Now she was asking for more.
His hand trembled as he reached for the release. A warrior's hand, steady through countless battles, shaking now because a human female had looked at him and demanded to see the thing he kept hidden from everyone.
The helm retracted. The plates folded back into his armor with a soft mechanical whisper, peeling away from his face layer by layer until there was nothing left between them.
Air touched his skin. Cool and humid, carrying the scent of the jungle and the sharper, more immediate scent of her. He blinked in the sudden brightness, his eyes adjusting to unfiltered light for the first time in days.
She looked at him.
He knew what she saw. Grey-green skin stretched tight over angular bones. Ridges that ran from his brow to the back of his skull, remnants of modifications deemed necessary for his function. Scars—so many scars, pale lines and puckered tissue mapping a history of violence across his features. Eyes that were too dark, set too deep, lacking the warmth that seemed to come naturally to her species.
He was not beautiful. He was not even close to human. He was a thing built for destruction, wearing the evidence of that purpose on every surface of his face.
Her eyes widened.
She did not look away.
He waited. Every muscle locked, his breath stopped in his chest, his existence narrowed to this single moment. She had asked to see him, and now she would decide. She would look at what he was, what they had made him, and she would?—
Her hand was still on his face.
Her fingers moved, tracing the ridge of his brow, following the line of an old scar down to his jaw. The touch was light and exploratory, without revulsion.
"Makrath," she said. His name in her voice, in her mouth, while her fingers mapped the terrain of his face.
He could not move. Could not speak. Could only kneel above her in the morning light and feel her touch like fire on his skin.
"I see you," she said.
Three words. Three small words that broke him open.
She saw him.
Beyond the warrior. Beyond the weapon. Beyond the monster the Kha'Ruun had built from flesh and fury and centuries of violence.
She sawhim.
He lowered his head. Pressed his forehead to hers the way he had in the cave, but this time there was no helm between them. Just skin against skin, breath mingling, her fingers still tracing the scars that mapped his history.
"Serafina," he said. Her name, rough and broken, the only word he could manage.
She smiled.
And pulled him down to her.
CHAPTER 26
His face was not human.
Grey-green skin pulled tight over angular bones, the structure beneath sharp and alien in ways that had nothing to do with human anatomy. Ridges ran from his brow to the back of his skull, carved deeper than nature intended—modified, hardened, turned into armor. Scars mapped his features like a history written in flesh. Pale lines crossing darker tissue. Puckered marks that spoke of wounds that should have killed him. A life measured in violence and survival.
His eyes were dark. Too dark, set deep beneath the ridged brow, watching her with an intensity that made her breath catch. No warmth in them. No softness. Only a focus so absolute she felt it like a physical weight.
He was terrifying.
He was beautiful.
The thought surfaced without permission, and she let it stay. Her fingers traced the ridge of his brow, and she felt him shudder beneath the touch—felt his entire body go taut with what might have been fear. This warrior who had torn a Khelar apart with his bare hands was afraid of what she might see when she looked at him.
