Page 52 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
He steps closer, slow enough that I could get up and walk away if I wanted. I don’t. “It is inconvenient,” he says. “I did not come here to play a role. And yet—” He glances at me, eyes narrowing slightly. “And yet I find myself doing it. For you.”
The words stop me cold. My pulse stutters, hard enough I feel it in my throat.
I try for a laugh, but it comes out thin. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
He doesn’t deny it. Just stands there, looking down at me with that unreadable expression, the one that makes me feel like there’s a whole other conversation happening in his head that I’m only getting pieces of.
The silence stretches, but it’s not empty. It’s full of everything we’re not saying — about Johnson, about the way Rovax’s glamour keeps slipping, about the fact that maybe we’ve both stopped pretending this is just survival.
And the worst part? A tiny, reckless part of me doesn’t want him to hide at all.
CHAPTER 19
SKYLAR
The wind outside is howling like it’s trying to claw its way in, rattling the old dorm windows so hard I’m half convinced one’s going to pop right out of the frame. The snow’s coming down thick, a white blur swallowing the campus in every direction, and the weather app has officially confirmed what the view already told me: we’re not going anywhere tonight.
Syndee’s out — some weekend trip with her cousin — it’s just me and Rovax in this cramped little dorm. No footsteps in the hall, no voices bleeding through the walls. Just the two of us and the kind of silence that feels almostwrongafter everything lately.
I’m standing in front of the kitchenette’s ancient two-burner stove, staring at my sad pantry options, when Rovax appears behind me like a shadow stretching in candlelight. I jump, elbow knocking a box of pasta to the floor.
“You movewaytoo quiet for someone your size,” I mutter, crouching to grab it.
He glances at the pasta box, brows drawing together like it’s a cryptic artifact. “This is food?”
“Yeah, it’s pasta.” I set it on the counter and start rummaging for a saucepan. “We’re making dinner. Because unless you have some secret winter survival skills I don’t know about, we’re stuck here till morning.”
His gaze slides to the window, to the swirling white beyond it, then back to me. “Snowstorms are… inconvenient. But tolerable.”
“That’s one way to put it.” I find the saucepan and set it on the burner, the click-click-click of the ignition loud in the stillness before the gas catches with a small whoosh of blue flame. The heat’s immediate, a faint wave that pushes against the cold drafts curling around the window seams.
Rovax watches the process like I’m performing a ritual. “In my world,” he says after a moment, “warmth like this does not come from fragile glass and fire trapped in metal. It is drawn directly from the earth.”
I glance at him over my shoulder. “Well, unless you can magically pipe in some geothermal heating, this’ll have to do.”
He doesn’t answer, but he steps closer, close enough that I feel the subtle radiating heat of him — not just body warmth, but something else, something I’ve never been able to name without sounding insane.
I fill the pot, the water hissing faintly against the hot metal, and the steam starts curling upward almost immediately. Rovax reaches past me to set the pasta box upright, his fingers brushing mine. The touch is light, accidental maybe, but it sends a tiny spark down my arm all the same.
“Do you cook often?” he asks.
“Not unless I have to,” I admit. “Dorm food’s usually microwavable junk. But tonight…” I gesture at the stove, “…I figured we could use something a little better than instant noodles.”
His mouth curves — not quite a smile, but close. “Better than the last meal you offered me, then.”
I roll my eyes but can’t help grinning. “Hey, in my defense, you showed up bleeding and half-dead. My culinary options were limited.”
The steam thickens, filling the little kitchenette with damp warmth. The storm’s still battering the building, but in here, with the stove’s heat and the low hum of boiling water, it feels almost… cozy.
I hand him the spoon and tell him to stir. He does, though with a precision that makes me laugh. “It’s not a battle tactic, Rovax. Just keep it from sticking to the bottom.”
“I am capable of following simple instructions,” he says dryly, but there’s a glint in his eyes now.
We fall into a rhythm — him stirring, me chopping vegetables for a quick sauce, the sound of the knife on the cutting board mingling with the bubbling water. Every so often our shoulders bump, the tiny space forcing us close. I can smell the faint, smoky scent that’s justhim, something no laundry detergent ever touches.
“You’re quiet tonight,” I say after a while, sliding the chopped vegetables into a pan.
“I am… adjusting,” he says, slow and deliberate, like he’s picking the words from a lineup. “It has been some time since I have been confined indoors without the threat of combat.”
