Chapter 5 Tamsin
I'm losing my professional detachment.
It's been three weeks since that first session, and I can't pretend anymore that Cyprian is just another client. I can't pretend he's just a geological event with a pulse. I can't pretend I'm not hyperaware of every single detail of his massive body the moment he walks through that door.
I'm standing at the supply station, warming the volcanic oil between my palms, and my heart is doing this stupid fluttery thing it has no business doing.
The room is already sweltering—the heat lamps are cranked up to their maximum setting, the air thick and heavy with eucalyptus and volcanic minerals.
But the heat in my chest has nothing to do with the temperature.
Behind me, I hear the soft rustle of fabric as Cyprian settles onto the reinforced table.
I don't turn around yet.
I need a second to get my shit together.
Because the problem is this: I've spent three weeks mapping every inch of his body.
I know the exact placement of every calcified seam.
I know which trigger points make his amber veins flare brighter.
I know the sound of his breathing when I finally break through a particularly stubborn adhesion—that low, controlled exhale that he tries so hard to keep quiet.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing stone and started seeing him.
The architecture of his shoulders. The precise way his wings fold against his back, the membrane tucked carefully between the bone spurs. The way his slate-gray skin catches the orange glow of the heat lamps, amber veins pulsing faintly beneath the surface like molten rivers trapped under granite.
The sheer impossible size of him.
Seven feet of ancient, brooding intensity stretched out on my table, waiting for my hands.
I take a breath. Turn around.
He's lying face-down in the padded cradle, his arms at his sides, his wings folded tightly against his back.
The linen pants sit low on his hips, and I can see the deep groove of his spine, the heavy musculature of his shoulders, the way his body seems to radiate a quiet, controlled power even in stillness.
His amber eyes are closed.
But I know he's aware of every movement I make.
The silence between us is heavy. Charged. It's not uncomfortable, exactly, but it's not professional either. It's something else entirely—something that makes my pulse kick up and my palms sweat despite the volcanic oil coating them.
"Your left shoulder again?" I ask, keeping my voice steady.
"Yes."
His voice is low. Formal. But there's an edge to it tonight—something tighter, more tense.
I walk over to the table, assessing. The calcification is worse this week.
I can see it in the way his left wing sits slightly higher than his right, the membrane pulled taut, the bone spurs rigid.
There's a visible seam running along the base of his wing joint, a mineral ridge that wasn't there last week.
"You've been working too much again," I say.
"I have responsibilities."
"Yeah, and you're going to have a permanently fused wing joint if you keep this up." I pour more oil into my palms, warming it. "I'm serious, Cyprian. This isn't sustainable."
He doesn't respond.
I sigh. "Alright. This is going to be intense. I need to get deep into the wing anchors, and that means I'm going to need serious leverage."
"Do what you must."
I strip off my hoodie, leaving just my black tank top. The room is too hot for layers, and I'm going to be sweating through this session anyway. I bind my hair up with my pen, securing it in a messy knot at the base of my skull.
And then I climb onto the table.
I've done this before. I've straddled his lower back dozens of times over the past three weeks. It's the only way to get the leverage I need to work on his upper back and wing joints.
But tonight, it feels different.
Tonight, I'm hyperaware of every point of contact.
My thighs press against his sides, the soft skin of my inner legs contrasting sharply with the cold, rigid marble of his spine. I can feel the texture difference—my warmth against his stone. My body heat mingles with his coldness, and I feel the faint give beneath me as I settle my weight.
I place my hands on his shoulder blades.
His skin is freezing. Dense. Unyielding.
But beneath the surface, I can feel the faint pulse of his amber veins, the slow, steady rhythm of his ancient biology.
I start mapping the mineral seams.
There's a severe ridge running along the base of his left wing, a calcified line that extends from his shoulder blade down to the anchor point where the wing connects to his spine. I trace it with my fingertips, feeling the texture, the density, the way the stone has locked itself into place.
"This is bad," I murmur. "You've got a full seam here. It's going to take serious pressure to break it up."
"I trust your judgment."
I pause.
He's never said that before.
I glance down at the back of his head, at the way his dark hair falls across the padded cradle, and something in my chest tightens.
Focus, Tamsin. You're a professional. You can do this.
I coat my hands in more volcanic oil. The thick, mineral-rich liquid slides across my palms, warming instantly against my skin. It smells like sulfur and sage, sharp and earthy.
And then I lean forward.
I drive my weight down through my palms, pressing into the calcified ridge at the base of his wing.
The resistance is immediate. His body doesn't give. It's like pressing into solid granite.
But I don't back off.
I shift my weight, repositioning myself, and I press harder. I use my forearms now, driving my elbows into the anchor points, using every ounce of leverage I can generate from this position.
The volcanic oil heats up under the friction. I can feel it warming, the chemical reaction activating, seeping into the calcified tissue.
And then I feel it.
A faint shift.
A microscopic give beneath my hands.
I press harder.
The mineral seam resists. It fights me. But I refuse to let it win.
I lean my full body weight into the pressure, my forearms braced against his wing joint, my thighs gripping his sides for stability. Sweat beads on my forehead. My muscles burn. But I don't stop.
I drive deeper.
Harder.
And then—
CRACK.
The sound echoes through the room.
It's loud. Sharp. A distinct mineral snap that reverberates off the volcanic stone walls.
I freeze.
Beneath my hands, I feel the shift.
His skin—his cold, rigid, unyielding stone skin—suddenly splits its matrix.
The calcified ridge fractures. The mineral seam breaks apart. And in its place, I feel something else entirely.
Warmth.
Not surface warmth. Not the faint ambient heat of the lamps.
Deep, radiating, molten internal warmth.
It spreads beneath my palms like liquid fire, seeping up through the layers of stone, transforming the freezing granite into something smooth and yielding and alive.
The heat intensifies.
It radiates up through my forearms, into my elbows, spreading across my skin in waves.
I suck in a sharp breath.
"Holy shit," I whisper.
The transformation is stunning.
His skin—his slate-gray, marble-hard skin—is softening. Not just easing. Not just releasing tension. It's becoming something else entirely. Something warm. Something that pulses with internal heat, glowing faintly beneath the surface.
I can feel it under my hands. The way the stone is melting into something molten, something that threatens to blister my palms if I press too hard.
The amber veins beneath his skin flare brighter. They pulse with a steady, rhythmic glow, and I can feel the heat radiating from them, spreading outward in concentric waves.
"Cyprian," I breathe. "What—"
And then he makes a sound.
It's low. Gravelly. Uninhibited.
A deep, rumbling growl that vibrates straight through the table and into my core.
I feel it everywhere.
In my thighs, pressed against his sides. In my hands, still resting on his back. In my chest, where my heart is suddenly pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
The sound is raw. Vulnerable. Completely stripped of the formal, controlled exterior he's maintained for the past three weeks.
It's the sound of something breaking.
I stop moving.
My hands are still on his back, my palms resting on the newly warm, yielding skin. The heat continues to radiate, pulsing beneath my touch, and I can feel the way his body has shifted—the way the rigid stone has transformed into something alive and responsive.
"Cyprian," I say again, quieter this time.
He doesn't respond immediately. His breathing is ragged. Uneven. Like he's fighting something.
"Talk to me," I say gently. "What's happening?"
"I do not—" His voice cracks. He stops. Tries again. "I do not have words for this."
"Try."
He's silent for a long moment. My hands are still on his back, feeling the heat pulse beneath my palms, feeling the way his entire body is trembling.
"You are asking me to be vulnerable," he says finally. His voice is flat. Controlled. But I can hear the strain underneath it.
"I'm asking you to be honest."
"Honesty is dangerous."
"Why?"
Another long silence. I can feel the tension coiling through his shoulders, the way he's fighting the urge to pull away from me.
"Because if I tell you the truth," he says quietly, "you will leave. And I cannot—" He stops. Breathes. "I will not survive that."
My chest tightens. I lean forward slightly, pressing my forehead against his back.
"I'm not going anywhere," I say. "But I need you to tell me what this is. What we are."
He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer. And then, in a voice so low and heavy it feels like it's coming from the center of the earth, he speaks.
"I have been alone for eight hundred years."
I freeze.
My breath catches in my throat.
He continues, his voice stripped of all formality, all control.
"I have built empires. I have commanded armies.
I have survived wars and plagues and the collapse of civilizations.
I have done everything in my power to ensure I would never need anyone.
Never depend on anyone. Never allow myself to be vulnerable to the inevitable betrayal that comes with attachment. "
His wings shift slightly beneath my hands. The membrane trembles.
"And then you walked into this room."
I don't move. I don't breathe.
"You climbed onto this table with your small, fragile human hands and your sharp tongue and your complete lack of fear. And you touched me. And for the first time in centuries, the stone-lock did not just ease. It disappeared. Completely."
His voice cracks. Just slightly. But I hear it.
"I do not know what to do with that," he says.
"I do not know what to do with the fact that I am no longer coming here because of the calcification.
I am coming here because of you. Because when you touch me, I feel something I thought had petrified centuries ago.
And when you leave, the cold returns. It's not the calcification—it's the absolute, aching absence of her. And I do not know how to survive that."
The silence that follows is deafening.
I'm still straddling his back, my hands resting on his warm skin, my heart pounding so hard I'm sure he can feel it through my palms.
The heat beneath my hands pulses. Steady. Rhythmic. Alive.
I open my mouth to respond.
But I don't know what to say.
Because he's just laid himself bare. He's just shattered every carefully constructed defense he's spent centuries building. He's just admitted something so raw and vulnerable and terrifying that I can feel the weight of it pressing down on my chest.
And I don't know what to do with that either.
So I do the only thing I can.
I stay.
I keep my hands on his back, feeling the warmth radiating beneath my palms, feeling the steady pulse of his amber veins, feeling the way his body has transformed from cold, unyielding stone into something warm and alive and impossibly vulnerable.
And I don't move.
I don't pull away.
I just stay.
The silence stretches between us, heavy and charged and full of something I'm not ready to name.
But I can feel it.
In the heat beneath my hands. In the way his breathing has slowed, deep and steady. In the way my own pulse has synced with the rhythm of his amber veins.
Something has shifted.
Something has cracked open.
And I don't know if either of us is ready for what comes next.
But I know, with absolute certainty, that there's no going back.
The boundary between professional and something far more dangerous has just shattered.
And I'm still here.
Still straddling his back.
Still feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my palms.
Still unable to move.
Because for the first time in three weeks, I'm not thinking about rent or eviction notices or student loans.
I'm thinking about him.
About the way his voice cracked when he said I have been alone for eight hundred years.
About the way his body transformed beneath my hands, stone melting into warmth.
About the way I can feel his vulnerability radiating through every point of contact between us.
And I realize, with a cold, uncomfortable certainty that mirrors his own, that I'm in trouble too.
Because I don't just see him as a client anymore.
I see him as a man.
A lonely, ancient, impossibly powerful man who just admitted he needs me.
And I don't know what to do with that.
So I stay.
I keep my hands on his back.
And I let the silence speak for both of us.