Delphine was panicking. Her hand tightened around the dagger and she pressed it closer to Tempris’s throat. "Don’t move! Stay back or I will move my hand!"

Jax started walking toward her. His footsteps were deliberate. Unhurried. "If my approaching footsteps are the only thing giving you the motivation to finally act..."

He saw Tempris twitch at the sharpness of his tone. So he lowered it to barely above a whisper. "...then as your professor, it is my absolute duty to help my student succeed. Go on, Delphine. Cut."

Delphine ground her teeth in frustration. Her knuckles were white around the handle but the blade wouldn’t move. Her heart was staging a full rebellion against her brain.

So instead of putting her frustration on the child, she redirected it entirely. She charged at Jax.

Seeing her coming, Jax kicked a fluffy carpet into the path of her next footstep. Not because he was worried about the incoming attack. But because her heels striking the wooden floor would make a noise loud enough to disturb Tempris’s sleep.

Delphine’s foot landed on the sliding carpet and her balance vanished. She pitched forward, about to slam face-first into the floorboards.

But Jax caught her. One arm wrapped around her body and absorbed the momentum against his chest. Which registered next to nothing as impact because her soft cushions were pressed flat against him, doing all the shock absorption for free.

He didn’t let her feet touch the ground either. Had her raised entirely in his grip while his other hand snatched the dagger that had slipped out of her hold mid-fall and placed it gently on the bed.

Delphine definitely did not appreciate the treatment and was about to unleash every curse she had been storing.

But Jax’s free hand sealed her lips before a single syllable escaped. His face was millimeters from hers as he whispered. "Sshh. Can’t you see a child is sleeping?"

He set her down and said. "If you want to take it out on me, why not we take it outside?"

He turned and moved toward Tempris who had shifted in her sleep. Her tiny body rolling toward them. Her eyes cracking open just slightly.

Delphine saw it. His back was fully exposed. The worst mistake a warrior could make. And the dagger was sitting right there on the bed within arm’s reach.

But her heart refused again. She didn’t know what was broken inside her tonight but something was refusing to cooperate with the mission.

Then she watched Jax sit beside Tempris and pat her head gently. The girl’s tiny fingers instinctively found his hand and grabbed onto it. And in her sleep she murmured. "Thank you for staying, Mister... and making me feel safe... after all those running and hiding..."

Jax held a genuine smile. He leaned down and kissed the girl’s forehead.

And that was exactly what Delphine could not digest. This image of a man who loved slaughter, who had killed far too many people for his own enjoyment, first the soldiers from this timeline and then the soldiers from her duchy, was now sitting beside a sleeping child with a tenderness that looked nothing like an act.

Tempris settled deeper into her slumber and her grip on his fingers loosened. Jax got up. Walked toward the exit. And said without turning. "I’m free now. Why not settle this forever?"

After some time, Delphine stepped out of the room and found Jax leaning on the railing outside. Staring at the moon. He spoke without looking at her.

"I know you despise me, Delphine. And you have every right to. Considering what I did to your mother. You probably think I act out of some grand chaotic plan."

He shook his head slightly.

"I don’t. The truth is much simpler than that. My ego is incredibly fragile. The second someone spits poison at me, my patience snaps. And when it snaps, it doesn’t calculate consequences. It doesn’t care whose blood gets spilled. It just brutally tears apart whoever was foolish enough to be standing in front of me at that moment."

He turned his head just enough for her to see the side of his face.

"But look at you. After all the venom you have spit at me. After everything you have done and said. You are still breathing."

His voice carried something that wasn’t mockery. "And do you know why? Because I understand you, Delphine. I don’t see you as an enemy. You are just a daughter who wants to protect her mother or take revenge for her humiliation. It doesn’t matter how wicked she is or how many sins she carries on her name. "

He looked back at the moon. "If I were in your shoes, I would do the exact same thing."

His fist clenched against the railing. "But the difference between us is this. If someone ever came to disturb the peace of my family, I wouldn’t have stood there shaking the way you did tonight. I wouldn’t have cared who was right or who was at fault. I would have blindly slaughtered my way through anyone who threatened them. And I would have happily stood in the center of the graveyard I created. So long as my family was safe."

Delphine was confused. Every word coming out of his mouth was cutting deeper than she expected. And none of it carried a trace of lies or trickery.

Jax’s cold face held a slight smile as he looked at the moon and somewhere behind his eyes he was seeing faces that weren’t here. "Family. Yes, I do have one. A little lovely world that acts as the only chain holding back the monster inside my chest."

His voice softened in a way Delphine had never heard from him.

"They are the reason my sword stays in its sheath these days. Which is a complete contrast to the person I was supposed to be in this world. They are the ones who introduced me to two completely foreign things. Warmth. And fear."

He exhaled slowly.

"Having them is all the motivation I need. It is the only thing that makes wading through this endless violence entirely worth it."

A pause settled between them. Then Jax spoke again. Quieter this time.

"Your words earlier tonight, Delphine. They actually pierced me. When you looked at me and said I had no one waiting for me."

He let out a breath that carried more weight than his sword ever could.

"If you had said those exact words to me just a few months ago, I would have taken them as the highest compliment. But now those bloody words felt like the worst nightmare I could ever face."

-x-X-x-

[A/N: Thanks Ordici_T, Outsxder, Jeremy_Ritchie_0200, spawn1996, Jut_Beanz, tony_adams_4787 , Archer_Witbeck, Casey_Jones_4303, bluetiger76, Allen_Mulholland, Leo_Muhammad and tony_adams_4787 for the golden tickets

(づ*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)づ♡]