Something changes in her gaze, not fear so much as calculation. She draws a slow breath, her shoulders settling as if she’s bracing herself, her eyes never leaving mine, as though sudden movement might break something fragile between us. “You killed them,” she states, as a fact, not a question.
“Yes… some of them,” I correct. “Others will remember tonight every time they close their eyes.”
Her pulse jumps visibly in her throat.
I notice.
I shouldn’t.
Her jaw tightens. “And you’d do it again.”
Again, not a question, a mere fact.
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. No apology. No softening. “If it keeps them from touching what’smine. If it keepsyousafe. I won’t hesitate.”
The wordminehangs between us, neither of us pretending it means nothing.
She’s not backing away.
Or reaching for the door.
Her eyes are locked on mine as she takes in the whole picture, the blood, the fury still burning under my skin, the truth I don’t try to hide from her.
She’s close enough now that her human heat radiates off her in waves, alive, intoxicating, and painfully grounding. My hands curl once at my sides and stay there.
“You don’t even feel bad,” she says quietly.
“I feel justified,” I reply. “And I have no need to apologize for it.”
She studies me for a long moment, really looks, as if committing this version of me to memory, my dragon fresh from the edge of slaughter, control held by sheer will alone.
Her eyes flick, just briefly, to my mouth, then back to my eyes. The awareness snaps tight between us.
Then she nods once, drawing in a deep breath. “Youarea monster,” she says, but there’s no accusation in it, no horror, no moral judgment, just clear-eyed recognition of exactly what stands in front of her, stripped of excuses and softened language.
“I never claimed otherwise, Firecracker.” The words scrape out of me rough and unguarded, the careful control I keep around everyone else already burned away.
There’s no point pretending now.
She’s already seen through it.
Through me.
“I should be afraid of you.” Her voice stays level as she steps closer, not far enough to touch, but close enough that her body heat tempers the cold barely contained in mine.
The space between us hums, taut as a drawn wire.
One step, either of us, and it would snap.
“Yeah… you should be afraid,” I reply, holding my ground. The battle high still sings through my blood, the ice stretchedthin, and everything in me knows that closing the distance right now would be a mistake I couldn’t stop once it started.
“But I’m not.” Her breath brushes my collarbone when she says it.
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe.
My dragon coils tight and watchful beneath my skin, keenly aware of exactly how much restraint this moment costs.
