A violent, resonant crack echoes through the room.
The sound is deafening. Like a glacier splitting in half.
The calcified stone across his chest fractures. Not breaking. Melting.
The gray density dissolves beneath my hands, the surface shifting from cold, unyielding stone to smooth, radiating warmth.
His skin is molten beneath my palms.
The heat pulses outward, spreading across his torso, up his neck, down his arms.
His left arm unlocks with another sharp crack, his fingers uncurling from the rigid claw.
His wings shudder, the membrane releasing from the agonizing semi-extended position, folding smoothly against his back.
His jaw unlocks.
And he gasps.
A deep, shuddering breath that fills his lungs completely.
I'm still straddling him, my hands pressed flat against his chest, my entire body trembling with exhaustion and relief.
His eyes open.
Those pale crystalline eyes lock onto mine.
And for the first time since he stumbled through the door, I see him.
Not the terrified, calcified titan.
Just Cyprian.
Warm.
Alive.
Here.
His amber veins ignite.
Not the soft, steady glow from before. This is different. Brighter. More urgent. The light spreads across his chest and shoulders in waves, illuminating the stone beneath his skin like molten gold.
I feel it in my chest too—a strange, electric awareness. A pull toward him that makes no sense and every sense simultaneously.
His hand—his left hand, the one that was locked against his chest—lifts slowly. His fingers brush against my wrist, his touch feather-light despite the size of his claws.
"Tamsin," he says, his voice rough and gravelly.
I don't move.
I can't move.
Because something has shifted between us. Something ancient. Something that recognizes something in me at a level deeper than thought, deeper than choice.
My breath catches. My skin prickles. Every nerve ending in my body is suddenly, violently aware of him—the heat radiating off his chest, the way his frame fits beneath mine, the way his amber veins are still glowing like they're burning from the inside out.
He feels it too. I can see it in his eyes—that moment of recognition, of something clicking into place. His jaw tightens. His free hand comes up to cup the back of my head, his claws careful, reverent.
