Chapter 4 #2
I am a creature of the trench, made of rough edges and violence.
I have no business offering comfort to something so delicate, so perfect.
My touch is meant to tear, not to soothe.
Fear shadows his face, and the rejection burns hotter than the thermal vents I spend my days cleaning.
The agonizing weight of my own ugliness crashes over me compared to his impossible beauty.
I pull my arm back, backtracking immediately. "No," I say, my tone turning flat and defensive to hide the sting. "It would be best if I didn't. You're not used to my kind. You should not have to force yourself."
Vaelis watches me withdraw. The fear in his eyes shifts into something else entirely. Something soft and piercing.
"Because you've been fighting the urge to kill me?" he asks.
The question startles me so badly I almost recoil.
I look at him, bracing for terror, but instead, the corners of his mouth curve upward.
He smiles.
It is a small, shy thing, but it changes his entire expression. A sudden, treacherous heat flares beneath my skin, rushing up my neck and burning directly into my cheeks. I'm blushing. The water around my face turns uncomfortably warm.
"No," I answer, my voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "It's not that."
We maintain eye contact. The space between us charges, heavy with an unspoken pull. But the insecurity still stings. I can't bear to watch him endure my touch to survive the night.
I begin to float away ever so slightly, letting the ambient water push me back toward the cold stone wall to give him space.
The distance barely exists before Vaelis reaches.
His fingers close around my forearm, a band of sun-tanned silk against the scarred landscape of my skin. The grip is a deliberate, steady pressure that halts my retreat as if he's claiming a piece of the trench for himself.
I stop fighting the water's pull.
I let his strength guide me, returning back into the space I abandoned. The currents carry me until my side brushes against his, the first point of contact sending a jolt through us both.
At the touch, Vaelis flinches.
I hear the sharp hiss of his intake.
My skin is rough as stone, my body dense as the basalt we shelter in. The instinct to retreat flares sharp and immediate in my gut. I tense, preparing to pull away before my ugliness can mark his perfection.
"I'm hurting you," I mutter, the words gravel in my throat.
"No," he whispers, the sound fierce. "You're not."
He doesn't release me. Instead, he follows my retreat, closing the gap with a determination that steals my breath. His arms slide around my torso, pulling his chest flush against mine. He buries his face against my neck, his crimson hair spilling over my shoulder like fresh blood in the dark.
The heat transfer is immediate. A shudder wracks his frame as my furnace-blood warms him, the violent trembling of his limbs beginning to ease. He lets out a long sigh that tickles the skin above my collarbone. He's seeking shelter in the monster from his nursery tales.
I give in.
My heavy arms close around him, enclosing him in a circle of muscle and scar. I am terrifyingly aware of how fragile his ribs feel against the solid wall of my chest, but I hold him with a gentleness I did not know I possessed. I tuck his head beneath my chin, shielding him from the cold.
Minutes stretch, marked only by the settling water. The shivering stops completely. The frantic tempo of his heart slows, falling into rhythm with the steady, heavy thud of my own. His breathing deepens into a slow, even cadence that brushes against my skin.
I look down, hardly daring to believe what is happening.
Vaelis has fallen asleep in my arms.
I remain perfectly still, anchored in the black water, shocked by the profound, terrifying weight of his trust. He fits against me like he was carved to be there, a piece of the sun lost in the deep.
And as I hold him through the darkest part of the night, I know with a cold, clear certainty that I am ruined.
By the time the water begins to pale with the gray promise of morning light, the violent roaring outside has died down to a dull hum.
The surge has broken. The bubble we built in the dark is popping.
Vaelis notices it at the same time I do. He straightens up, pulling away from the circle of my arms with a sudden, sharp movement. The easy, quiet intimacy of the night vanishes, replaced by the heavy, crushing reality of daylight. He pushes his crimson hair back from his face, and I see it.
A jagged scrape mars his forearm.
It must have been from the rock when we squeezed through the narrow passage. A thin line of darker red seeps into the water around the wound.
I move before I can stop myself.
I cross the small space and take his wrist. My pale fingers wrap around his skin. He goes perfectly still. He should pull away now that the danger has passed, but his pulse jumps against my thumb, rapid and hot. A frantic rhythm that speaks of fear and something else.
"Stone cut," I murmur, my voice dropping to a gravelly low. "It will fester if you don't clean it when you get back."
Vaelis stares at my hand holding his, his golden eyes unreadable in the dim light. "I still don't want to go back."
The confession is a stark, terrifying thing that settles in the water between us.
I look up, meeting his golden eyes directly.
The hunger I've been fighting all night claws at my throat. I want to drag him deeper. I want to hide him in the basalt and never let the sun touch him again.
"You have to," I say harshly. I force myself to release his wrist, propelling myself back so the cold water can rush between us. "The light is growing. The patrols will be looking for you."
Vaelis searches my face, his expression wounded. "You're chasing me away."
"I'm saving you." My jaw aches from the force of my clenched teeth. "If you stay, Vaelis, you do not go back. The deep does not give things up once it claims them."
He lifts his chin, that iron spine returning. "And what if I want to be claimed?"
The words are madness. They are an invitation to a drowning.
I crowd him, letting the heavy mass of my body push him until his back meets the stone wall with a soft thud. My chest hovers inches from his, letting him feel the undeniable physical threat of what I am.
"You think you want this because we survived the night," I growl, my voice vibrating through the water. "But the deep is not a game. It is a life of scraping sustenance from the rock. It is no place for you."
"Stop looking at me like I'm something that will break," he snaps back, glaring up at me, his golden eyes flashing with defiance.
"I know you will not break," I say. I lean in until the erratic flutter of his breath brushes my jaw. "That's why I am sending you away. Because if you stay here with me... I will keep you."
His breath hitches.
"You heard me," I say, tracking the soft parting of his lips. "I would keep you until you forgot the sun. Until the only thing you knew was the dark and me. And you deserve better than a new cage."
The silence heavy with the weight of the night we shared and the morning that is tearing us apart.
Vaelis is trembling now. He wants me to close the gap.
It takes every ounce of discipline I possess to pull away. The physical separation is like tearing a muscle.
"Go," I command, turning my face toward the open water. "The current is waiting."
He lingers. His gaze burns into my back.
"Will you be here?" Vaelis asks, his voice breaking slightly. "If I come back?"
I stare out into the crushing gray of the trench.
"The deep does not move," I say.
It's a promise wrapped in a warning. Vaelis understands the threat. His eyes still burn a phantom brand into the heavy muscle of my back.
Then the quiet rustle of his fins echoes as he pushes off the stone. He swims past me, a flash of red and gold heading toward the exit.
He does not look behind him.
I follow at a distance. I trail him through the shadows of the rising wall, making sure the lingering eddies do not pull him off course. I watch his lithe, powerful strokes carry him higher, ascending into the warming water.
When the glow of the reef becomes a solid, blinding reality above us, I stop.
This is the boundary. I belong to the pressure. He belongs to the light.
I watch Vaelis cross the threshold. I watch the vibrant colors of his world swallow him whole, hiding him from my sight.
I am alone again. The water around me is the exact same temperature it has always been, the exact same crushing weight I was born into. But as I turn my back on the light and descend into the trench, the sea is colder than it ever has been.