I stare at him.
“…That was not the answer I expected.”
He exhales.
“I will protect you,” he says. “Even from my urges if need be.”
The words land in the room like something carved into stone.
No drama.
No flourish.
Just a flat, terrible sincerity that makes my chest ache in a way I do not appreciate.
“I am not going to touch you without your consent,” he continues. “I am not going to make decisions about your life. I am not going to use this bond to cage you. And if you tell me to leave, I will leave, even though every part of my nervous system is screaming at me not to.”
I swallow hard.
My fear is still there.
It hasn’t gone anywhere.
But something else is rising under it now.
Anger.
Grief.
The incandescent, incandescent fury of a woman who just had her entire life set on fire and then woke up in a concrete box being told her existence tripped some ancient biological switch in a government murder experiment.
“Oh, I’m not done,” I say, my voice shaking now, but steadying as the words come. “Not even close.”
He nods once.
“Good.”
“You do not get to make decisions for me,” I say. “Ever. Not about where I go, not about who I see, not about what I do with my life because your lizard brain thinks I’m emotionally stabilizing.”
“Agreed.”
“You do not touch me without my permission,” I continue, heat burning behind my eyes. “Not in panic mode. Not in monster mode. Not in ‘I’m bleeding out and you think you know what’s best for me’ mode.”
“Agreed.”
“You do not use whatever this bond thing is to pressure me into anything I don’t want,” I say. “Not sex. Not a relationship. Not staying here with you. Not forgiving you for existing in my life at all.”
“Agreed.”
“And if at any point I tell you to get the hell away from me,” I finish, my voice cracking hard now, “you do it. Immediately. No arguing. No tragic monologues.”
He inclines his head.
“Agreed.”
The room feels like it exhales.
I sag back against the pillow, suddenly exhausted in a bone-deep way that makes my limbs feel like they’re made of wet sand.
