He doesn’t argue this time. He stretches out on the mattress, one arm folded behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. The glow from my skin casts faint patterns across his chest, highlighting the scars like silver lines on dark stone. I take the cloth again, dip it into fresh water, and start wiping the blood from his side where the jaguar’s claws caught him. The cuts aren’t deep but they’re angry, and I clean them carefully, murmuring small things under my breath that aren’t quite words but aren’t silence either.
He watches me, not speaking until I press the cloth to the last cut. “You don’t have to fix me,” he says quietly.
“I’m not fixing you,” I reply. “I’m tending to you. There’s a difference.”
He smiles faintly, the kind of smile that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. “You talk like you’ve done this before.”
“I have,” I say. “Just not with someone who fights jaguars in the dark.”
He chuckles once, low and rough. “Lucky me.”
“Lucky both of us,” I answer.
The lamp sputters then, the flame shrinking before it steadies again, and for a moment the glow from my arms is the only light in the room. I finish bandaging his hand, tie off the strip of cloth, and sit back on my heels.
“All done,” I say softly. “For now.”
He reaches out, fingers brushing my wrist, thumb stroking lightly over the faint gold lines still flickering under my skin. “What is that?” he asks, voice softer than before.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But it feels like something waking up.”
He nods once, not like he understands but like he’s willing to let it be for now.
We settle in silence, the kind that isn’t empty but full of everything we’re not saying. He drifts a little, his eyes half-closing, and I lean back against the wall, watching the lines of his face soften as the fight drains from his muscles.
Then something in him shifts.
He stiffens all at once, breath catching in his throat like someone pulled a wire too tight. His head jerks slightly to the side, brow furrowed deep, eyes going sharp even in half-sleep.
I sit up straighter. “What is it?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His jaw clenches, nostrils flaring slightly as if he’s scenting something I can’t detect. His whole body has gone tight beneath the blanket like someone just struck a chord that only he can hear.
“Rafe?” I ask again, more gently this time.
His hand reaches for mine, not fast, not rough, just a slow, deliberate curl of fingers against my wrist. “It’s the Seal,” he says, voice low and hoarse. “It’s stronger.”
I blink. “You’re hearing it again?”
“Not hearing,” he mutters, pressing his hand flat over his chest like something inside him is trying to claw its way out. “Feeling it. Like it’s crawling through my spine and burning its way into my ribs.”
My instinct is to reach for him, to soothe, to push the blankets back and make sure he’s not burning up, but his eyes meet mine and stop me. They’re glowing faintly.
“I don’t feel anything,” I say quietly. “It’s not in me.”
His fingers tighten on mine, not hard, just enough to ground him. “It’s not supposed to be. This part… it’s mine.”
“But it’s getting worse?”
He shakes his head. “Not worse. Closer. Like it knows I’m awake now, like it’s not hiding anymore. It wants something.”
The air between us changes then, not physically, but in the way you can sense a storm before you smell the rain. He pulls in a sharp breath, grits his teeth, and forces his body to stay still.
I press my palm to his chest, right over his heart, and the sheen under my skin flickers — warm but quiet, completely disconnected from the pull he’s feeling. It’s the first time I realize fully and without doubt that the thing chasing him, calling him, binding him — it’s not calling me. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But he’s not running from it anymore.
And that changes everything.
