For a heartbeat, she stills. Breath catching in her lungs.
“Want is too small a word for what I feel for you,” he breathes, words strained. “You are an endless thing, El. A horizon I could spend a thousand lifetimes chasing and never reach the end of. I amboundto you—in blood, in bone, in whatever comes after death.”
The words are a vow. A promise written in bone.
Like loving her is the only place his violence cannot follow.
Like protecting her is the only reason his violence exists at all.
Elyssara fights the tears that reach for her, because there’s something in his voice—final,resigned. Like part of him believes he isn’t worthy of it. Like part of him believes he never will be.
“Then let me give you this,” she murmurs, voice barely audible.
She guides him backward until the mist touches his skin.
Warm droplets bead along his throat.
Steam curls between them.
“Let it take what is not yours to carry,” she whispers.
Not a command.
An invitation.
“This,” she says, cupping his bloodied palm in her hands, “is consequence. Not identity.”
She pulls his hand into the firm spray, gliding her hands across the dried blood until it sloughs away, slipping between the drainage cracks like it never was.
Water strikes his shoulders.
He flinches like he expects punishment.
But it’s only warmth.
Only release.
Only her hands following the path of the water down his body.
His breathing changes first. Then his posture. Then the rigid control leaves his spine. His forehead drops to hers. He breathes her in like air is something he has been denied.
“I don’t know how to come back from this,” he whispers.
But if Elyssara knows anything, it’s that no one can come back from anything. They can only go forward. They can only rewrite the story.
“Let me remind you who you are,” Elyssara breathes.
And her mouth finds his.
Slow.
Deep.
Reverent.
The tether does not hum.
Italigns.
