“Because something hunts the dunes,” she says quietly. “But… is that the only reason?”
I freeze. Heat spirals low in my chest, winding tight, dangerous. Her scent—desert, crushed leaves, fear wrapped in courage—pools around me. She is too close. Not close enough.
“I guard what is mine,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her head snaps up. “Rakkh?—”
“I do not mean—” The words catch like thorns. “You are not mine. Not… in that way.”
Not yet.
Her lips part. She studies me—eyes wide but not frightened. Curious. Cautious. Drawn.
“Then what way?” she whispers.
I cannot answer. If I do, the world changes. If I do, I cannot take it back. I turn my head toward the opening, forcing distance. The wind cools my face.
“Sleep, Lia.”
She doesn’t move for a long time. I feel her watching me. Testing me. Wanting an answer I cannot give. Finally, she exhales and curls onto her side. Her breathing slows. Softens. Steadies. She doesn’t turn away from me. And I do not look away from her.
The night wears on. The moon shifts. Her breath settles into a gentle rhythm. I memorize it. I memorize everything about her. The slope of her shoulder, the curl of her fingers, the small sigh she makes when warmth replaces fear.
Hours pass. She shivers. Before thought, I curl my tail inward, a slow, careful arc around her feet—not touching, not trapping—but sheltering. Claiming a boundary around her where nothing else may enter.
She murmurs in her sleep. My hearts answer. I do not sleep. I guard.
And something in me—something buried deep beneath scars and loss—admits the truth I cannot speak aloud. If the dunes come for her again, if the sickness hunts her through the roots, if the sky itself opens and drops death upon us…
I will stand between her and every threat on this cursed world.
Because even if my mind says she is not mine, my body does not agree.
9
LIA
The first thing I feel is warmth.
Not the harsh, smothering heat of the suns, but something low and steady, radiating along the backs of my legs.
The second thing I feel is breath—slow, controlled—the kind a warrior makes when he’s forcing himself to stay calm.
I open my eyes a crack.
Rakkh sits at the cave entrance exactly where he vowed he would stay. His broad shoulders block the morning wind, wings tucked tight, muscles coiled and ready. Sand dusts his scales like powdered stars scattered across them. He looks as though he has not moved all night.
What catches my breath is what lies over my legs.
His tail—loosely curled around my ankles like an unconscious boundary. A shield drawn in the sand, marking where danger cannot cross.
Heat rushes up my neck. I reach down and touch the smooth underside of it with one fingertip.
It twitches, and Rakkh’s head snaps toward me—eyes sharp, pupils narrowing, like I’ve startled something instinctive and ancient inside him.
“Lia,” he says, voice low and rough with unslept hours. “Does it bother you?”
Bother me?
