His scent.
Mine, now.
His fingers tighten around my hand like he’s seconds away from turning back and throwing the entire tour out the window just to haul me somewhere private and kiss me stupid.
Honestly? I wouldn’t complain.
But the fact that he’s here at all—taking time away from reinspecting a magical mine that literally keeps the multiverse running—just to show me the Healer’s Pavilion?
Yeah, that does things to me.
“This is really important, right?” I murmur, eyes still on the tent flap. “The Ember Vein. The wards. The SoulTaker threat. All that end-of-the-world stuff you keep underplaying like it’s no big deal.”
“It is important,” he admits, voice low behind me. “But so are you, Shula.”
My heart gives an embarrassing little stutter.
This has to be the honeymoon phase, right? That short window where everything is intense and shiny and you pretend you don’t have flaws and you both smell good all the time?
But God, I hope it lasts.
The earlier scene with Grier flashes through my mind—Thorne’s growl, the way the poor guy nearly tripped over his own feet when Thorne decided he didn’t like him talking to me.
The way my Demon Lord practically radiated touch her and die energy over what was basically a tourist-level question about the camp.
He’s jealous.
Jealous. Of. Me.
And I like it.
“So, you think I’ll do okay in there,” I say, more to distract myself than anything. “I don’t want to mess up anything.”
He huffs a quiet noise.
“Shula, you are in no danger. The wards will not allow anything to harm a single strand on your head. Nothing will touch you unless I allow it.”
“Of course,” I mutter. “Control issues. Got it.”
He moves closer, and I feel him before I see him: a wall of heat at my back, steady and overwhelming in a way that should scare me more than it does.
His free hand comes up, callused fingers brushing my knuckles.
Then he lifts my hand, slow and deliberate, and presses a kiss to my fingers.
My lungs forget how to function for a second.
“We go in together,” he says, gaze locked on mine, ember bright. “You ask what you wish. Learn what you wish. No one here will deny you answers.”
I arch a brow.
“Because I’m your viyella?”
His expression softens, just at the edges.
“Because you are you. And also because I will incinerate them if they do.”
The laugh bursts out of me, a little breathless.
