“You’re not weak.”
“I am with you.”
That shuts me up.
The cavern glows around us, a thousand blue curtains seeming to hold their breath. Kavor’s gaze doesn’t leave mine.
“If I mate you, if we form the bond fully, I will not be able to pretend you are only a mission. Only ally. Only human. I will know where your breath changes. I will feel your fear before I understand it. I will want to answer every hunger you have.”
“That sounds terrible,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“And beautiful.”
His jaw tightens.
“Yes.”
I breathe in. The air tastes like minerals, sweetness, and danger.
“Not yet,” I say.
His entire body stills.
I press my palm to his chest quickly, before he can mistake me. “Not because I don’t want you.”
The red flickers in his eyes, but I keep my hand there.
“Because I need to choose it when the world isn’t trying to eat us. When my arm isn’t bleeding. When the epis isn’t pointing at us like we’re some kind of religious event.”
His mouth almost moves. Almost.
“I want you,” I say.
The words terrify me, but I say them anyway.
“I want this. I want more than I know what to do with. Just not the full bond yet.”
Kavor’s eyes close. His forehead lowers until it rests against mine. Not in defeat. In relief sharp enough to feel like grief.
“Good,” he says.
I laugh once, shaky. “Good?”
“Yes.”
“Most males would be insulted.”
“I am not most males.”
“I noticed.”
His hands settle at my waist, warm-cool and steady.
“I want your choice more than I want the bond,” he says.
There it is. The knife. There it is. The thing that cuts the old belief from the bone.
