He inclines his head, barely, and leaves it. A small flicker of respect sits in my chest like a foreign coin.
He sets both hands back into the water then, the glowing threads fading to the dimmest ember.
The water settles around us, the last of his power receding into a quiet hum in my blood. The absence of pain is a shock, leaving a hollow space where it had been. It’s unnerving. I feel strangely light, untethered.
I watch him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the demand that always follows a gift from someone like him. But he just holds my gaze, his expression unreadable in the dim, turquoise light.
The silence stretches, thick and heavy as the steam.
Then, he moves. My muscles tense, a reflex I can’t stop. But he doesn’t reach for me—not to hold or restrain. He cups his hands, gathering the warm, clear water of the pool. Slowly, as if approaching a feral animal he’d prefer not to startle, he lifts his hands to my face. My first instinct is to jerk back, to slap his hands away. But I don’t. I stay frozen, my heart a frantic bird against my ribs as he gently splashes the water onto my skin.
His thumbs, calloused and unsettlingly gentle, trace the curve of my cheekbones, wiping away the grime and dried blood from the trial. He works with a focus so quiet it feelsalmost like reverence, cleaning the filth from my temple, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. His touch is not a claim or a brand. It is… care. A simple, staggering act of tenderness that my mind has no defense for. A shudder runs through me that has nothing to do with the cold.
“Is this in your draconic courtship manual?” I manage, my voice coming out tighter than I intended. “Chapter four: 'Lure the feral witch into a hot spring and scrub her down’?”
His thumbs pause at the corners of my mouth. His hands still, and a slow smile breaks one corner of his mouth.
“Chapter seven,” he says. “Right afterHow to Deal With Infuriatingly Stubborn Women.”
His fingers return to my skin like he never stopped, the heat of them making my breath hitch.
“And I wasn’t planning on letting you bleed out in my space,” he adds. “Bad for the atmosphere.”
“How very considerate,” I murmur.
His hands slide to cup my jaw, thumbs settling beneath it. Just… holding.
Keeping me there. Light glints off the ring he wears, its pale gold matching the one that encircles my own finger.
“You aren’t my hostage, Esme.”
The way he says my name makes me go still.
“Then what am I?” I breathe.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Back to my eyes.
“A problem,” he says softly. “And I’ve never wanted a problem this much in my life.”
The steam presses in around us. My pulse stutters. I can feel it in my throat, in the soft place under his thumbs. A shiver runs down my spine. My eyes flick to his mouth, then away, then back again, like I don’t trust them to behave.
He sees it. Of course he does. Something in his expression shifts—not softer exactly, just more careful. Moreaware.
“You fight everything, don’t you,” he murmurs. “Even when nothing is trying to hurt you.”
He leans in, slow enough that I could pull away. His forehead nearly touches mine. We stop there. Breath to breath. No contact. Just that razor-thin space between restraint and… ruin.
I close my eyes, fighting to stay in control. Looking at him like this is a mistake I can already feel forming.
“I don’t know how to stop,” I say. The words slip out anyway.
His breath grazes my lips. “Then don’t. Just be here.”
I open my eyes.
He doesn’t move back. If anything, he’s closer now, heat rolling off him, steady and sure.
“This place,” he murmurs, glancing around the stone and steam, “doesn’t exist outside itself. The world you’re afraid of can’t reach it. And when you leave… nothing follows.”
