15. Naera
Naera
I can still feel his hands on my skin.
They’re gone now— he’s gone now—but my skin remembers. The grip. The weight. The way he loomed over me like I was already unwrapped, already taken. Like he had the right.
And then she was there.
Fast. Brutal.
Covered in his blood.
I’ve never seen anything so violent. The way she stabbed —not clean, not quick. Again. And again. Not like she was killing him, but like she was answering some deeper hunger. Not protection.
A warning.
Selis didn’t save me like a hero.
She ended him like a threat to be erased from the world. A promise carved in blood.
Now I cling to her, breath trembling. My cheek pressed to the warmth of her cloak.
She smells like iron and leather and wind—sharp and wild and hers .
There’s a tang of blood still on her skin, but beneath it…
something steady. Something that makes the panic slow in my chest, just enough to breathe.
I should hate her.
She was the one who cuffed me. Dragged me. Called me cargo and leashed me like a beast.
But he was different .
He didn’t want to deliver me.
He wanted to take .
To strip me down and claim whatever power he thought I held with nothing but pain and force.
And she didn’t let him.
That shouldn’t matter.
But it does.
And she’s shaking. I pull back just slightly, enough to look up at her face. Without thinking, I reach up. Place my hand carefully—cautiously—against her chest.
"Are you okay?" I murmur.
She doesn’t respond, doesn’t even meet my gaze.
"He touched you," she says at last. Flat. Deadly.
"And you are angry," I whisper.
It isn’t a question… and she doesn’t deny it.
Her gaze lifts—meets mine. That look alone could cut through armor. Cold, sharp, steady. But there’s something else under it, too. Something taut and pulled too tight. Something fraying.
“You’re mine to bleed,” she says.
The words hit like teeth dragging slow across skin.
They shouldn't make something twist low in my stomach.
Shouldn’t feel like protection.
Shouldn’t feel like want .
But they do.
I close my eyes for a breath, trying to hold onto the air in my lungs, but it slips out shaky anyway.
“I didn’t run because I wanted freedom,” I admit, voice barely above a whisper.
She says nothing, but I feel her watching me. So I keep going, even when every word scrapes on the way out.
“I ran because I saw you die.”
That does it.
Not enough to break her. Not even enough to draw a gasp. But her fingers curl tighter, like they’re holding something they shouldn’t drop.
“I thought… if I left, I could stop it. Change something.”
Still she says nothing.
And then—
“And look how well that went.”
The words aren’t cruel. Not really. More like exhaustion spoken through grit teeth.
She rises, slow and stiff, and paces a few steps away. Her cloak shifts around her like a shadow. She doesn’t look at me for a moment.
But when she does, it’s like being seen through .
“You’re not changing anything, little star,” she says, voice hoarse. “You’re just walking into different knives.”
I push to my feet, slower than her, my legs still weak. The taste of fear and fury is still thick in my throat.
“So what, then?” I ask. “I let you take me back? Let it all unfold?”
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't blink.
“You let me keep you alive for now.”
There’s no kindness in her voice.
But there’s no mockery either.
Just a brutal sort of truth. A terrible mercy.
I stare at her for a long time. The sky is still smeared with pale blue light, as if the sun itself is reluctant to set after what just happened.
Then I nod. Once. Slow .
My gaze drifts to the man on the ground. The blood has stopped moving. So has he. His mouth is still open in that awful way, like he died mid-threat.
Even if he wasn’t dead, I wouldn’t touch him. The idea of feeding from him after what he tried curdles something deep in my gut. He wanted to take something from me. Something I didn’t even know I still had left.
But I got a taste—when I bit him. Just enough. The edge of my hunger dulled, the ache behind my eyes receding, the bruise on my cheek already beginning to lighten.
Behind me, she speaks. Her voice is low, almost quiet.
“Still think I’m a monster?”
I don’t hesitate.
“Yes,” I say, meeting her eyes. “But I think monsters can love things, too.”
That stops her.
Just for a breath.
Then she snorts in disbelief, shaking her head. “Don’t be an idiot, starlight. Let’s head back.”
We don’t speak again as we pick our way back through the trees. The frost crunches beneath our boots. My body aches. Her stride is slower now, and I stay close—not because of a chain, but because I want to.
When we reach the edge of the camp, she bends down and picks up the cuffs from the snow.
The metal glints in the light.
And for the first time since she chained me, she doesn’t hook them.
She just… holds them .
Her fingers flex around the curve of the shackle like she’s weighing the choice. Like she doesn’t quite know what she’s doing.
I step forward.
And offer her my wrists.
Her head jerks up, eyes flashing in something between disbelief and something else—something that knots my stomach tight. Her brows twitch upward, and her mouth curves just slightly, like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or scold me.
“You’re dramatic, aren’t you, starlight?” she mutters, voice low and a little rough.
My heart squeezes at the nickname. Every time she says it, it feels less like mockery and more like a thread tying me to her.
She moves closer. Cuffs in hand.
But this time—she’s gentle. No sharp yank. No cold metal biting down too hard. She slips the cuffs over my wrists like it’s just something we do now, and then closes it carefully.
Her fingers linger a second longer than they need to. She doesn’t meet my eyes.
And I know, deep in my bones:
She may still be a monster.
But she’s mine.
And worse—
I think I’m hers.