His eyes travel down my body—not leering, just assessing—taking in the ruined costume that's now more water than fabric. The pink corset has gone dark with moisture, the teal ribbons hanging limp and heavy. The tulle skirt is plastered to my legs like a second skin.
Even my ballet shoes squelch with each micro-movement.
I must look like a drowned fairy.
A sad, pathetic, emotionally devastated, drowned fairy.
"Someone so pristine and delicate," he continues, his voice dropping into something rougher, "can't get sick."
I blink up at him.
"Are you trying to be romantic?"
His grin is devastating.
"I don't really do romantic." He steps closer still—close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body despite how cold we both are. "But if that means I get to kiss the fuck out of you and share a shower, then sure."
Share a shower.
The words land in my brain and proceed to short-circuit approximately seventy percent of my higher functions.
A giggle escapes—nervous, delighted, slightly unhinged.
"You want to shower with a mentally unstable Omega? For what, a one-night stand?"
He shrugs.
The motion is so casual, sounbothered, like the concept of my instability doesn't faze him in the slightest.
"What if it's not a one-night stand?"
The question hangs in the air.
Heavy.
Impossible.
"No one has survived me long enough to test that theory," I whisper.
It's true.
The handful of encounters I've had—fumbled, forgettable, more about scratching an itch than actuallyconnecting—have all ended the same way. With the Alpha leaving. With me alone again. With the confirmation that I'm too much, too intense, too fuckingcrazyfor anyone to want more than once.
Sage bobs his head, considering.
"Well," he says finally, "I guess we're going to find out, aren't we?"
Then he cups my face in both hands and kisses me before I can change my mind.
It's different from the kiss in the rain.
That one was desperate, claiming, fueled by revelation and grief and the overwhelming need to prove this was real.
This one is... tender.
His lips move against mine slowly, deliberately, like we have all the time in the world. Like there's no storm outside, no ruined letters, no academy full of people who want us dead. Just this moment. Just us.
My body hums with life.
