They stood there like that, neither willing to move first, the air between them heavy with everything both said and unsaid.
Sera kept her hands at her sides because she didn’t trust them.If she lifted her palm, the mark would flare and betray her all over again. If she reached for him, she wasn’t sure she’d stop. Her skin was still mapped by his hands, her lips still remembered the power of his mouth, and her body didn’t care that he’d questioned her innocence. It only cared that he’d been there, pressed to her, and then ripped himself away like contact itself was a threat.
Alaric didn’t move, either. He stood a breath away, forehead no longer resting against hers, but his gaze pinned to her like a restraint.His breathing was regulated now, measured in the way it always became when he was forcing order onto something that wanted chaos.
“Not yet,” she repeated softly, letting the words land where they hurt, where denial scraped against want. “Because you don’t know if I’m innocent or guilty.”
His eyes flicked to her mouth. Just once. Long enough that she felt it like a touch, long enough to make her stomach tighten and her pulse jump in a way that had nothing to do with logic.
“You heard me.” His voice was still hoarse, but the edges had returned, discipline locking back into place even as his gaze stayed on her lips a fraction toolong.
Sera let out a quiet laugh that held no amusement, only heat and disbelief. “I heard you. I’m wondering if you heard yourself.”
He didn’t react. No shift, no visible response. That was a reaction. The kind that told her exactly how much effort it was costing him not to move, not to reach, not to finish what they’d started.
She shifted, the motion small, but the air responded like it had a pulse. The Brand did, too. Heat rolled through her palm, low and insistent, as if the mark haddecided this was the moment to remind her that restraint wasn’t neutral. It had consequences.
“You said there are things you still need to protect me from,” she said. “Tell me what you mean by that. Because you don’t get to say it and leave it hanging.”
“It’s not just a word,” he informed her. “It’s a boundary.”
“Boundaries are supposed to be mutual.”
The words came out steadier than she expected. Inside, everything was anything but balanced. She needed him to acknowledge that this wasn’t just his line to draw, his call to make. She needed him to see that whatever this was between them had already wrapped itself around her choices, her body, her attention. That stopping her without her consent was too much like being managed instead of met. Too much like being told her want was a liability while his restraint was a virtue. She didn’t want permission. She wanted parity.
His stare sharpened. “I’m trying to make this mutual.”
That was the first crack in his façade. He didn’t deny he wanted her. He didn’t pretend the kiss had been a mistake. He was choosing a shape for the aftermath.
Sera stepped back half a pace, not because she wanted distance, but becauseshe needed enough air to think.Her heart was still galloping. Her lips still tingled. The imprint of his hands remained on her waist, the way his fingers had dug in and then held, as if he’d been warning himself as much asher.
“You stopped because you think sex changes something,” shesaid.
“In these circumstances, it does.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “We already had it.”
The words landed like ablow.
Alaric’s expression didn’t change, but something deep in his eyes did. Aflare of heat, contained so tightly it looked like ice. She saw the exact moment memory hit him. Not the act itself. The fact ofit.
It had been two weeks ago. One night. Amistake, she’d told herself. Alapse. Athing she could store in a locked drawer and never touch again.
Then the Brand had appeared.
No locked drawers afterthat.
“I’m aware we slept together. I’m not pretending it didn’t happen,” he said. “But it happened before the theft.”
Sera’s throat tightened. She shouldn’t have thrown it like a blade. But sheneeded him to stop denying the line hadn’t already been crossed.
“Then what exactly are you afraid sex will do now?” she asked.
A beat.
Alaric’s gaze dropped, not to her eyes, but to her palm, as if he could see the Brand through skin and bone.”It will make it harder to keep you out of the blast radius.”
Sera stared at him. “You say that like you can pick which parts of your life explode.”
