Chapter 23 #2
“I put it there,” I say.
His eyes close for the span of a breath. When they open, the red is there. Faint. Controlled. Terrifying and beautiful, which is a sentence I will never say aloud because I’m not completely lost yet.
“I do not trust the pull,” he says.
“I’m not asking you to trust it.”
“The epis is reacting.”
“So am I.”
His jaw flexes. I press his hand more firmly against my side, tugging it up closer. My breast rests against his forearm, and I want more. So much more.
“I’m hurt,” I say. “Not helpless. I’m scared.
Not confused. I’m wanted by a plant, a machine, a City, probably several Council members once they find out what my blood does, and possibly the entire cursed history of Tajss.
” My voice shakes. “I know the difference between being pulled and choosing something before it can disappear.”
His fingers tighten. Not enough to hurt. Enough to tell me he heard every word.
“I don’t want this to disappear,” I say, my throat so tight the words are choked.
There it is. Truth, standing with blood on its face.
Kavor’s expression changes. The restraint doesn’t vanish. It deepens.
As if my words don’t give him permission to stop being careful. They give him a reason to be more careful and come closer anyway.
“I will not disappear,” he says.
My laugh cracks. “That’s a terrible promise. People disappear constantly.”
“I will not choose it.”
That’s different. Not forever. Not impossible. Not the kind of lie starving people tell children so they can sleep at night. A choice. A vow with teeth and limits. I can live inside that.
Maybe.
I kiss him again because I don’t know how to say any of that. This time, he pulls me into his lap. Slowly. Carefully. Giving me a thousand chances to say no, and I hate that I love every one of them.
My knees bracket his hips. His tail shifts behind me, not trapping, just balancing us both on the ridge. His wings flare slightly before folding again, a shudder moving through him when my body settles against his.
The contact steals my breath. Not because of fear. Because I’m touching too much of him at once.
His chest under my hands. His thighs beneath me. His breath against my mouth. His claws at my waist, careful, careful, careful, while everything in him feels anything but.
I have been hungry for years. But not like this. This hunger isn’t a hollow, it’s a flame.
It doesn’t make me smaller. It fills the spaces I carved out of myself and tells me they were never meant to be empty.
My eyes sting. Absolutely not. No tears in a lust-glow cavern. There should be laws. Kavor notices anyway, of course.
He draws back. “Pain?”
“No.”
“Arm?”
“No.”
“Sera.”
“No.” I swallow hard. “Not that.”
His hands still.
I look at his throat because his face is too much. “I hate wanting things.”
The words are ugly. True. Mine. His chest rises under my palms.
“I know,” he says.
No fixing. No argument. No lecture about how I deserve more. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. The point is, he doesn’t hand me the truth like medicine and tell me to swallow it.
He knows. And that, more than anything yet, almost undoes me.
“I hate it,” I say again, quieter. “Because wanting makes a person visible. And if you’re visible, someone can count everything you have. Take it. Decide you’ve had enough.”
Kavor’s hand slides up my back, stopping between my shoulder blades.
A warm-cool weight. An anchor.
“Then want here,” he says.
My gaze lifts. His voice is rough.
“Here, where only I can see. And I will not take it from you.”
The tears become a real threat. I deal with them by kissing him so hard his back hits the stone behind him. A low sound tears from him. The red flashes brighter in his eyes.
The cavern answers.
Blue light rises around us, strands swaying toward the ridge, pool-water trembling, the sample pulsing between our bodies. I feel it through my ribs. Through my blood. Through the bandage on my arm, and through the pulse low in my belly.
Kavor turns us, one arm around my back, keeping me from sliding on the ridge. The movement puts me between him and the stone, but I’m not pinned. Never pinned. His hand braces beside my head, giving me a wall made of him and still leaving me a way out.
That might be the most dangerous thing of all. A wall with a door.
I laugh against his mouth. It comes out breathless and strange and half-broken.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. “What?”
“You’re very committed to architecture.”
His brow furrows. Good. Let him suffer the confusion.
I slide my hand along his jaw. The scales there are smoother than I expected, warm where my fingers have already touched him.
“Never mind,” I say.
“No.”
“No?”
“Not never mind. Later.”
I stare at him. Then I smile. It sneaks up on me, wild and unfamiliar.
“Did you just steal my emotional avoidance and turn it into a promise?”
“Yes.”
“That’s rude.”
“Yes.”
I kiss the corner of his mouth. Because I can. Because I want to. Because the world doesn’t end when I take one small thing for myself.
Kavor shudders like that little kiss did more damage than falling through stone. Power. Not over him, but with him. A terrifying, glowing little thing.