Brynn's expression had shifted. The anger was still there, in the tension around her eyes, the set of her jaw. But compassion had joined it.
He didn't deserve it.
"That's why you won't let anyone close," she said softly. "Not because you don't know what you're capable of. Because you found out what happens when you forget, even for a second."
Yes.
"And you've spent your whole existence punishing yourself for it."
"It wasn't letting my guard down." The words came out sharp, desperate for her to understand. "It wasn't a simple mistake. I'm not human. I never was."
His shadows darkened around them.
"I'm the Reaper. I harvest life with my touch. That's not a curse or a transformation. That's what I was born to be."
"And what has all that isolation done to you?" Her voice was quiet but intense, cutting through his defenses. "What has believing you're nothing but a monster done to the being underneath?"
The question hit a wound he'd buried so deep he'd thought it could never surface.
"I don't matter. Only their safety matters. Only making sure I never forget again what I'm capable of."
"You're wrong."
She stepped closer. Close enough that he could count the brown flecks in her eyes. Close enough that her scent wrapped around him and her body heat reached him through the cool garden air.
"Elizabeth's death was a tragedy. But it wasn't murder, Dante. It was an accident."
"An accident that killed someone who trusted me." The words came out stripped of everything but raw truth.
"An accident that taught you to be even more careful." She moved forward again, and his heart stopped. "You think I don't see how you calculate every gesture, every moment of proximity? You've spent lifetimes learning that vigilance."
"That's what I am." The desperation bled through. "Death waiting for someone to make a mistake."
"Your nature is choosing restraint every single day. Your nature is carrying guilt to protect people you barely know."
"Don't." Rough, raw. "Don't make me into something I'm not."
"I'm not making you into anything."
Her hand moved slowly, telegraphing her intent, giving him time to pull away. To maintain the distance that kept her safe.
He couldn't move.
"I'm seeing what you really are. What you've always been underneath the guilt and fear."
Her fingers hovered inches from his face, and every instinct screamed at him. Half to retreat. Half to close the distance himself and damn the consequences.
His shadows slipped their leash. One tendril curled toward her wrist before he caught it and yanked it back with a shudder.
Her pulse beat visibly in her throat. Steady. The rhythm of someone who'd made a decision.
"How can you be so certain?" The question came out desperate. "How can you trust that when I can't even trust myself?"
"Because I've watched you choose safety over everything else, every single day."
Her hand was so close he could feel the heat of her skin.
Her eyes locked with his. The anger was still there, banked nowrather than blazing, but beneath it he saw trust that made his ribs ache.
