Across the table, a faint shadow darkened the inside of her wrist where I had caught her when she fell.
My grip had been too hard.
I would do it again without hesitation.
“You’re watching me,” she said.
“I am confirming your presence.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The words should have eased me. They did not.
Mesaarkans are trained to calculate loss before it happens. To accept it as part of war.
But when I had seen that male holding the gun to her head I knew I couldn't lose her. Calculation had vanished. Strategy had vanished.
Only one thought remained.
Not her.
She reached across the table and laid her fingers over mine.
Warm. Human. Steady.
“You’re shaking,” she said softly.
“I am not.”
Her thumb brushed the back of my hand.
“You are.”
The simple gesture struck harder than any weapon I had faced that day. Mesaarkan females do not comfort warriors after battle. Lina did not seem to know that. Or perhaps she simply did not care.
Lina
He was trying to be calm.
I could see it in the way his shoulders stayed squared, the way his voice stayed even.
But Rygnar’s eyes kept moving to the door, the window, the corridor beyond. He was guarding. He was still fighting something that had already ended.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
He looked at me immediately.
Always immediately.
“You got me back,” I said.
His jaw tightened.
“That outcome was required.”
“No,” I said gently. “It wasn’t guaranteed.”
That truth hung between us.
