“I’m not broken,” she says.
“I know that now.”
Silence again.
Then she steps back to the bed. Slides beneath the sheets, her skin cold against mine now, but her grip on my hand iron-tight.
“Then we stop it,” she whispers.
I nod.
She curls into me again, fierce and trembling. Her breath feathers against my neck.
“We make sure they remember who fought back.”
CHAPTER 23
KRISTI
When his arms wrap around me again, I feel anchored. Grounded in a way no data file or protest ever managed to make me feel. He’s warm and steady and real beneath the scarred pads of my fingertips, his chest still damp with the sweat of everything we’ve just shed between us—anger, distance, longing.
I curl into him like I’m afraid the bed might vanish. Like maybe the worldshouldvanish for a few stolen minutes.
He doesn’t speak. He just holds me.
And I realize—this is what love looks like, when it’s scraped raw and battle-worn and still standing.
When it’s quiet.
Then I shift, just a little, so I can see his face. The lines around his eyes are deeper tonight. Exhaustion. Fear. Maybe a whisper of guilt. But the moment our eyes lock, it all softens.
“You didn’t have to carry that alone,” I whisper.
“I didn’t want it to break you.”
I lean forward and kiss his chest, right over his heart. “I’m not a glass doll, Kenron.”
“No,” he murmurs. “You’re a blade.”
His words spark something in me—hot and fierce and aching.
I rise to meet him, straddling his hips with slow deliberation. His hands find my thighs automatically, the way roots find water. I let my fingers trace the stubble along his jaw, feel the quiet tremble in his breath.
He watches me like I’m something sacred.
And gods, I want to believe I am.
Not because I’m flawless. But because he sees meanyway—flaws and fire and all.
The kiss this time is slower. Deeper. A question and an answer wrapped together. His lips part beneath mine, and I feel his breath catch when my palms flatten over his chest. His heart is pounding again. Mine too.
But there’s no rush.
No need to devour.
Only the slow, aching need to feel every inch of him. To remember him. Toclaimhim.
My body moves against his in a rhythm born of memory and instinct. His hands slide up my back, tracing the curve of my spine, fingertips dragging along the notches like he’s mapping me into memory.
