“Lyra, you have no fucking idea how badly I want this.” His gaze drops to my lips and the heat between us flares all over again. “How badly I wantyou.” Unlacing one of his hands from mine, he brings it up to cup my jaw.
“Then why are you stopping?” I grab a fistful of his white uniform, tugging him back to me, desperate to feel him against me again, but he barely budges. It’s like trying to move stone.
“Well, for one this isn't exactly thesettingI've been imagining taking you in...” He glances around the cage, toward the flames still hiding us from the crowd beyond.
The thought he’s been imagining us fucking only makes the want that much more unbearable and my fingers twist in the fabric at his chest as I arch beneath him. His nostrils flare at the movement, like he’s fighting himself not to close the distance between us all over again.
“But I told you before,” he continues, voice strained. “I don’t just wantthis.” His eyes flick back down my body, to where my chest is still rising unevenly beneath him, before lifting back to mine. “I want all of you. And right now you’ve closed part of yourself off.”
Stroking his thumb slowly across my cheek, he holds me there like he’s trying to soothe something deeper than just my anger, and the gentleness of it makes my heart ache.
For the briefest moment, I lean into it, the rough warmth of his palm against my face as my eyes fall shut, as some dangerous part of me wants to give in. Wants to hand him everything he’s asking for.
But then I open them, and suddenly, all I can see is everyone else.
Brian, Finn, Rowan. Everyone the fire took in Ashvale. Faces blur, one after another, followed by each choice I made that led me here. Each moment I should’ve done something differently, each person I failed.
Looking up at Talen, the warmth between us curdles so fast it almost makes me sick.
It’s only been two months since Rowan died, and it’s still so raw. So real. Ezzy still hardly looks at me, hell, she can barely stand to be in the same room as me, and every time she turns away, I take it as proof.
Proof that she blames me for everything.
Proof that Rowan’s death should have consequences.
Proof that I don’t get to lie here under Talen’s touch and pretend any of this is something I deserve.
“Why?” The question slips out harsher than I mean, my stomach twisting as I pull back from him slightly. His head tilts in confusion. “Why do you need to know? Why are you still even trying?” My brows lift, pinching together. “I’ve been horrible to you since I arrived at the camp. I haven’t replied to any of your letters. I’ve ignored you each time you’ve come to visit. I’ve made it pretty clear I don’t want to talk about it.”
Something behind his eyes cracks, his expression softening in a way that steals the air from my lungs.
“Because I warned you in Ravenscross that if I started, I wouldn’t be able to let you go...” His gaze stays fixed on mine, locked so intensely it’s as though the rest of the world has fallen away around us. “I warned you that men like me don’t get happy endings—that I won’t be able to give you everything you deserve in the future and I gave you the chance to walk away...” His head shakes once. “But you stayed.” Then he leans in closer, voice dropping more serious now. “So now I’m staying. I’m not afraid of this, Lyra.Of you. Not of your anger, not of the work it’s going to take. I’m not leaving this unfinished. I’ll wait for as long as it takes for you to forgive me.”
“Well, you’ll be waiting a long time,” I blurt, the words escaping before I can stop them, because the way he’s looking at me—so certain, so patient—feels like it’s peeling something open inside my chest I’ve spent weeks trying to bury. “Because Ican’tstop being angry at you. Ican’tforgive you, because if I do—If I forgive you, then I have to forgive myself.” My throat closes and my eyes start to sting as guilt and grief knot together so fast I can barely breathe around them. “And I don’t know how.”
The truth lands between us like a wound splitting open and the silence that follows is brutal.
Above me, Talen doesn’t move.
Doesn’t let go.
He just stays there, hovering over me, his eyes searching mine as though he's desperate for me to say more, to take it back. But the longer he stares at me, the more my eyes blur, the more everything inside me starts to hurt and if I stay here any longer something inside me is going to break.
“I yield.” I drop my gaze from his.
“Lyra—” He pleads.
“I yield!” I repeat louder this time.
For a second I think he’s going to argue, going to grab me and force this conversation to continue, but instead he slowly rolls off me and the moment his weight leaves my body, I shove myself to my feet.
Around us, the wall of fire drops away, revealing the silent, chaotic crowd beyond the cage. People shoving past each other, mouths moving, faces twisted with shouting I can’t hear through Talen’s shield.
“Don’t come back here,” he calls behind me as I force myself toward the exit instead of turning around and throwing myself back into his arms. “This place is messed up.”
“Fine,” I mutter, not daring to look back at him.
“No, Lyra.” His voice turns firmer. “Promise me.”
