The Latin Inscription
The creature was only a couple dozen feet away now. Lexa blindly reached behind her, and Clarke entangled one hand in hers and tightly wrapped her other around Lexa’s bicep. The warmth of her hand and the heat of her body as she pressed herself into Lexa sent shivers up her spine triggering a last bout of adrenaline to shoot through her veins.
Courage and strength were coursing through her body; Lexa turned to face the demon. It was so close its putrid breath clung heavily on the air causing Lexa’s nose to scrunch. Its eyes glinted with the undeniable victory it could taste. Lexa didn’t need to look down to its hands to see the fire dancing in each palm; the flames were close enough to feel.
She gave Clarke one last lingering look and gentle squeeze of their interlocked hands before facing the creature head-on. She raised the talisman to eye level, barely containing the grimace on her face as the thing looked so hideously gleeful. It raised its flame-covered hands, and at that moment, Lexa began to read the inscription aloud with the loudest, surest voice she could muster.
“Ex addictis, non oriri. Ad flammis, rediero. Intra nos ignis exardescit.”
The creature paused for a moment, its face unreadable. Then it cocked its head to the side and smiled.
Lexa’s heart sunk to the pit of her stomach. She turned, putting her body directly in between Clarke and the demon. Apologies were forming on her lips, ready to spill into the night and wrap around the beautiful woman in front of her. However, Clarke just shook her head with a soft smile on her lips, and pressed a single finger to Lexa’s mouth, silencing her. “I should tell you something,” she murmured. Her eyes darted all over Lexa’s face, and her smile grew tenfold.
Lexa felt the heat on her back, she heard the demon take a step forward, but she never tore her gaze from Clarke.
“I really really like you.”
Lexa leaned forward in less than a second and wrapped her hand around Clarke’s neck, pulling her into a kiss that she’d been dreaming about for years. She closed her eyes as Clarke sighed into the embrace, and Lexa nearly buckled at the knees when a warm tongue ran along her bottom lip.
Never mind the damn demon behind her. The woman of her dreams liked her, and if this was her last moment on earth, she was going to spend it kissing Clarke Griffin.