A quiet smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He stepped closer, adjusting her stance with a steady hand on her shoulder.
“If you ever doubt it, remember—this bow wasn’t perfect in the beginning either. It had to be shaped, tested, just like anyone who wields it.”
She turned her head slightly, looking up at him, and for a fleeting moment, the sunlight caught in her eyes, brightening the clear blue to something almost luminous.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For letting me use it. I know how much it means to you.”
His chest tightened at the warmth in her voice. He inclined his head. “Don’t thank me yet. We haven’t even started. You might hate me by the end of this practice when your arms feel like they’re about to fall off.”
Her laugh was quiet, but it brushed against the tender place inside him.
“Hate you? Never.”
Her glib reply should’ve been dismissive, but somehow, it wasn’t. It lingered, wrapping around him in a cocoon of warmth.
And he realized, in that moment, he believed her.
She was eager to learn, but she wasn’t a natural.
Her first shot missed entirely, the arrow burying itself in the dirt far from the target. She exhaled and lowered the bow with a frustrated frown.
“That was underwhelming,” she muttered.
Alarik chuckled. “First, you have to understand the bow.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Understandit? Why? Has it been mistreated?”
He huffed. The tickle of amusement felt foreign in his chest. “No, but it’s about to be.”
Her laughter caught him off guard, an uplifting, genuine sound settling somewhere deep in his chest. His lips twitched despite himself.
He gestured for her to try again, schooling his features back into focus. “Control your breathing. Find a rhythm. Let the bow guide you.”
She lifted the bow again, but her grip was still too tight, her posture stiff with resistance. He stepped closer, his broad frame casting a shadow over hers as he adjusted her.
“You’re holding too tightly,” he said, his voice dropping as his fingers brushed against hers. “Ease your grip a little. The bow doesn’t need to be forced. Let it do the work for you.”
Her warmth bled into him, a slow burn gathering low in his gut, coiling tighter with every second. His mind betrayed him, conjuringthe memory of last night—the way steam had curled around the delicate slope of her throat in the bathhouse, the shimmer of her skin under lantern light.
He hadn’t meant to look.
Hadn’t meant to want.
But the memory clung to him now, raw and visceral, gnawing past every line of restraint he tried to hold.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, forcing his focus back to the bow, to the moment, but it was already too late. He felt the tremor of her fingers on the bowstring—exertion, or something else?
Did she realize how close they stood?
How easily he could lower his head, bury his nose in the soft curve beneath her ear, drown in the scent already stirring the air between them?
His grip tightened, adjusting her stance, but when he spoke, his voice slipped lower, rough at the edges.
“Breathe,” he murmured, and it was less an instruction and more a plea—forbothof them.
Reiya shifted, and her back brushed his chest—barely a whisper of contact, yet his pulse snapped taut, sharp and demanding. His fingers flexed against hers, every instinct screaming to close the last sliver of space, to give in to the pull tightening like a noose between them.
Not here, not now.
