Bound and Tide (Villains & Virtues)

by A.K. Caggiano

If this was what he thought it was—if this agony was that disgusting, awful, deplorable thing—he had no idea how he’d managed to escape Bloodthorne’s wrath for every threat he’d ever spit at Amma. Because Xander would kill for Evangeline, he knew it then. Sure, he liked killing, but only when it suited him, when it was the most convenient

Evangeline often wished people were a lot more like stone, solid and unflappable, and then maybe someday she would find the right one to prop against the door of her shop and let the breeze in.

“All of you keep your mouths shut or, so help me dark gods, I will turn this griffin around, and nobody will be raining terror or destruction down on anything!”

But pride was an Abyss of a hindrance, and while the idea was a fun alternative third act, his party needed to be made up of the characters who had been influencing him throughout the rest of his tale for consistency’s sake.

love you, darling, and it’s marvelous, isn’t it? Just really, really wonderful to be utterly enamored. Wish someone would have bloody told me because this”—he shook her—“feels so fucking good!”

And he too would gladly see to her needs, to serve her because he wanted to, and be cared for in return because that was what love did. Love made one wild and free but safe and sincere too, and it overcame birth and duty and even hopelessness because, in the end, it was the most transcendent of virtues, and even a villain understood that.