Chapter 13 A Crack in My Armor
A CRACK IN MY ARMOR
THANE
Her words hit me like a blow I had never prepared for, soft and quiet and devastating in their simplicity.
‘But what if I don’t want to?’
They had slipped from her lips with a kind of innocence that felt far too close to hope, far too close to desire.
And for one impossible heartbeat the entire world stilled around us, the ground beneath my feet felt unsteady, the air thick enough to choke on, and something in my chest cracked open with the force of it.
I stared down at her, at the wide hazel eyes waiting for my answer, at the faint tremble in her breath.
At the courage woven through her softness, and I felt the edges of my restraint begin to splinter.
This could not happen.
It should not happen.
Yet everything inside me leaned toward her as if she were gravity itself. My demon surged first, eager and hungry, its voice curling through my veins like flames.
‘Ours.
Take her.
She wants us.’
But it was not only the demon reacting, and that was what terrified me.
The pull toward her was not primal instinct alone.
It wasn’t just hunger or fate or the madness thrumming beneath my skin.
It was something painfully human. Something I had spent years burying under violence and darkness.
Something I thought had died the moment I stopped trying to be anything more than the creature people feared.
Because the truth was simple and merciless.
I was afraid of her.
Not the way she feared the dangers of the world, but in the way a creature fears the one thing capable of destroying it completely.
Because she had power over me, even without meaning to.
A dangerous kind of power. The power to hurt me.
The power to break whatever fragile control I had left over the demon inside me.
The power to shatter what remained of my restraint with nothing more than a look.
And far worse, the power to make me want something I had long convinced myself I was not allowed to have.
I swallowed hard, trying to soften my voice but failing.
“You don’t understand what you are saying.”
Her brows pulled together slightly. The expression was small, barely a shift in the air between us, but it struck something deep inside me, something that felt too close to tenderness.
“I understand enough,” she said quietly before adding, “You’re not the monster you think you are.”
A sound escaped me, low and harsh, half warning and half disbelief.
“You’re wrong,” I said, leaning closer without meaning to, the tree bark creaking beneath my weight as I braced a hand beside her head.
“You have no idea what I am capable of. You have no idea how easy it would be for me to…” I cut myself off, jaw tightening so sharply it ached.
‘Hurt you.
Break you.
Lose you.
We will not… We will be gentle… We can be for her.’
The demon snarled before turning the damaging thoughts on their head, trying to reassure me.
I tried to ignore it all, forcing myself to look anywhere but at the softness in her eyes.
I did not deserve that softness. I did not deserve any of the quiet bravery she was offering me.
Yet when she spoke next, her voice gentle enough to scrape against every raw nerve I had left, it nearly undid me.
“I told you, I am not afraid of you.”
For a moment, I felt myself sway. My breath stopped.
My thoughts scattered. I wanted to believe her.
I wanted it more than I had wanted anything in years, maybe ever in my life.
The idea of someone looking at me without fear, without flinching, without turning away from the darkness I carried was almost too painful to bear.
Then reality twisted, cold and merciless.
I stepped back, dropping my arm from the tree with more force than I intended.
“Then, as I said, you are foolish!” I snapped, making her flinch in response.
The tiny recoil hit me harder than any blade ever had.
Pain lanced through my gut, sharp and immediate, guilt punching its way up my spine until my breath stuttered.
I had killed hundreds without a flicker of remorse.
I had torn through monsters and murderers and human filth without ever feeling a single ounce of regret.
But the sight of her shoulders tightening, the slight tremble in her hands after my harsh words, made something inside me twist so violently I nearly reached for her in apology.
‘Fucking idiot!
You hurt her!
Fix it… NOW!’
I hated myself in that moment. Hated the part of me that lashed out because she had spoken a truth I was too afraid to face.
Hated how easily she looked wounded by my voice when nothing else in this world had ever cared enough to be hurt…
well, other than my mother, but that was one wound I was not willing to open just yet.
She moved then, shifting as if to slip past me, to leave, to put distance between us before I could wound her again. The thought hit me like a punch to the throat.
‘Do not let her go.’
Before her foot had even fully stepped away, my arm moved on instinct, blocking her path with a speed no human eye could follow.
She froze as my hand braced beside her waist on the tree once more, caging her in again before she could escape.
Her breath hitched at the closeness, her eyes lifting to mine in quiet shock.
“I…” she began, and then her stomach growled loudly enough to echo between us.
The sound cut through the tension like a blade.
Her cheeks flushed a deep pink, her eyes widening in embarrassment, and something dangerously warm settled low in my chest. I stared at her for a long moment, watching the way she pressed a hand to her stomach, mortified by the noise.
It was such a small, human thing, and yet it cracked something inside me all over again.
She had barely eaten.
She was shaking.
And she was here, pinned between my arms, trusting me despite every warning I had thrown at her. My demon went still, almost tender in its silence.
‘Feed her.
Protect her.
Keep her close.’
My voice came out lower, roughened by everything I felt and tried not to feel.
“You are hungry.”
She blinked, startled by the shift in my tone.
“I… I guess I was too nervous to eat earlier,” she admitted shamefully, as if being hungry was a sin.
I inhaled slowly, fighting the urge to touch her, to pull her closer, to give in to every instinct screaming at me to claim the light she radiated.
Instead I leaned in, close enough that my breath brushed her cheek, close enough that she would know this was the last thin thread of my restraint holding me back.
“You should not be near me when you are this vulnerable,” I murmured.
Her breath shivered out of her.
“And yet, I am,” she whispered.
The world tilted.
And this time, I did not step back.
Her stomach growled again, a small sound in the tight space between us, but it landed with the force of a blow.
It was such a harmless thing, a simple human need, yet it struck deeper than any scream ever had.
It should not have mattered. It should not have affected me.
I had stood in the middle of battlefields without blinking, had listened to dying men beg and sob without feeling so much as a stir.
But this, this quiet admission of need from her body, this reminder that she was fragile and hungry and standing here with me instead of somewhere safe and fed, made something painful twist inside me.
‘Feed her.
Warm her.
Carry her if she is weak.
She is ours.’
The demon’s voice curled through me like smoke, not violent this time, not sharpened into knives, but heavy and possessive and dangerously close to tenderness.
It pushed against the walls I had spent years building, testing their strength.
Normally, feelings of hunger in the air made it savage, made it crave the fear and desperation that stuck to those barely clinging to life.
But now its reaction was different… alien and focused entirely on her.
It wanted to care for her. It wanted to provide.
It wanted to keep her from ever feeling want again.
Maybe there was hope for us yet.
She looked up at me, still flushed, still embarrassed by the sound her own body had made.
When her gaze met mine, there was no fear there, only that same quiet curiosity that saw too much and understood too little.
It would be easier if she had feared me.
Easier if she ran. Easier if she looked at me the way everyone else did, as something to avoid, something to whisper about from a safe distance.
Instead, she was pressed between my arms, looking at me like I was something she had decided not to be afraid of.
What if she stayed?
What if she accepted what I was?
What if she touched the broken pieces and did not flinch?
Again, the questions flickered through my mind uninvited, poisonous in their hope.
What if the demon stayed calm with her near, what if the endless roar inside me quieted for more than a few stolen moments, what if I could be something other than the monster everyone had decided I was?
What if, just for her, I could be the man I had once tried to be, before everything rotted?
Dangerous thoughts.
Stupid thoughts.
Hopeful thoughts.
I forced my gaze away from her mouth, from the way her lips parted on a small, unsteady breath, and focused on the one thing I could control.
“You need to eat,” I said at last, the words scraping out of me rougher than I intended. Concern did not sit well in my voice. It sounded wrong. It sounded like it belonged to someone else.
Her brows lifted slightly, surprise melting into something hesitant and almost amused.
“Eat?” she echoed.
“Yes, you require substance, don’t you?”
“Well, I do like to eat,” she replied, making me nod the once.
“Good, now let’s go,” I said, unable to stop myself from making it sound like an order.