“Why do you always watch me like this?”
The words scrape out of me like stone dragged across stone. My cheeks flame the instant I hear myself, too sharp, too honest. I want to bite them back, but it’s too late—they hang in the air between us.
He doesn’t flinch or even blink. He tilts his head slightly, like a hawk considering prey, his scars catching the thin light in ridges of pale white against crimson scales. His eyes—black and fathomless—lock on mine.
The silence stretches taut. I shift under it, my fingers twisting tighter around the water skin in my lap, until my knuckles ache. My throat burns, dry not from thirst but from the weight of his gaze.
He doesn’t answer. He never seems to waste words, yet the way he looks at me is an answer.
Not cruel. Not mocking. Not dismissive. Just steady. Seeing. And something in me breaks.
My pulse hammers so loud it drowns out the rasp of grit sliding down the rock face. My chest aches with everything I’ve swallowed back—every time I’ve been dismissed as a child, every moment I swore I’d prove myself. Here, under the weight of his silence, it feels different. It’s not about proving anything anymore.
It’s about him.
The thought terrifies me. I press my lips tight, trying to cage it down, but it surges anyway. I want him to keep looking at me like this. I want it so badly it hurts. I force a laugh, weak and sharp.
“I don’t need?—”
The lie cuts off halfway, my throat closing around it. I can’t finish, because we both know it isn’t true. I drop my gaze, shame and heat burning up my neck. My fingers tremble against the water skin.
“I don’t need you to keep?—”
But I do. God help me, I do. His hand moves.
Slow, deliberate, he reaches across the space between us and closes his claws over the water skin. His fingers brush mine—rough, scaled, cool radiating from his scales despite the heat. He doesn’t tug it away. Doesn’t speak. His hand rests there, covering mine.
My breath catches in my chest. My body locks tight as the world inside me erupts, fierce and unsteady. His touch isn’t only gentle. It’s steady and sure, like everything he does. There’s no force in it and definitely no dismissal.
Only… claiming.
I lift my eyes slowly, afraid of what I’ll see.
He’s watching, still, his gaze unflinching. The scars down his jaw pull taut with the set of his mouth, but his eyes… burn. Quiet, contained, but deep enough that I feel it in my bones.
My heart slams so hard I swear he must hear it. I should pull away. I should break the touch before it brands me too deep. But I don’t. I can’t.
My fingers uncurl beneath his. My hand shifts, just barely, not enough to grab his, not enough to be bold, but enough that he feels the choice. That I’m not fighting it.
Something flickers across his face. Not softness—I don’t think he can soften. It’s as if something loosens, some tightness in his jaw, as if my choice has eased a weight he’s carried in silence. The air between us hums, alive, charged.
I want to speak, to fill the silence with anything, but the words knot in my throat. Instead, I sit there with his hand over mine, the water skin caught between us, and let the truth rise like the storm winds outside.
I want him.
Not because he’s strong. Not because he’s kept me alive. I want him because every look, every silence, every steady gesture tells me, to him at least, I matter. Because with him, I don’t feel small. I don’t feel like a burden. I feel seen.
The thought terrifies me and thrills me at the same time. I wet my lips, breath shaking.
“If you keep looking at me like that…” My voice cracks. I swallow, try again. “You’ll make me believe it.”
His eyes narrow, not in anger but in focus. His thumb shifts, brushing once across my knuckles. Barely a movement, but it sears.
He leans in—not close enough to touch, not close enough for his breath to reach me, but enough that his shadow falls over mine. Enough that the space between us feels like it belongs to him.
“Good,” he says.
The word is low, rough, like stone grinding. My heart stutters, my breath shatters, and every inch of me goes taut. It’s not tenderness. It’s not comfort. But it’s truth. And it’s enough to unravel me.
