Page 71 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
Not gone — just… muted, like the storm has passed and all that’s left is the soft drip of rain.
We’re still on the bed, but now I’m curled sideways, my head resting against Rovax’s chest, his heartbeat steady under my ear. His arm is draped around me, not tight, just there, a weight that saysI’m not going anywhere.
“You’re warm,” I murmur.
“You’re cold,” he counters, his voice low, almost teasing.
I nudge his side, and he lets out a soft grunt — whether from the nudge or just for effect, I’m not sure. “I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re not,” he replies, his fingers tracing idle patterns against my shoulder. They’re not shapes I recognize — some looping Prothekan script, maybe, or runes he’s etched into his own memory. “But that’s fine. I am.”
It’s the kind of line that could sound cocky, except it doesn’t. Not right now. Right now, it’s reassurance.
We talk about nothing for a while. Little things. The weird sound the radiator made last night. How Syndee will probably come back tomorrow full of gossip from whatever party she’s at. Whether the tea I made earlier actually counts as tea or if it’s just hot water with grass clippings.
But then the talking slows. The pauses between words stretch longer, until they’re not pauses at all, they’re silences. Not awkward ones — just… stillness.
I shift, turning enough to see his face in the soft lamplight. His eyes are half-lidded, but watching me closely.
“What?” I ask.
His mouth curves, not quite a smile. “You’re not afraid.”
It’s not a question, and I don’t answer right away. Instead, I let my hand rest over his chest, right above where his heartbeat thrums against my palm. “Maybe I should be,” I say finally. “But I’m not.”
His gaze doesn’t waver. “Then I should warn you again.”
“You’ve warned me plenty.”
Something passes over his expression then — not the sharp, guarded thing he usually hides behind, but something softer. And it’s that softness that undoes me a little, because I know how rare it is for him to let it through.
I lean in before I think too hard about it, my lips brushing his. It’s not urgent — there’s no rush in it, no fire demanding to burn itself out. It’s slow, deliberate, like we’re both taking our time to memorize the feel of it.
He shifts under me, not pulling me closer so much as making space for me to be there, like the act itself is permission. His hand slides up to the back of my neck, fingers warm against my skin, and he deepens the kiss just slightly — enough to make my breath catch, but not enough to break the unhurried rhythm we’ve fallen into.
Outside, the wind rattles the old dorm windows. Somewhere down the hall, a door closes. None of it touches us.
When we part, it’s only far enough to rest our foreheads together. I can feel his breath fan against my lips, slow and steady.
“This,” he says, his voice a low rumble, “is what we’re choosing.”
I nod. “This,” I echo.
He shifts again, and we settle onto our sides, facing each other. The blanket tangles around us, but neither of us bothers to fix it. My hand finds his again, fingers slotting between his like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
The room feels smaller somehow — not in a suffocating way, but in the way that everything outside these walls has faded to background noise. It’s just him. Me. The steady warmth between us.
And maybe that’s the point. Not urgency. Not survival. Not the high of just having lived through another impossible day. Butthis — the quiet claiming of something that feels like it might actually be ours.
When I finally drift toward sleep, it’s with the weight of his hand still in mine and the sense that whatever’s coming, we’ve already made our choice.
CHAPTER 25
ROVAX
The weeks crawl, and yet they vanish.
I should be spending them sharpening blades, watching the horizon for any shimmer that might mean another tear in the sky. But instead, my mind keeps circling back tohim.
