Elowen POV
I don't stop walking until my legs burn and my lungs feel too small for the air.
Every sound behind me feels like him—footsteps, flame, the low hum of power that once wrapped around my fear and told me I was safe.
I hate that I miss it.
The cut on my arm throbs dully. Blood has dried down my skin, sticky and dark. I should tend to it. I know that. But stopping means thinking—and thinking means remembering Kael's hands hovering close but never quite touching, his voice low and controlled, like restraint itself hurt him.
Mine to protect.
The words crawl through my chest.
I stagger to a halt near a stream and drop to my knees, the cold shock of water grounding me just enough to breathe again. My reflection stares back—wild-eyed, flushed, trembling.
Weak.
That's what I've always been.
And yet… the fire answered me.
Not violently. Not desperately.
Willingly.
The thought terrifies me.
"I don't want to become a monster," I whisper to the water.
The current doesn't judge. It just moves.
I bind my wound clumsily and sit there until night deepens, until the stars prick the sky like distant eyes. I feel exposed without Kael's presence—like prey that's wandered too far from the den.
And worse—
I feel free.
The realization twists painfully inside me.
Kael POV
I burn the forest back to silence.
Not because I want to—but because if I don't, the guilt will tear me apart from the inside.
Her blood is still on the ground.
I kneel where she fell, fingers digging into scorched earth, and the control I've built over centuries fractures like brittle glass.
I left her.
Not physically—but emotionally. Strategically. I convinced myself distance was protection.
Cowardice, dressed up as restraint.
My chest aches with something dangerously close to panic.
"She could have died," I mutter.
And worse—she didn't need me.
That truth cuts deeper than any blade.
The cult leader's words echo cruelly in my mind.
Terrified of wanting her.
He's not wrong.
I want her with a violence that frightens even me. Not her body—though that hunger simmers constantly—but her presence. Her fear quieting when I'm near. The way she looks at me like I am both salvation and damnation.
If I touch her the wrong way, I will ruin her.
If I don't… someone else will shape her instead.
The thought makes my fire roar.
I stand abruptly.
I will not let them take her.
Even if she runs from me.
Even if she hates me.
I will protect what is mine—even if she never forgives me for it.
Elowen POV
Sleep comes in fragments.
Fire dreams. Screams. Kael's eyes burning gold as he looks at me like I belong to him and hates himself for it.
I wake gasping, heat pooling low in my stomach, shame flooding me immediately after.
"Stop," I whisper to the dark.
But my body remembers him.
His restraint.
His control.
The way he never touched me—and somehow that made it worse.
I curl inward, hugging my knees.
If he finds me now… will I go back?
The thought scares me more than the cult ever could.
Kael POV
I feel her before I see her.
That pulse. That unmistakable flare.
She's close.
I stop myself at the edge of the clearing, fists clenched so tightly my claws threaten to surface.
She looks smaller alone.
More fragile.
And the urge to step forward—to gather her up, to cage her against the world—nearly overwhelms me.
But I don't move.
Because the last thing she needs right now is my shadow.
I turn away instead, fire dimming reluctantly beneath my skin.
Not leaving.
Never leaving.
Just… watching.
Waiting.
Letting her choose.
Even if it destroys me.