Beside her, Splice stood motionless, eyes wide, drinking in every shift, every curve of space that had been shaped with deliberate intention. He didn’t speak. He barely breathed.
Before she could process it further, her two feline overlords made their presence known. Maeve and Oberon trotted out from the newly expanded bedroom, their tails held high like tiny, furry flagpoles.
Maeve let out a long, operaticmurrrrrreowof dramatic betrayal, flopping onto her side with a thud and displaying her fluffy belly.Fine.He can stay. But he needs to know this is my kingdom, and breakfast is not negotiable.
Oberon, ever the more direct of the two, sauntered up to Splice with the swagger of a furry interrogator. He gave a sharp, suspiciousrrrmph? andsniffed the cuff of Splice’s trousers. Satisfied, he then rubbed his face against Splice’s leg, purring like a smug little engine.I will sleep on your face now,he announced.
Goldie stared at the scene, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in her chest. “Well, I guess it’s decided.”
She looked at Splice, who was looking around the altered space with a stunned, unreadable expression.
Overwhelmed by everything—the police, the trust, Mycor’s slumber, and now, her sentient, self-renovating apartment—she closed the small distance between them and kissed him. It was a brief, firm press of her lips to his, a kiss that said,I don’t know what’s happening, but you’re here.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Goldie asked softly. She gestured vaguely toward the apartment, the cats, and the glittering chaos of her life. “With all of this? With… me?”
Splice looked at her, and she saw it all in his leaf-green eyes—the fear, the wonder, the staggering weight of beingalivein a way he’d never been before.
“Before, everything was simple,” he said, his voice rough with newness. “There was only one voice. Mycor’s. Now there are so many. The city. The noise in my own head.”
He reached out and his thumb brushed her cheek, slow and grounding. “But when I’m with you, it all goes quiet. You’re the only voice that makes sense.” He leaned his forehead against hers, a quiet surrender. “You anchor me, Goldie.”
The words landed in her chest like light breaking through. She pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, the desire between them no longer frantic or strange, but steady. Rooted.
“Goldie,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against her skin. “Areyousure?”
She smiled. “I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”
For a moment, they stood there, two survivors standing in the soft wreckage of everything that came before. Goldie reached up, her fingers threading through his hair.
Splice’s breath caught, a quiet, incredulous laugh rumbling in his chest. Goldie gently brushed her lips against his, a silent question.
He answered by cupping the back of her neck and kissing her like he’d finally allowed himself to want something, truly wantit. Their mouths met hungrily. His lips moved against hers with growing confidence, and when her tongue coaxed open her lips and brushed his, he made a low sound that vibrated through her.
When they finally broke for air, they stayed close, breath mingling, foreheads lightly touching. The astonished, almost reverent look in his eyes made her chest ache in the sweetest way. It felt like the world had narrowed to this single moment, luminous and inevitable.
“Come to bed with me, Splice,” Goldie said, her voice soft.
He searched her face for a long moment, and then a slow, beautiful smile touched his lips. “Yes,” he said.
His path was sure, his grip on her hand a steady, grounding pressure as he led her toward the bedroom.
As they entered, she saw that the room had changed and grown as well. The bed anchored the center of the space like it had always meant to be there, the sheets turned down as if in quiet anticipation. Along the far wall, where a slant of sunlight pooled like honey, a curtain of delicate vines had emerged, their green vibrant and unmistakably alive.
Goldie stopped just inside the threshold, eyeing the new growth. “Just so we’re clear, I amnottaking care of new plants. I have a black thumb. They will die.”
Splice followed her gaze. “I’ll handle it,” he murmured, his fingers skimming up her arm. He leaned in and kissed her again, soft at first, then deeper, slower, like he meant to memorize her breath.
Goldie’s hands found the buttons of his shirt, each one a small, deliberate act of undoing. His skin beneath was cool, shifting from smooth planes to the bark-like ridges that marked his collarbone and arms. She traced them with quiet reverence, her fingertips moving over wood and flesh, the strange and the sacred.
He touched her in return, lightly at first, as if still asking permission even now. His palms skimmed the curve of her waist, the line of her back, like he was learning her shape by heart. She leaned into him, their bodies fitting together in growing familiarity.
Clothes fell between touches, between kisses. A sleeve slipped off a shoulder. Fingers tugged gently at a waistband. There was no rush. Only the soft whisper of fabric hitting the floor and the reverent hush of Splice’s gaze as it followed her.
He kissed her again, slower now, and eased her down onto the bed, his hands warm and steady against her body. The sheets were cool against her spine, but his warm skin soon followed, driving the chill away with the press of him against her. The rough texture of his bark-like skin as he lowered himself over her dragged across the softness of her stomach and thighs, an exquisite friction that made her breath hitch and her fingers clutch his back.
Splice groaned, low and guttural, the sound catching in his throat as his mouth found the curve of her neck. He mouthed at her skin like he was trying to ground himself, like her pulse might anchor him in this uncharted, sacred territory. She arched beneath him, breath stuttering as his teeth grazed her collarbone.
Her hands roamed his back, mapping the soft, strange, ridged and real textures of him. Each new patch of skin sent a jolt through her, as if touching him here meant something more. Meantclaiminghim.
