Page 26 of Fractured Loyalties
"You won’t. Not with me."
That flicker in her throat again. Her breath caught between retreat and surrender.
"You think I need saving."
"I think you need choice."
She turns fully now. The railing against her back.
"And what are you, Elias? My protector? My jailer?"
My jaw tightens. "Both. If I have to be."
She stares at me, as if weighing the gravity of that answer.
Then she whispers, "I don’t know whether to run from you or toward you."
I move closer still. "You already know the answer."
She doesn’t step away, doesn’t speak. She just watches me like I’m the puzzle she’s afraid to finish.
Then her hand lifts. Barely. Fingertips brushing my chest.
"What happens if I stay?" she asks.
I reach up slowly, closing my fingers over hers, anchoring them against my heart.
"Then you’ll find out who I really am."
She doesn’t answer, at least, not with words. Her hand lingers there, resting against me like she’s weighing the gravity of what I’ve just said. When she finally steps back, it’s reluctant. She disappears down the hall and into her room without another glance, the echo of her touch still burning in my chest.
She doesn't sleep. I know the sound of stillness when it's shaped by fear, and that's not what this is. The hush in her room is alert, not panicked. It's the sound of a woman wide awake and trying not to be.
I sit at the edge of the deck, letting the ocean wind drag cold fingers across my face. She left the sliding door slightly ajar when she went back inside. A gesture that wasn't trust, not quite, but something close. An invitation, maybe. Or a test.
I don’t move.
Not until I hear her steps again. Slower this time. Steady. Measured.
She stands just inside the doorway. “Are you waiting for something?”
I turn my head slightly, enough to see her silhouette framed in golden lamplight.
“I was listening,” I answer.
She frowns, steps out barefoot onto the deck. “To what?”
“Your breathing.”
She pauses. “You’re either trying to scare me, or you’re terrible at flirting.”
“I’m not trying to do either.”
She comes to stand beside me. Her sweater sleeves hang past her wrists. She smells like salt, citrus, and that faint floral scent that clung to her when I first saw her on the bench months ago.
“I feel like I should be more afraid of you than I am,” she says.
I let that settle. “Why aren’t you?”
