"You don't have to," Jin Shuren cut her off quietly, his tone low but firm, the steel of command wrapped in something far gentler. His arms tightened around her, his pace steady as he walked. "She's not gone and going nowhere, she's here, with us and safe."
Her lashes fluttered, damp with tears, her face pale against the darkness of his shirt. Each step he took seemed to chip away at the jagged edges of her fear, though shadows of doubt still clung stubbornly.
She dared to look up at him, her eyes red-rimmed, glassy with mistrust and longing both. "Safe...?" she breathed, as if the word itself were too fragile to exist.
He inclined his head once, the certainty in his expression impenetrable. "Safe. I would never take her from you."
Something inside her broke at those words, not with pain this time, but with a trembling release.
