“He could’ve reported your location.”
She studies my face with a focus that borders on violation but registers as absolution. “Every one of those choices was about me. Not the mission. Not the tactical situation. Me.”
“Yes.”
“That should scare me.”
I wait.
“It doesn’t.” She reaches up, her fingers brushing my jaw in an echo of the touch I gave her yesterday. “This thing between us, Arax—wherever it’s leading—I’m not sure what to do with it.”
Her fingers stay on my jaw for a breath. Two. Then she withdraws, crossing to her cot with the controlled movements of someone exercising deliberate restraint.
“We should rest. Tomorrow will require everything we have.”
I remain by the entrance. The discipline required to stay where I am, to not close the gap, to not take what every impulse demands I claim?—
It’s the hardest thing I’ve done in centuries.
“Arax.” Her voice comes soft through the darkness. “Stop standing there like a sentry and get some sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”
I move to my usual place across the room. The gap between her cot and mine feels like an ocean, impossibly vast, utterly insufficient.
Nothing threatens her.
Nothing separates us.
