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It doesn’t work.

When I open them, he’s still there.

And now he’s smiling.

Gods help me.

"You're not very good at hiding, little light."

His voice cuts through the grass like it’s been waiting there the whole time, coiled in the air and just now choosing to strike. Deep, velvet-rich, smug without needing to try. And I freeze like a rabbit under a hawk's gaze, hand still pressed to the tree like it might save me from his attention.

“I can hear your breath,” he adds. “You hold it when you watch me. Like you think it’ll make you invisible.”

My cheeks burn. Not the delicate pink of embarrassment—no, this is molten, sharp, something that crawls down my spine with a dangerous awareness. I don’t move. I’m not ready to look at him again. Not yet.

“Come out, Luna,” Orin calls, unhurried, amused. “Unless you prefer to stalk from the shadows. I don’t mind. But it’s warmer in the sun.”

He makes no effort to cover himself, and somehow that makes it worse. Or better. Or something else entirely that I don’t have a name for.

“You’re naked,” I manage, voice strangled, dry.

“So?”

“I—” I choke on the word. “I was trying to give you privacy.”

“You were trying to disappear into the trees like a guilty thief,” he corrects smoothly. “After ogling me long enough to memorize every scar on my body. Including the ones below the waist.”

My fingers dig into bark. “I wasn’t—”

“You were.” That low laugh, gods help me, it's molten. “And I liked it. I’ve been waiting for you to look at me like that.”

I risk a glance, squinting through my fingers.

And there he is—unashamed, bare in every way that matters, skin kissed gold from the sun, and that infuriating, devastating half-smile aimed right at me. Not arrogant. Just… certain. Like I’m not a surprise to him. Like he knew I’d come walking out of the trees with grass in my hair and dirt under my nails just to get one more look at him.

“I thought you were meditating,” I mumble, eyes darting everywherebuthis lap.

“I was. Until you showed up, breathing like you’d run ten miles. I assumed something was wrong.” His tone drops an octave. “And then I realized—somethingis.”

I scowl. “What?”

“You want to touch me,” he says simply. “But you haven’t yet. And it’s making you feral.”

I nearly choke. “Oh my god—”

“It’s fine. I want you to touch me, too.”

I groan into my hands and finally step forward, just enough for the sun to find me. “Could you not say that so casually? You’re naked. This is not normal.”

He tilts his head. “I’m a centuries-old creature of desire and wisdom, and I’m in love with you. What part of this situation was ever going to be normal, Luna?”

That shuts me up.

His eyes skim over me then—not lascivious, not even particularly hungry. Just… thorough. Present. Like he’s taking a mental photograph of this exact moment: me, half-wild and flushed and barely composed, standing in the mouth of a clearing trying not to combust from the weight of wanting him.

“You’re beautiful like this,” he murmurs. “Scraped up. You look like a goddess who’s been through war and came out ready to take what’s hers.”

My stomach clenches. “You’re infuriating.”