Page 80

I step closer then—slow, deliberate—and pull the photograph from my pocket. I smooth the bent edge once with my thumb, grounding myself in the fact of it.

Then I hold it out to him.

“This is yours.”

Not because he deserves it—because I choose what stays with him. Not accusation. Not absolution. Just the truth returned to its owner.

His hand closes around it carefully, like he understands exactly what weight I’m placing there.

For a long moment, neither of us moves.

“Careful, little crow,” he murmurs finally, voice low and rough, like the warning is aimed at himself. “You’re asking me to worship a new religion.”

“Good.” I hold his stare, even though the air between us feels flammable. “The old one’s been rotting you from the inside.”

Something in his expression breaks—not violently. Quietly. Like a wall that finally admits it was never load-bearing to begin with.

And for the first time since we walked back into this house, he doesn’t step away.

XXV

Dance with Me

The silence stretches until it feels structural, like the house itself has leaned in and locked its joints, waiting to see whether he’s going to fracture or hold. Malek stands a few feet from me with his shoulders drawn tight and his jaw set hard enough that I can almost feel the ache of it in my own teeth, his breath grinding through his chest like he’s wrestling something down instead of letting it loose—and I know that feeling, know the cost of holding something inside yourself long enough that it starts to bruise.

He doesn’t look at me when he reaches for the photograph.

That lands harder than if he had.

He folds it once, clean and precise, no hesitation and no ceremony, and slips it into his back pocket with the same deliberate care he gives a weapon he expects to need later. Not hiding it. Not tucking it away out of shame. Claiming it. Naming it as something he’s willing to carry where it can’t be denied. The floorboard creaks when he shifts his weight, the sound too loud in the quiet, too intimate, and for a second I wonder if he feels as exposed as I do standing here with everything in my chest pulled raw and visible.

He drops his gaze to the floor—not retreating, not folding, but calculating, like he’s choosing between two kinds of damage and bracing for the one he can survive. When he lifts his head again, there’s nothing soft in his eyes. No apology. No plea. Just resolve stripped down to the bone.

“Dance with me.”

The words are blunt. Rough. Said like a man who’d rather take a hit than ask for mercy, like this costs him more than spilling blood ever has.

“Dance?” The word slips out of me quiet and disbelieving, because nothing about this moment feels like it belongs to something that gentle, something people do when the world isn’t ending in pieces around them.

I watch his throat work as he swallows, see the tension flicker through his neck and shoulders, the restraint tightening instead of loosening. There are no excuses offered. No backtracking. Just a single, curt nod—like he’s bracing for impact, like he’s already decided he’ll stand where the blow lands.

Good.

I step closer. Close enough to feel the heat he’s holding back.

“Then ask me properly,” I murmur, voice low and sharp, “you Savage Saint.”

His gaze clashes with mine, dark and unflinching, but he still doesn’t move to touch me.

“Dance with me, little crow.” His voice roughens around the words. “Let me feel you choose me. Just this once.”

The words shouldn’t undo me the way they do, but they slide under my ribs anyway, because he’s not asking to take—he’s asking to stand there, to exist inside the wanting without letting it turn into harm.

He doesn’t step closer. Doesn’t step away.

The space between us hums, not with anticipation but with pressure, the kind that builds when something has been held too long and everyone in the room knows it’s going to give eventually. His eyes lift to mine and stay there, steady and deliberate, like he’s anchoring himself to the fact of me before he risks anything else.

“Touch me.”