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“You’re insufferable,” Ryneth snapped, yanking at the handle. “Leave me alone for five fucking minutes.”

Daven smirked, looking far too pleased with himself as the bathroom door refused to budge.

Something invisible held it open, like a hand braced on the other side.

Ryneth stared at it in disbelief, then his static lashed out of him in a white, jagged pulse that cracked across the doorway like a whip. The burst startled him almost as much as the door had. Back on Düren, it would have taken real fear to drag that out of him. Here, around Daven, it came quicker, more easily, like something inside him had started waking up.

The air answered instantly, a hard pressure striking him in the chest and stealing the breath from his lungs. He stumbled back a step, barefoot on the warm stone, then glared at the door and reached for the handle again.

His static flared brighter this time, turning frantic as a hiss of white light stuttered over his skin and made the glass in the hallway tremble. But the air swallowed it as if it were nothing.

From the bed, Daven laughed again. “You’re adorable,” he called. “Keep going. I like watching you try.”

Ryneth’s hands curled into fists. “Let me close the door.”

“No.”

The refusal came without hesitation, and something about that made Ryneth’s stomach flip with a mix of heat and fury.

“You can’t just—” Ryneth started.

“I can,” Daven said. “And you’re going to stop pretending you don’t like it.”

Ryneth’s throat tightened as he grabbed the handle again, yanking once more out of pure stubbornness, but the door still refused to move.

“Go on, aethera. You have two choices.”

Ryneth glared at the door like it had personally betrayed him. “What?”

“Either you shower with the door open, or I come in there and wash you myself.”

Ryneth froze, glaring toward the bedroom. “That’s not a choice.”

Daven gave a lazy hum. “It is. You just don’t like that I’m the one giving it to you.”

Ryneth swallowed hard. It wasn’t the threat of being seen naked that made his pulse jump. Daven had already seen every inch of him. It was the order itself. The way Daven kept deciding what happened next, and some weak, traitorous part of him kept wanting to give in. That was the part that made him furious.

With an angry shove, he pushed into the bathroom. The air released the door at once, as if it had only been waiting for him to stop fighting. Jaw tight, Ryneth crossed the space, warm stone and rising steam wrapping around him while the faint scent of Daven still clung to his skin like a mark. He turned his head just enough for his voice to carry back into the bedroom.

“If you stare, I’m going to blind you.”

Daven laughed, the sound sliding over Ryneth’s nerves like a touch. “Come on, baby. I’ve seen you before.”

Ryneth’s jaw clenched as he reached for the water controls with unsteady fingers. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re mine,” Daven replied, like it was the simplest fact in the world. “Stop acting shy now. I want to look at you.”

Ryneth’s hand paused over the controls. That was the part that hit differently. Not the watching. Not the open door. The way Daven said mine, like it was already decided. Like Ryneth standing there and obeying him was the most natural thing in the world.

Heat rushed through him anyway, humiliating and impossible to hide, and he hated that some weak part of him still wanted to give Daven exactly what he was asking for.

He turned the water on, and the first blast from the jets hit his shoulders and spine hard enough to drag a helpless sound out of him. The water was almost too hot. Almost.

Leaning forward, Ryneth braced his palms against the stone wall, and let it pour over him. Let it beat the ache out of his muscles. Let it loosen the tightness that had lived in him since the cages, since the transport, since Düren.

Düren meant cold water every morning, even in winter, even when his fingers went numb around the tap and his teeth chattered hard enough to make his jaw ache. Showers had never been about comfort there. They had been about getting clean fast, getting dressed fast, and getting out before the heat bill climbed high enough to frighten Mara.

Here, the warmth didn’t run out. The jets were built for bodies like Daven’s, for long nights, for bruises, for recovery.