Page 108 of Thexan

“No.”

“You don’t decide I’m safer without you unless I get to stand in front of you and tell you exactly how wrong you are.”

A subtle shift moved through his expression, and I felt through the bond that he understood more than the words themselves. He understood the claim in them, the refusal to be set aside, the place I was making for myself in his decisions.

“I will not make that decision without you,” he said.

It was enough for this moment.

I let out a breath and stepped closer, letting my forehead rest briefly against his chest. The warmth of him came through his clothing, steady and real, and beneath it the rhythm of his body remained strong, stable, alive. I had almost lost him once to his wounds. I would not lose him now to the idea that love meant removal.

His arms came around me carefully, giving me room to step away if I needed to.

I didn’t.

For a while, neither of us spoke. The settlement moved outside the infirmary, voices carrying faintly through the walls, ordinary sounds from a world that had not become safe just because we wanted it to be. Danger might come again. I knew that. He knew it too. There were no promises we could make that would change the shape of the world beyond this room.

But we could decide how we stood inside it.

Together.

I lifted my head and looked up at him.

“I need you to say it,” I said.

His gaze searched mine. “What do you require?”

“That you’re staying because you want to stay, not because I argued you into it.”

His hand moved along my back, the contact grounding and deliberate.

“I am staying because I want to remain with you,” he said. “I am staying because the life you occupy matters to me, because your survival is not enough if your life is diminished to secure it, and because I love you in a form I am still learning to express correctly.”

My throat tightened.

“That was pretty good,” I whispered.

“I can refine it.”

That did make me laugh, soft and unsteady against him.

“Don’t you dare.”

His hand came to my face, careful but no longer hesitant. He had learned tenderness the way he learned everything—through attention, repetition, and the willingness to correct himself. My anger had not vanished, but relief and love now sat beside it, along with the ache of knowing how much this fierce man still had to unlearn before protection stopped meaning distance.

I turned my face into his palm.

“This is the part where you kiss me,” I said.

His attention sharpened. “That is a request?”

“It’s a suggestion.”

“Clarify the difference.”

I rose onto my toes and answered by kissing him first.

For one heartbeat, he remained still, receiving the contact the way he received everything important, with complete attention. Then he answered, his mouth firm against mine, his hand sliding to the back of my head while his other arm held me closer. There was no desperation in it, but there was need, deep and steady, the kind that came from almost losing something not to death this time, but to fear.