He whispers my name against my collarbone—like it hurts to say, like it heals him anyway. I whisper his back, fingers threading through his hair, drawing him closer, anchoring us both.
We’re not gentle.
We’re not careful.
We’re alive.
And for tonight—after everything we’ve lost, everything we’ve fought, everything we almost didn’t survive—being alive together is the fiercest act of love either of us can give.
Later, the world around us lies broken, scarred, spent — but in this room, in the hollow shell of what once was our quarters, time feels slow, soft, as if it’s catching its breath with us. The fires outside gutter down to smoldering embers. Smoke drifts through cracked walls in lazy curls, carrying the scent of charred wood, molten metal, and ash. But inside these walls, there’s warmth. Not from lamps or power, but from skin pressed to skin, breath mingling, hearts pounding in unison.
Vokar lies beside me on the collapsed bed, his body half-shuddered with exhaustion, limbs heavy, ribs rising and falling in a rhythm that aches with every shallow breath. The sheet — scorched and stained — is bunched beneath us. Dust motes float in the dim glow of emergency lights, drifting like slow, drifting stars suspended in a shattered universe. I reach out, fingertips trembling, trace along his ribs — careful, slow — feeling the ridges and valleys of scars and new wounds, thehardness of hardened bone-spurs under skin, remnants of battle still embedded in muscle and sinew.
I press gently at a tender curve where flesh pulls tight over healing bone. My thumb scrolls over the fresh scar, a thin pink line already knit over dark crusted blood. I whisper softly, half to him, half to the memory of the blade that cut him.
“Another one for the collection,” I murmur.
He chuckles — low, half-groan, half-rumble — a sound that vibrates in his chest and straight through mine. It’s ragged with pain, but also alive.
“Only if you name it,” he rasps, voice rough as sandpaper, but also warm, intimate.
I smile, the first real smile in a long time, and lean forward, pressing my lips gently against the fresh scar. The warmth of my mouth, the soft brush of breath, sends a shock of tenderness rippling down his spine. I whisper, “Mine.”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he draws me closer. His arms wrap around me—clawed hands surprisingly soft against my back, holding me like fragile armor against a collapsing world. The scent of sweat, blood, and scorched iron lingers on his skin, mingling with the faint pine-smoke drifting from outside, and I breathe it in deep, as if I can draw safety from him alone.
We lie like that — quiet, still, our bodies molded together in the wreckage — until the ringing of distant alarms fades, voices outside retreat, and the compound’s chaos dims to murmurs. For once, the only sounds are our breathing and the soft groan of stone walls settling. The dull drip of cooling metal echoes in distance, but here, in this room, there is silence. Calm.
Vokar’s fingers trace patterns on my back, dragging over ribs, across the small of waist. The motion is slow, reverent, as though he’s making sure I’m real — sure I’m alive — sure I didn’t vanish with the smoke and fire.
I close my eyes at the touch. The ache in my muscles bleeds into warmth. I taste salt behind my lips — sweat, tears, survival. My heartbeat slows, steadies. For a moment, I forget the war, the betrayals, the screams. I forget the blood and the burning.
Then Vokar murmurs. Soft. So soft I nearly miss it.
No more wars.
I open my eyes slowly. His face is tilted toward me, scarred and soot-marked, but unbroken. The red glow of his eyes has faded to dull ember. The fire beneath his skin seems replaced by something gentler — determination tempered by love, exhaustion traded for something like hope.
“No more wars,” he repeats. “Only peace.”
I study him. The words hang in the air between us like a broken promise offered fresh on cracked metal. I want to argue — to tell him peace is a fairy tale, a lie people use to sleep when the night is too long. But there’s no strength in arguing right now. Not when the warmth of him, the weight of him against me, feels like the only medicine I believe in.
So instead I lean forward. I press a kiss against his cheek — soft, slow, like a sealing. My lips brush his scars, his grit, his bone-plates. I taste ash, sweat, blood — and something else beneath it all: safety. Vulnerable, fragile, dangerous safety.
“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” I whisper, voice low, throat husky with emotion. “But maybe… maybe this is the beginning of one.”
He doesn’t answer right away. The silence stretches, thick and comforting. Then he touches my face — thumb brushing over sweat and soot — drawing me closer, staring at me like he sees me for the first time.
“Then we write it together,” he breathes.
I reach up, pull his face down into a kiss that tastes of sweat and hope. It’s slow. Careful. Full of promise and recovery. The world outside continues to collapse or rebuild — I can’t tellwhich — but here, between our scars and our breaths and the fractured walls, we build something steady.
The mattress beneath groans softly under shifting weight. The air smells of damp stone and soot and something sweeter: possibility. My hands roam over his ribs again, gentle but fierce, mapping the battle scars, memorizing what was taken and what remains.
He lifts one hand to my waist, then the other, pulling me flush against him. The heat of his flesh seeps into me. I feel the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my palm — slow, steady, solid.
“Stay,” he whispers.
I close my eyes.
