“Yes.”
She stared at him for another second, clearly recalibrating. “You never do that.”
“I do now.”
The words came out sharper than he intended. Not angry. Pressed. Sera seemed to register it immediately. She straightened slightly, her posture going calm and regulated, the same way it did when she stepped into a crisis. She crossed the room to his closet and pulled out one of his shirts, slipping it on and swiftlybuttoningit.
Then she turned to face him. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer right away. He crossed the space between them and stopped close enough that he could see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the faint mark on her lower lip where he’d bitten her the night before. The Brand tugged, still off, still wrong.
“Something’s shifted,” he said finally.
Her gaze flicked to his hand. “The Brand?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Muted. Misaligned.” He shook his head slightly. “I don’t know.”
She studied him with unnerving focus. “And that’s why you’re not going in.”
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the rest?”
He hesitated, irritation spiking at himself. He didn’t hesitate. He assessed. He decided. But this wasn’t a boardroom or a threat profile. This was her. And the answer mattered more than he wanted to admit.
“I can’t compartmentalize,” hesaid.
Sera’s eyes wideneda fraction.
“I can’t walk out of this house and leave you unanchored,” he continued, the words more basic now, stripped of the layers he usually used to buffer truth.
She absorbed that without interrupting him. Without reassuring him. With intentional restraint.
“Something about all this is fucking wrong,” he added, quieter now. “Which means I’m not ignoring it.”
She nodded once. “What do you want from me?”
The question hit harder than it should have. He didn’t want. He directed. He commanded. The impulse rose anyway, sharp and intuitive.”Stay,” hesaid.
The word landed between them, heavy with everything he didn’t say.Don’t disappear. Don’t make absence real. Don’t leave me. Not now. Notever.
Sera didn’t move. Her expression remained calm, her voice steady when she spoke. “I can’t promise that.”
The Brand pulsed sharply, like it had finally found something to react to.”Why not?” he asked, the edge in his voiceimpossible tohide.
“Because you want a promise you can’t actually keep,” she said calmly. “You’re trying to lock this moment in place so you can go do what you have to do and believe it’ll still be waiting for you when you get back. And I won’t pretend that’s how this works.”
He held her gaze. He was used to resistance. Used to negotiation. This wasn’t either. This was refusal without defiance.
Silence stretched.
He stepped back first.
“I’ll return as quickly as I can,” he said.It was the closest thing to a promise he could give without lying.
