Chapter 39 Elara
Elara
The cave was quiet again. Only this time, it wasn’t suffocating.
Beckett’s arm was draped across my waist, heavy and solid, anchoring me to the earth.
My body still hummed from him, from us, every nerve alive in a way Hydra had never let me imagine.
I curled closer, cheek against the heat of his chest, breathing in the faint scent of sage and desert dust clinging to his skin.
For the first time in years, the shadows didn’t feel like a cage. They felt like shelter.
“You should be asleep,” he murmured, voice rough from everything we’d done, everything we hadn’t said.
I smiled against his skin. “And miss the chance to see you like this? Not a chance.”
His chest rose, fell, a sound low in his throat—half laugh, half sigh. “Like what?”
“Human.”
He shifted, his hand sliding up to cradle the back of my head. “I’ve never been less human than I am with you.”
The words hit something deep, dangerous, in me. I tipped my face up, meeting his gaze in the thin strip of moonlight. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” His thumb brushed along my jaw, gentle, steady. “It’s the truth.”
I swallowed hard, afraid of the way my chest ached, the way I wanted to believe him. “Because I can’t afford to lose this. Not when I just found it.”
His brow furrowed, eyes dark and certain. “You won’t lose me.”
I wanted to press him for promises, for details he couldn’t give. Instead, I tucked myself against him again, fingers curling into his shirt like I could hold him there by sheer will.
He pressed a kiss to my hairline, slow and unhurried, and whispered, “Sleep. I’ve got you.”
And for the first time in as long as I could remember, I closed my eyes without fear clawing at the edges.
For the first time, I let myself rest.