃠་༘