“And now I’m dying. Not murder jungle, not apex predators. You, saying things like that, while I can’t do anything about it because I’m on truth fruit and you’re beingnoble.” She flops backward onto the moss bed with a dramatic groan. “Nobility is theworst.”
“I’ll remind you of that opinion tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow I’ll be in your lap doing things that don’t require nobility.” She says it to the ceiling, matter-of-fact, as if she’s describing a schedule. “Clear-eyed. Sober. Choosing you withfull awareness of everything. The horns, the bonding, the permanence. All of it.”
My hands are shaking. Stone under my palms does nothing to steady them.
“And Horgox?” She turns her head on the moss to look at me, and the drowsy softness in her eyes mixes with something fierce and certain. “I’m going to touch your horns. And I’m going to mean every nerve ending of it.”
My voice doesn’t come.
“Come here.” She pats the moss beside her. “You need sleep too, and your shoulder is still bleeding, and if you stay against that wall all night you’ll be stiff tomorrow and then you won’t be able to do the things. The things we’re going to do.”
“The things.”
“You know exactly what things. Your markings went white-gold.” She pats the moss again. “Come. Be warm at me.”
Be warm at me. Prepositions deployed as weapons. I file this underthreats for which no countermeasure exists.
The cave is five metres wide. It takes four strides. Each one a surrender.
She doesn’t wait for me to settle. The moment I’m horizontal, she attaches herself to my side with the decisive precision of a component locking into place. Head against my shoulder. Arm across my chest. Leg hooked over mine, her thigh pressing against my hip with a possessiveness that sends color flooding through my markings before I can suppress it.
“You’re so warm.” Face pressed into my neck, breath hot against my pulse point. “Like a reactor. I’ve been cold my entire life and you’re the first thing that’s ever beenwarm enough.”
“Varkaani run eight to ten degrees—”
“Stop sciencing it. Be warm.” Her hand finds my chest. Flattens over the scars where the harness sat. “Here. This is myfavourite place on your entire body. Well. Second favourite. First favourite requires the conversation we’re having tomorrow.”
“Krilly—”
“I keep thinking about the harness night.” Her voice is going soft, drowsy, the filter dissolving into a murmur. “When I was on your thigh and you were shaking. When you made that sound—the one that wasn’t controlled. I replay it when I can’t sleep. I think about what would have happened if I’d rocked forward instead of pulling away. If I’d pressed down harder against you. If I’d—”
“You need to stop talking now.”
“Why?” Genuine confusion. The fruit strips context along with filters. “They’re my thoughts. Aren’t you curious what I—”
“I’m not curious. Iknow.” The words come out rougher than I intend. “Because I’ve been imagining the same things from the other side. What I would have done if you’d rocked forward. How my hands would have moved on your hips. What sound you’d make if I’d flexed my thigh up against you.”
Silence. Her breathing has changed. Faster. Her grip on my chest tightens.
“Oh,” she breathes. “You’ve been—”
“Every night. Every time you shift against me in sleep. Every time your hip presses against mine and your breathing changes and I know—” The sentence stops. Locks down. The fruit isn’t in my system; I have no chemical excuse for what I’m saying. “You make it very difficult to be honourable.”
“I don’t want you to be honourable.” Her hand slides from my chest down across my ribs, following the path that drove me to the edge during the harness scene, and every nerve ending her fingers cross lights up like a signal flare. “I want you to be honest.”
My hand catches her wrist. The same gentle precision I use for everything that matters.
Her fingers are centimetres from where my body is making its interest unmistakable. The fabric does nothing to disguise what her proximity and her words and her breath on my neck have done, and her hand was heading directly toward the evidence.
“Tomorrow.” The word comes out against her hair like a vow. “Everything you’re reaching for. Everything you’re imagining. I’ll give you all of it. But not while your consent is—”
“My consent is enthusiastic, ongoing, and based on feelings that predate the fruit by days.” She tilts her head up, and her eyes are drowsy but clear, the honesty in them chemical and genuine simultaneously. “But I hear you. Tomorrow.”
Her hand goes back to my chest. Presses flat over my heartbeat, which hammers hard enough to feel through her palm.
“That’s fast,” she observes.
