“The warmth?” she asked.
“Partly.” He hesitated. “Also the… proximity. To Rhyx.”
“The male thing.”
“The male thing.” He couldn’t quite keep the frustration from his voice. “I know it’s irrational. I know he poses no threat. But knowing something and feeling it are different matters.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, very softly, “I can’t sleep either.”
Something in her tone made him look at her more closely. Even in the short time since they’d found each other, he had learnedto read her expressions and the subtle shifts in her scent that betrayed emotions she tried to hide. She was worried. And beneath that, something that felt almost like… longing?
“What troubles you?” he asked.
She bit her lip—a nervous habit he found inexplicably endearing. “I’ve been lying here thinking. About what comes next. About where we go from here.”
“And?”
“I know this is the smart place to be.” The words came slowly, as if she was choosing each one with care. “Alina and Rhyx know things we need to learn. The rangers have resources we can use. If we’re going to help others who might emerge and stay ahead of GenCon, we need allies. We need infrastructure…” She trailed off.
“But?” he prompted gently.
“But I hate it here.”
The admission seemed to surprise her as much as it surprised him. Her eyes widened slightly, as if she hadn’t meant to say it quite so bluntly.
“Not hate,” she corrected quickly. “That’s too strong. I just… I don’t belong here, Adjar. I spent years building a life in the polar regions specifically because I couldn’t stand places like this. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many expectations and social obligations and…” She made a frustrated gesture. “I chose solitude for a reason. I was good at solitude.”
“Until I destroyed your equipment and forced you into this situation.”
“Until you exploded out of the ice and gave me a reason to be not-alone.” She reached up to touch his face, her fingers tracing the line of scales along his jaw. “That’s different. You’re different. With you, the solitude doesn’t feel like… like hiding anymore. It feels like a choice. A real choice, not just an excuse to avoid everything I was afraid of.”
He caught her hand, pressing his lips to her palm, a small intimacy that carried more meaning than words.
“I thought you would want to stay,” he admitted. “This settlement has everything you need to rebuild. Equipment, supplies, connections to the wider economy. Your claim may be destroyed, but with Alina’s resources and the support of the rangers?—”
“I don’t want to rebuild here,” she said fiercely. “I want to go back. To the ice. To our ice.”
Our ice.
A warmth that had nothing to do with the uncomfortable temperature of the room filled his chest. She wasn’t just talking about returning to familiar territory. She was talking about claiming it and making it theirs.
“You’d leave all of this?” He gestured vaguely at the room, the settlement beyond, the alliance they’d spent the day forging. “The safety, the resources, the?—”
“I’d leave it in a heartbeat.” She sat up, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. “I’ve been lying here trying to convince myself that staying is the right choice. That it’s selfish to want to go back when there’s so much work to be done here. But I can’t… I can’t breathe here, Adjar. Everything is too close. Too warm. Too…” She searched for the word. “Too much.”
He sat up beside her, his wings folding against his back as he processed what she was saying. Not just the words, but the deeper meaning beneath them. She was choosing him. Choosing them. Choosing a life that made no practical sense because it was the life she actually wanted.
“I feel the same,” he said quietly.
Her eyes snapped to his. “You do?”
“The warmth is… difficult. And Rhyx’s presence…” He shook his head. “My instincts are constantly at war with my rational mind. I was trying to imagine adapting to this place, learning to tolerate it, because I thought you would need it. But the truth is, I belong in the polar regions. My body was designed for that environment. Everything about me is optimized for deep cold and vast spaces and the kind of silence that settles into your bones.”
“The silence,” she echoed. “Yes. I miss the silence.”
“The silence that isn’t empty anymore.” He reached for her hand. “The silence that has you in it.”
She gave a soft, surprised laugh. “When did you become so good with words?”
