“Why?” She takes a step closer... then another. She’s close enough that I can see the flush creeping up her neck. She’s feeling it too—the pull—the heat.
“Because if we don’t—” I cut myself off, fists clenching at my sides.
“If we don’t, what?” Her hand reaches up, fingers brushing my jaw. That simple touch sends lightning straight through me.
Sul’vrek mûr—threll’kresh, threll’sul. (Desperately need to claim her—every part, every way.)
Mine.
Claim her.
Now.
I grab her wrist and pull her hand away. The look of surprise in her eyes feels like a stake through my heart. I may be ancient,but right now, I’m just a beast trying to keep his claws retracted so he doesn't shred the only thing that matters.
“Lumi, you need to?—”
A flicker of movement in my peripheral vision stops me cold.
Something small and dark shifts between the trees like smoke given form.
I turn sharply, every instinct firing at once.
A shadow detaches itself from the trunk of a nearby birch, stepping into the winter light.
A Vairûnsae. (Soul fox.) But not just any Vairûnsae.
Saevel.
My breath catches.
His head tilts at the exact same angle as mine—the mirror image of a soul cursed to live a millennium of winters. When he breathes, I feel the expansion in my own lungs, as if the forest is breathing through us.
Lumi follows my gaze, her hand instinctively reaching for mine. “Andrik... what is that?”
How do I explain it to her?
Saevel’s fur shimmers like frost-kissed vapor, flickering between solid and spectral. His eyes—pale blue, ancient, and knowing—lock onto Lumi with an intensity that makes my chest ache.
This isn’t just another soboeûn coming to meet her. This is a piece of me.
He moves like liquid shadow, each step silent in the snow. His tail flickers behind him—part fox, part flame. He moves toward her like he’s being pulled into her orbit.
Lumi’s fingers tighten around mine. “Oh my God. It’s beautiful,” she whispers.
Beautiful doesn’t cover it. Saevel is a fragment of divinity wrapped in fur and mischief. A piece of my soul that the Godstore free after they made me. I haven’t seen him in thousands of years.
But he’s here now—for her.
My throat closes.
She takes a tentative step forward, releasing my hand. I want to pull her back and keep her close, but this moment isn’t mine to control.
Saevel stops three feet from her, head tilted, eyes glowing like blue moonstone. He studies her the same way I do—like she’s a puzzle worth solving.
Then he does something I never even knew he was capable of—he speaks. A whisper in the back of my mind, in Vraksûn, old and cracked with disuse. “Ka’mai kaemorin.” (Finally mine.)
Not his. Ours.
