Page 107 of She Who Was Severed

I feel like ash still clings to the inside of my lungs.

I don’t hear the Chain, but I can feel it. Like someone’s whispering across a canyon I can’t see. Freya’s here. I know it in my marrow. But she hasn’t come up.

Yet.

The rain starts slow. Barely a mist, more promise than presence. It beads against the ridgeline of my shoulder, slides down the curve of my spine. Cold. Grounding.

Good.

Because the heat in me hasn’t gone out. It’s banked low in the chest, that simmering burn of having done something irrevocable. Virelle still smells like dragonfire and molten copper. The palace tower is gone. The Council’s compound gone. A surgical burn, clean and total.

I thought it would make me feel lighter.

But all I feel is waiting.

Then the stairwell creaks.

I don’t move. Don’t turn. I just drink. One long pull.

She comes into view like a storm behind the eyes—quiet at first, then all at once. Hair rain-dark and curling. Cloak heavy with mist. Her eyes find mine, and they don’t flinch.

Freya Thorne does not flinch.

She walks across the rooftop like she’s always belonged here. The rain’s soaked through her tunic, the fabric clinging where it shouldn’t—lining the curve of her breasts, catching just beneath. It sends something sharp through me. Immediate. Uncontrolled. Like a nerve I didn’t know was exposed just got touched.

She doesn’t speak. Just folds herself down beside me, close but not touching, and takes the bottle straight from my hand.

Drinks.

Then passes it back.

It’s the first moment I’ve felt calm since I left her.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I say, barely a breath.

She stares ahead, jaw tense. “You did.”

A pause. Heavy with more than pain.

“And still—” I begin.

She leans in before I can finish the sentence I wasn’t brave enough to say.

There’s no hesitation. No sweetness. Just the hard, desperate press of her mouth on mine like something breaking loose. She fists my coat with both hands, dragging me down like gravity’s suddenly working only for us. The breath punches out of me—not from pain, but from the jolt of knowing she still wants me. Still chooses me.

Rain lashes harder. Slicking the stone under our feet, streaming down the line of her throat. Her tunic’s soaked, clinging to her spine, molded tight over the curve of her ass like it was stitched there on purpose. It hits low—sharp, visceral. I’m hard before I take my next breath.

But it’s not just arousal.

It’s older. Deeper. A hum behind my ribs that feels like a vow I didn’t know I’d made. Something that only answers to her.

I push her back against the roof’s edge. Not rough—just certain. Her breath hitches. Her hands are already on my coat, yanking it open like it’s a cage she refuses to leave me inside.

I kiss her like I need to memorize the shape of her defiance. She answers like it’s survival. My hands move—waist, ribs, the shaking center of her chest—and I feel the heat of her through soaked fabric.

She pulls her tunic over her head.

Tosses it to the stone without flinching.