Page 108 of Eternal

AZRA

“Apologize” by OneRepublic

Present

W e talked a lot tonight.

I told him about Vik, Kat, and me. How the dogs never stopped waiting for me even when I disappeared. How we grew up like limbs of the same body until one day, I wasn’t allowed to see them anymore.

Until my mother started unraveling.

Her mind, her job, her family, the home she wanted so bad, everything crumbling at once. I told him I was just a kid when Alexei left her and went for most of the week somewhere else with my little brother, like he deserved to have a childhood more than I did.

Told him how, the second he walked out, it was like the whole weight of my mom’s sadness got dumped on me.

That my shoulders got handed her pain, and I learned, too early, that men leave. And that’s when love started to feel like a warning.

I told him how I watched her break, how her crying at night made me stop believing in anything that could last, anything stable.

Told him she even stopped letting me go to school because she didn’t like having me outside the house.

That I even stopped seeing my little brother for a while.

Even when I called Alexei, begged him to let me talk to Eren or just see him.

Or when I used the kitchen phone to ask him to come because Mom wasn’t feeling well and I was scared, but he’d just tell me to stay in my room and not let her open the door because she was just sad, and it could be dangerous.

And he just… listened . He sat there, quiet, like my words deserved space, like I had the right to feel, to express myself in ways no one ever let me.

He gave me my voice back tonight, when I thought I had lost it, when I believed it was stolen from me forever.

His phone lit up a few times, calls, texts, whatever storm he was ignoring, but he never answered. Not once.

Probably the people who are waiting for him to tell them if he had any new information about me. If he had a plan to end me.

He said he was sorry… Even though the little voice in my head screamed that it was too late.

Too late to say sorry, too late to change what had already awakened my heart.

I wanted to be mad at him for everything. For the mission, the betrayal, the silence. But he never answered their messages. He never stopped looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered.

Maybe that’s what poison looks like from the outside.

Needing something so badly it seeps into your veins, softly, sweetly, until you start to believe it’s the good kind of pain, like it’s not actually killing you quietly.

So I kept talking.

He didn’t interrupt, he asked the right questions, the ones no one ever dared to ask, and for the first time, I answered. I told him things I’d buried so deep I forgot they had words

Why was I trusting him?

Maybe because for the first time in too long, my heart wanted to, I wanted to believe I could have a future that didn’t hurt to imagine.

Maybe I could be free , not healed, not whole.

Just free…

We went to bed after this long conversation.

I only had his t-shirt on, nothing else, and we’d never slept in the same bed like this before. But tonight, I climbed into his, like it made sense, like I hadn’t just told him everything ugly in me.

The alcohol faded away completely, I could feel my body sobering, my heart not knowing what to do with itself.

We lay facing each other, one pillow between us, eyes locked. My partner , the safest liar I’ve ever seen…

The man who cracked me open and made me feel again. The same man who stayed when I asked him to.

His blue eyes were searching mine, like he was trying to find something I’d never let him see. I couldn’t look away, I didn’t even want to. Because at this moment, I could almost imagine it, a world where the two of us could exist together, free of all the things that kept us apart.

A world where he wasn’t hunting me, and I wasn’t running.

His gaze softened, and slowly, his hand moved, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he should. His fingers brushed my lips, featherlight, and I froze.

Is that what affection and love looks like? I think it is.

A warm hug, a kiss but just looking at your person.

That’s love right? What else could it be when my lips move by their own will to touch his lips?

What else could it be if my hands moved by their own will to touch his?

Maybe it is love . Maybe it was love the moment he held my hands and caressed my scars, or maybe it was love the moment he promised me he’d take care of me even if it was built on lies.

Even that wasn’t enough for me to stay away.

Maybe I’m allowed to feel it, this love .

I stayed there, still, until my hand came up on its own, trembling as it rested over his. His skin was warm, almost burning against mine, and my fingers closed around his instinctively, holding him there, and I felt his breath catch.

“Your hands…” His voice was soft, barely audible. “They’re always so cold.”

My chest tightened, and for a second, I couldn’t breathe.

Cold. Always cold.

The memories came back, the sleepless nights in that house, where the cold had seeped into my bones, into my soul, until it became a concrete part of me.

The lack of warmth, inside and out.

And so, I pulled away from him.

I don’t want to think about that, I want to stop, I want to heal, I want to be happy again.

Sitting up, I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to push it all back down.

The past, the pain… the weakness .

“ Azra ,” he said, his voice soft, as if he knew I was slipping away. He sat up too, his movements slow, careful almost. I felt him behind me before I saw him, the faint pressure of his fingertips pulling up the t shirt, and brushing against my back, so light I almost thought I’d imagined it.

All along my skin.

Down, and down, and down… .

“You’re so soft. How can you be so soft ?”

Then, he leaned forward, his forehead pressing against the curve of my spine. His warmth seeped into me, but I didn’t move, couldn’t . The gesture wasn’t rough or uncomfortable, it was silent, pleading, like he was begging for something he couldn’t say.

Begging me to dare look at him, spare him a glance. Anything . As long as it was for him, and only for him.

“Stay,” he murmured, the word muffled against my back. “Just for a little longer.”

Stay .

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

It doesn’t belong to me, it never has. It’s always been meant for other people, people who are softer, people who don’t leave destruction in their wake, people who aren’t me.

I want to say yes . I want to press my forehead against his chest and let my body answer for me, let my silence mean something other than fear.

But my silence has never been gentle, and my quiet is the loudest lie I carry. It has never been easy, it has always been the space between hurt and running away.

Because I don’t stay, and no one stays for me.

Not my mother, not my brother, not Alexei, not the people who should have, the ones who promised, the ones who were supposed to be different.

But he’s not them .

And that terrifies me.

My breath shakes, my fingers twitch where they rest against the sheets. My mind tells me to move, to untangle myself from the warmth of his body before it starts to feel real. Before I start to believe that this moment is mine to keep.

But for the first time, I let another voice speak.

The quiet one, the one I’ve buried beneath years of indifference and survival, the one that whispers: What if you stayed?

Not forever, not even for long, only long enough to feel this.

Just long enough to let the ache in my chest soften into something tender, affectionate.

His breath ghosts against my shoulder, and I close my eyes.

Maybe I don’t have to run tonight. Maybe, for once, I can pretend that someone wants me to stay and that I deserve to.

For a long moment, I stayed like that, then, slowly, I turned to face him. His eyes met mine, watching me bare. Not the killer. Not the monster. Not Voron . He didn’t touch me this time, he just waited watching me like my eyes held life itself in it.

And for reasons I couldn’t explain, I lay back down.

He followed, settling across from me, our faces inches apart.

“I promised you,” He let out. “I’ll keep your hands warm, just for the night.”

I can hear it.

So clearly, so loudly yet so quietly.

The song Kat was talking about, the one you hear when you meet the person your soul has always longed for.

It’s here. In the air, in my ears, in the space between us. It’s in his ocean eyes, on his mouth, at his fingertips.

It’s not a melody, it’s his heartbeat, it’s the way he breathes, like even that air belongs to me.

The song you hear when you feel love .

And yet… It’s relaxing, and terrifying .

What if I love him just to suffer for it? What if I love him and it ruins me?

What if ? —

His fingers brushed against mine, just a touch, just enough to make the song go louder in my heart.

And for the first time, the questions stop.

Like he’s answering me without saying a word.

What if he loves me back?

“I’m going to kiss you now .” His hand abandons mine, fingers tracing the edge of my cheek, down to my jaw, tilting my face like he’s aligning something precious . “I’m going to kiss you and you’re going to kiss me back.”

I should say something. I don’t.

And then his mouth is on mine. Warm, insistent, slow .

A lip against a lip.

A tongue against a tongue.

A breath into a breath.

The taste of him seeps into my bones, dark and sweet, something that shouldn’t feel as much like home as it does.

The song becomes darker, it burns, it twists into something more desperate, more consuming .

And for the first time, I kiss someone back not because I should, not because I want to forget, but because I need to. Because kissing him feels like remembering something I’ve never been allowed to have.

But then. Air

He pulls back just enough for breath to slip between us. “My beautiful broken partner,” he murmurs. His voice sounds like a prayer, like he’s saying something sacred and means it.

“The most beautiful heart I’ve ever seen.”

My heart?

That stupid muscle that’s been torn apart, stitched back together with rage and grief, a thing that’s beaten through bruises and abuse. Beautiful…

“ Beautiful ?” I whisper confused.

A slow smile tugs at his lips. He leans in, his breath warm against my skin. A kiss on my cheek. Another along my jaw. A third at the hollow of my throat.

“Beautiful,” he repeats, lips ghosting over my pulse. “Magnificent.” A kiss at the corner of my mouth. “Insane.” A brush of affection along my knuckles. “ Devastating .” His mouth finds the tips of my fingers, pressing against them like a promise.

Then, against my skin, a final whisper, low, possessive, absolute . “Mine.”

“ Damir… ”

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he eased me down beneath him slowly like he was still trying to memorize everything that was me . My leg curled instinctively around his waist, dragging him closer.

His breath ghosted against my lips. “You want this, partner ?”

My answer came too easily. “I do.”

Yes I do, more than anything, more than I ever wanted anything.

He smiled, soft at first… almost tender . But then it changed, it weakened at the edges. “You know how much I want you to learn softness, right?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he whispered. His lips brushed my cheek, then my jaw, then my neck, his voice dipping lower, darker . “Remember that…” A pause. “…because nothing about what I’m going to do to you tonight is going to be soft.”

I grinned up at him, pulse pounding. “Promise?”

That was the moment it all changed, his smile returned, but it wasn’t gentle anymore. He leaned in, his mouth brushing mine. “ Mmm ,” he murmured, almost a moan. “Of course.”

And then he kissed me. Not softly.

It was the kind of kiss that stole the air from my lungs. The kind that said: you asked for this .

And I had.