So instead, he wove their fingers together. Lykor tensed, starting to pull away.
“There’s nothing to fix,” Jassyn said quietly. His heart lurched even as he tightened his hold, heat filling every seam between their palms.
Lykor’s voice dropped to a growl. “Are you just saying that or—”
“If you truly wanted it, and if I had the power to, I would change it back,” Jassyn insisted. “But this”—he squeezed gently—“isn’t a flaw. It’s a mark of endurance. Proof that you survived.”
Lykor’s jaw tightened, though he held steady, eyes burning and searching. Slowly, his gaze dropped to their joined hands. His thumb brushed a hesitant path across Jassyn’s wrist, a lingering touch settling against the hum of his racing pulse.
When Lykor looked up again, his attention snagged on Jassyn’s mouth—hovering there for a breath too long—before he met his gaze.
Jassyn’s heart stumbled. He hadn’t known what he expected in those firelit depths, only that it wasn’t the tenderness burning so quietly there.
“You said you don’t care what shape people are,” Lykor murmured. “But if you wanted to choose…would it be someone like me?” A swallow tightened his throat, but he didn’t look away. “Because I want to kiss you,” he said softly. “But only if you’d want that too.”
Jassyn went still, a flush rising under his skin. The world didn’t stop, but his breath did, caught somewhere between his ribs.
No one had ever asked him before.
Lykor’s cheeks darkened as he glanced away. “I–I’ve been wanting to ask,” he added quickly. “But you can say no. I’d never take what you weren’t willing to give.”
Heat pricked behind Jassyn’s eyes. Because Lykor wasn’t assuming or demanding. And somehow that halting question felt more sacred than anything Jassyn had ever been offered.
He focused on the press of Lykor’s palm, the stillness that waited instead of took. And in the quiet between them, Jassyn realized hewantedto. Not because survival demanded he endure another performance.
Because this—at last—was a choice.
His.
And stars help him, Lykor began to unravel with such earnest sincerity that Jassyn fought back a smile. Words tumbled out of him in a rush, breaking loose like floodwater.
“I just—I thought maybe… But I understand if not. I don’t want to make anything worse. Or—”
But Jassyn wasn’t listening anymore as he stared at their clasped hands. For the first time in decades, the pause between heartbeats didn’t echo with emptiness.
“It doesn’t have to be now,” Lykor tried again, quieter this time. “Or ever. I—”
Jassyn’s pulse thundered as he slowly unwound their fingers. Lykor locked into a near-wraith stillness, a shadow of worry flickering across his face—perhaps fearing that he’d said too much, pressed too far.
But Jassyn only leaned in, reaching forward to cup his jaw.
And then he kissed him, soft and certain, like answering a question he’d never been allowed to ask—one the world had silenced, but his heart had kept waiting anyway.
CHAPTER 16
LYKOR
It took Lykor longer than he’d ever admit to realize what was unfolding.
Jassyn’s mouth grazed his, light at first, before heat rushed everywhere. Fingers swept from Lykor’s jaw into his hair, the motion so sure it sundered the air from his lungs.
He blinked, half-dazed by the certainty of it, as if he’d taken a thunderbolt straight to the skull. Jassyn pressed in close, lips moving with a steadiness like this wasn’t their first kiss at all.
That confidence only made Lykor’s pulse stutter harder, unmade and helpless. He’d been the one to ask, yet now that the moment had become real—now that Jassyn had leaned in—he didn’t know how to meet it.
So he sat frozen, stunned and slack-jawed while Jassyn’s lips lingered on his.
When Jassyn finally drew back, breath unsteady, the small distance snapped something loose. Before thought could stop him, Lykor caught Jassyn by the nape and hauled him back to his mouth. Too fast—their teeth clicked, lips crashing together—but neither pulled away.
