And somehow completely unaware of it.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked bluntly.
She blinked at me.
“What?”
“You speak about yourself as though something is missing.”
Her laugh cracked softly, brittle around the edges.
“It is missing. I mean… look at me, Sten. It’s obvious.”
“No.”
The force behind the word startled even me.
She blinked, caught off guard, and I continued before she could retreat back behind self-deprecation and old wounds.
“Nothing about you is lacking.”
Her breath caught faintly.
“Don’t you know how beautiful you are, Luna?”
“You don’t have to say things like that.”
Her voice dropped quieter, fragile enough to make something vicious stir inside my chest.
The sheen in her eyes only made them more luminous, pale pools of moonlight fixed uncertainly on me.
Precious.
Gods, she had no idea how precious she was.
I shook my head slowly.
Maybe I was wrong for her.
Maybe I was too unstable, too dangerous, too full of darkness to belong anywhere near a female like Amrin Cordoza.
But I could at least give her honesty.
“It’s the truth,” I said roughly. “You are beautiful, Amrin. Warm. Intelligent. Alive in ways most people spend their entire lives trying and failing to be.”
Her lips parted slightly, stunned into silence, and I found myself leaning closer without meaning to.
“You feel things deeply. You care deeply. There’s more kindness in you than in half the people walking these halls combined.” My jaw tightened. “And anyone—male or female—too shallow or narrow-minded to appreciate your mind, your heart, or your body for exactly what they are…”
My tail lashed once beside me.
“…is a complete fucking idiot who deserves to be shoved off the nearest cliff.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Amrin looked genuinely stunned.
