He stopped.
I pressed the cloth to his shoulder. Gently. The dried blood softened, loosened. He went rigid beneath my touch.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
A breath that might have been a laugh. “The pain is... minimal. The touch is…” He stopped. His hands were clenched on his knees. “Overwhelming.”
“Bad overwhelming?”
“No.” The word came out strangled. “Not bad.”
I kept working. Careful strokes. Cleaning away the blood, revealing the new feathers beneath. They were beautiful up close. Each one perfectly formed, the bronze catching the light, the black barring in precise lines.
I wanted to keep touching them. The thought surprised me. I hadn’t wanted anything for myself in eight years. I’d wanted safety, security, survival. I hadn’t wanted someone. Not like this.
He was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly: “No one has touched my feathers before. Not like this. No one has ever touched me without fear. Without wanting something.”
My hands stilled.
“I want something.”
He tensed.
“I want you to stop hiding from me. I want you to eat breakfast with me even if you don’t eat. I want you to stop leaving rooms when I enter them.” I moved to a new section of his shoulder. Cleaning. Careful. “I want to understand your transformation.”
“I am...” He stopped. Started again. “My body is adapting. To you. It recognizes you as…” Another stop. The words were hard for him now. I could hear him fighting for them. “The one I am meant to bond with. So it changes. Becomes more suited for you.”
“Suited how?”
“I do not know yet.” His voice was barely a whisper. “The changes are not voluntary. They are biological. Being near you makes them accelerate.”
“So I’m doing this to you?”
“No.” The word was fierce. “No. You are not doing anything to me. My body is doing this for you. Becoming...” He searched. Struggled. “Better. Stronger. More able to protect you. Keep you.”
“Keep me.”
“Yes.” He turned his head. Just enough that I could see his profile. The sharp cheekbone. The golden eye. “Keep you.”
I pressed the cloth to a particularly raw spot, and he hissed. When I pulled back, the wound was clean. Pink and healing already, faster than it should.
“It is not illness,” he said. “It is not madness. It is something becoming.” He stopped.
“Becoming what?”
He turned fully. Rose from the edge of the pool and faced me. Those golden eyes looking down into mine. His hands came up. Touched my face. Tilted it toward him.
“Yours,” he said.
I should have said something measured. Something careful. Something that acknowledged the enormity of what he was telling me.
Instead, I reached up and touched his jaw. Traced the sharp line of it. Felt the heat of him beneath my fingertips.
He stopped breathing.
