CHAPTER 338: 338: BODY HEATS ARE RISING

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He nodded once and reached for her bandage. He loosened it slightly to keep the pressure correct as the swelling changed. His fingers brushed her skin in a way that was not intimate and felt like it anyway. She drew in a small breath and let it out as if the air itself had learned a new route inside her.

"Thank you," she said, very quiet.

The air in the shelter shifted again, not with wind. With awareness. He had been smelling her all day without naming it. Clean cloth. Leaf shade. Sun skin. Now the scent changed because closeness changes scent. It warmed and deepened. It added the salt of fear unclenching and the soft sweetness of gratitude unafraid to be gratitude. His own scent answered because bodies answer. It carried heat and the residual fire of the fight. He did not pretend to be above such things. He did not pretend not to notice the part of him that wanted to reach for the accident had already taught his mouth to want.

She saw it and did not pretend either. She set the cup aside. She put her palm against his chest. She felt the slow heavy drum there and the way it sped when she touched him. He felt the tremor that was not weakness but a body deciding where to place itself.

"Kai," she said, and his name in her mouth was different from his name in any other mouth. "Will you help me again."

He could have asked with what. He did not. He knew. He understood her words in two languages at once. The literal. The one that hands speak.

He leaned in despite himself and then caught himself and stopped because the laws inside him spoke in Luna’s voice, in Miryam’s laugh, in the hum of the cradles. He was not a boy. He was a king. He was not a priest sworn to celibacy. He was not a rock. He was an ant who believed that wanting does not make a thing correct. He pulled back a single finger’s width.

"We are both very alive," he said, mouth dry. "We could do something we do not regret. Or we could do something we do."

Her palm slid up, not down. Her eyes stayed on his. "I will not regret being alive," she said. "I will not regret warmth. But I will not ask you to betray what waits for you."

It was an answer better than any he would have written for her.

For one long breath they stood inside the door to a room both of them could see. The door was open. The room was warm. They did not step across the threshold yet. The body often confuses urgency with truth. Tonight he refused to be confused.

He took her hand and squeezed it once. "Drink the tea," he said, gentle again. "Then sleep. I will circle the trees and set a line. I will not stay the night. But I will not be far while the dark is still learning your name."

She nodded and drank. He checked the binding one last time, stoked the coals, and wrote a simple ring around the clearing with his scent and a thread of aura that told lesser predators a larger one had claimed this patch until dawn. He stepped to the edge of the bowl and let the forest accept him again.

Behind him, on the mat she had made with clumsy pride, Ikea lay back and stared at the ribs of the little shelter until they blurred. Her thigh throbbed in a way that promised to bark again before full moonlight. She did not fear it. She pressed her fingertips to her mouth and let a soft, baffled laugh escape, the laugh an exhausted person gives when the world surprises them twice in one day in two completely different directions.

Outside, Kai paced a slow, exact circle, senses open, breath steady. The wind shifted and brought him the smell of her hair. It made something deep in him tighten. He took another step and then another, choosing discipline over surrender because that is what men do when they mean to become more than the sum of their wants.

Inside the shelter, the cup emptied. The coals clicked. The forest drew its blanket up and settled.

He would not unlearn the kiss. He would not forget the heat. But for this night, the law was simple. She would live. He would keep her living. The rest could wait for a day when honesty could be dressed in choices rather than accidents.

The air between them was warm and thin. The forest listened. The coals clicked. Kai finished his slow circle and stood at the edge of the bowl, watching the shelter he had helped her build. He had said he would not stay the night, yet he did not walk away. Something kept him there. Duty, yes. Also something softer.

"Ikea," he called softly. "Are you awake?"

"I am awake," she answered from inside. "My thigh aches. The tea helped, but the ache is still there."

He stepped back under the leaves and knelt by the door. "May I look at the bandage?"

"Yes."

He unwrapped the cloth with careful hands. The skin was less dark now. The swelling had gone down. He cleaned the bite with water and pressed fresh leaves between cloth to cool the heat. She watched his hands. They were steady. She relaxed.

"Thank you," she said. "You kept your promise. You did not stay, but you did not go far."

"I could not go," he said. "Not while the dark still holds many threats."

She smiled at the words. "Then sit," she said, patting the mat. "Do not stand like a guard on a wall. Sit like a friend. I am making you a friend."

He sat. They were close, but not touching. The small fire made a soft light. It gilded her cheek and the line of her neck. He looked away and then looked back. He had seen many faces. This one sat in him like a seed in warm soil, waiting.