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She doesn’t look away from the book as she answers, but her smile sharpens.

"Just trying to figure out how to keep you all alive."

The words land heavier than they should, slipping under my skin like silk and steel. It would be easier if she wanted me for my body, my sin, the quick and easy fix of my magic. But she wants the ugly parts, too. The fractured, splintered pieces Branwen left behind.

She flips the page, her fingers delicate, like even the paper deserves to be handled gently.

"You always do that," I say quietly.

Her brow arches, amused. "Do what?"

I glance at her, let my eyes drag over her face, her mouth, her pulse fluttering just beneath her throat.

"Make room for me. Even when I don’t deserve it."

Her smile softens at the edges, a thing sharp and dangerous melting into something that looks a lot like forgiveness.

"You always deserve it, Caspian."

She says it like a fucking truth. Like a fact she could carve into stone.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

The words catch in my throat like glass.

I’m not used to this—quiet, soft, devastatingly simple. I’ve spent centuries knowing exactly what I am, what I offer. A pretty disaster wrapped in temptation, the one who’s supposed to fuck away the ache, drown the darkness in moans and sweat and teeth. No one’s ever wanted anything else. No one’s ever asked.

So when I murmur, voice scraped low and sharp as a blade, “I’m sorry I haven’t given you what you probably expected of me,” it’s not sarcasm. It’s not lust. It’s the hollow truth scraped from the pit of me.

Her gaze doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t look away.

Luna hums, a quiet sound that settles somewhere deep in my chest, and her fingers reach out, brushing my arm like I’m something worth touching. Like she isn’t afraid I’ll ruin her.

"You’re an idiot," she says, and there’s no heat behind it, only fond exasperation, like she can see through every cracked piece of me. She traces her fingertips over my forearm, light and lingering. "I don’t need sex from you, Caspian."

It shouldn’t feel like a gut punch. But it does.

Because she means it.

Because she’s the first person who ever has.

She closes the book on her lap with a soft snap and shifts, drawing her knees up, turning her body fully toward me like I’m the thing she wants to study now. Her eyes flick over me, slow, assessing, knowing.

"I need you to breathe," she continues, voice softer now, like a secret between the two of us. "To want to exist. I need you whole."

The bond between us thrums—not demanding, not possessive. It waits, open and warm, patient in a way that makes me want to scream.

Or fall apart.

Or kiss her until the only thing left between us is breath and hunger and the taste of everything she’s offering without asking for anything back.

I drag a hand through my hair, swallowing hard. "You shouldn’t want me whole, little moon. You’d like me better shattered."

She smiles, sharp and bright and impossibly kind. "I want all your pieces, Caspian. Even the sharp ones."

It’s unbearable, the way she says it.

I lean back on my hands and tilt my head toward the stars like I can stop the ache building in my chest.