Page 66 of Dose

“I know.”

“I also know I’ve been⁠—”

“Terrible?”

His mouth twitches. “Thorough.”

“You can be both.”

I take the folded plan from him and set it aside. Then I put my palms against his chest, over the formulas inked into his skin beneath his shirt.

“You’re terrified,” I say.

He covers one of my hands with his. “Yes.”

“So am I.”

We walk back through corridors carrying the smell of Raphael’s dinner. Lucien is stretched on the common-room floor with a book open above his face. Jenna and Nikolai are arguing quietly over a map. Darius says something from the kitchen that makes Damon tell him to shut up. The sound follows us toward our quarters.

Theon’s hand remains at my back. It no longer feels like steering. It feels like a count: here, here, still here.

Inside our room, he locks the door.

Neither of us wants to talk anymore.

I unbutton his shirt and ease it down his right arm first, then carefully over the healing left shoulder. The sutures are covered by a narrow dressing. There is no spreading redness at the edges, no stain, nothing to justify the amount of attention I give it.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Raphael decides that.”

“You sound like him.”

“A devastating insult.”

His right hand closes around the back of my neck, and the humor disappears.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You.” I pull my shirt over my head. “No distance. Just don’t tear your shoulder open trying to prove something.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, and I step between his knees. He undresses me slowly with one hand, taking his time over every fastening, every newly exposed piece of skin. We have not had nearly enough nights for the familiarity in his touch, which may be why he is so intent on earning it.

I push him back against the pillows and climb over him. His injured arm stays supported. The right hand travels from my hip to my throat and closes there with the exact pressure that makes heat break beneath my skin.

“Still here,” he says.

“So are you.”

His thumb finds my pulse. He feels what he does to it.

We aren’t playful. He watches my face as I take him, as though he can fix every change in memory if he refuses to blink. I trace the chemistry across his chest and read the symbols he has taught me: reaction rates, antidote ratios, the private record of a life written where no one could confiscate it.

He touches me like a man making evidence. I answer with my nails, my mouth, the movement of my body over his. When his grip tightens at my throat, I give him the sound he is waiting for.

“You come back with me,” he says.

It is not a request. It is also not something either of us can promise.