Chapter 15 #2
Wings erupted from Lykor’s back in a sweeping arc. Joints locked true, membranes drew taut, every tendon flexing with strength. He turned, testing their span—folding closed, then flaring wide. At the tips, the talons clicked together, sharp as knives eager for use.
Lykor exhaled a ragged sigh, as if he’d been bracing for agony that never came. His brows slackened, the hard line between them breaking, though doubt still shadowed his eyes. Like the absence of pain might shatter if he trusted it too soon.
“I never thought I’d know what it feels like…” he murmured to himself, flexing a wing again, staring at the membrane, “to be without it.”
Jassyn’s chest cinched and he glanced away, unprepared for awe so unguarded. Cruel, that relief could ache deeper than suffering.
Dispelling his wings, Lykor returned to the platform, sitting back down beside Jassyn.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, voice rough. His attention fell to the claw clenched in his lap. “But…might I ask for one more thing?”
Jassyn inclined his head, the heat from Lykor’s bare chest spilling across the space between them.
Hesitantly, Lykor lifted his fist. “Can you heal this too? Turn it back into…what it was before?”
Jassyn curled his hand over the claw, his fingers nearly lost against the strength of the limb. He traced the ridge of closed knuckles, coaxing them open without demand.
Lykor stiffened at once. Muscles locked, tendons tight beneath skin, a shiver rippling through his arm. He didn’t pull away, but the strain of holding still coiled through him like a snare set to spring.
Jassyn kept his grip firm enough to hold, but gentle enough to promise he wouldn’t force. For a breathless moment they hung in the suspended pause.
Then, with a shuddered exhale, Lykor’s shoulders dropped. Resistance drained away and his fingers uncurled one by one, slow and reluctant, until his palm lay open in Jassyn’s.
He knew this wasn’t just a wraith’s limb to Lykor—it was memory carved into flesh.
Jassyn’s throat tightened, the truth pressing hard against his ribs.
He could knit bone, stitch muscle, even cleanse venom from blood.
But no craft of Essence or earth could unmake what had already been forged—he couldn’t reshape the claw into the hand it once was.
So instead, he wove their fingers together. Lykor tensed, starting to pull away.
“There’s nothing to fix,” Jassyn said quietly. His heart lurched even as he tightened his hold, heat filling every seam between their palms.
Lykor’s voice dropped to a growl. “Are you just saying that or—”
“If you truly wanted it, and if I had the power to, I would change it back,” Jassyn insisted. “But this”—he squeezed gently—“isn’t a flaw. It’s a mark of endurance. Proof that you survived.”
Lykor’s jaw tightened, though he held steady, eyes burning and searching. Slowly, his gaze dropped to their joined hands. His thumb brushed a hesitant path across Jassyn’s wrist, a lingering touch settling against the hum of his racing pulse.
When Lykor looked up again, his attention snagged on Jassyn’s mouth—hovering there for a breath too long—before he met his gaze.
Jassyn’s heart stumbled. He hadn’t known what he expected in those firelit depths, only that it wasn’t the tenderness burning so quietly there.
“You said you don’t care what shape people are,” Lykor murmured. “But if you wanted to choose…would it be someone like me?” A swallow tightened his throat, but he didn’t look away. “Because I want to kiss you,” he said softly. “But only if you’d want that too.”
Jassyn went still, a flush rising under his skin. The world didn’t stop, but his breath did, caught somewhere between his ribs.
No one had ever asked him before.
Lykor’s cheeks darkened as he glanced away. “I–I’ve been wanting to ask,” he added quickly. “But you can say no. I’d never take what you weren’t willing to give.”
Heat pricked behind Jassyn’s eyes. Because Lykor wasn’t assuming or demanding. And somehow that halting question felt more sacred than anything Jassyn had ever been offered.
He focused on the press of Lykor’s palm, the stillness that waited instead of took. And in the quiet between them, Jassyn realized he wanted to. Not because survival demanded he endure another performance.
Because this—at last—was a choice.
His.
And stars help him, Lykor began to unravel with such earnest sincerity that Jassyn fought back a smile. Words tumbled out of him in a rush, breaking loose like floodwater.
“I just—I thought maybe… But I understand if not. I don’t want to make anything worse. Or—”
But Jassyn wasn’t listening anymore as he stared at their clasped hands. For the first time in decades, the pause between heartbeats didn’t echo with emptiness.
“It doesn’t have to be now,” Lykor tried again, quieter this time. “Or ever. I—”
Jassyn’s pulse thundered as he slowly unwound their fingers. Lykor locked into a near-wraith stillness, a shadow of worry flickering across his face—perhaps fearing that he’d said too much, pressed too far.
But Jassyn only leaned in, reaching forward to cup his jaw.
And then he kissed him, soft and certain, like answering a question he’d never been allowed to ask—one the world had silenced, but his heart had kept waiting anyway.