Page 22 of Fated in A Time of War

I stumble to him, knees threatening to buckle.

My hands move before my mind catches up, automatic, healer’s instinct overriding everything else.

I drop my blade, yank open the med-pack strapped at my side.

My fingers fumble, slick, but they find the med patch—a thick square of gel and nano-mesh designed to seal flesh in seconds.

“Hold still,” I breathe.

He snorts, low and bitter. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It almost sounds like a joke, but his voice is frayed at the edges, ragged.

I press the patch against the wound. He jerks, a growl ripping out of him, sharp and raw. His hand clenches the pillar hard enough to leave gouges.

“Easy, easy,” I whisper, but my voice cracks. My hands won’t stop shaking.

The gel activates, hissing, burning faintly under my fingers. His blood steams, sealing shut with a chemical tang that makes my eyes sting. His breathing stutters, catches, then steadies.

I meet his gaze. His eyes are molten, burning, but not with rage. Something else. Something worse.

“You should’ve run,” he says, voice low.

“Don’t you dare,” I snap, sharper than I mean to. My throat is tight, tears pricking though I refuse to let them fall. “Don’t you dare tell me to leave you. Not after all this. Not after?—”

My words catch. The memory of his mouth on mine, his body against mine, burns too hot in my chest. I swallow hard. “Not after last night .”

His expression flickers, something unreadable passing through it. But he doesn’t argue. Doesn’t push. Just leans heavier against the pillar, letting me hold him up while my hands shake over his blood.

The silence between us hums, heavy, alive.

Finally, I whisper, “You’re not allowed to die. Not here. Not like this. You hear me?”

His gaze holds mine, steady despite the pain. “Then don’t let me.”

And I swear to every broken god and dead star above us—I won’t.

I press the med patch harder than I should, fingers slick with blood and trembling so badly I can barely keep them steady.

His jaw tightens, fangs showing in the faint light, but he doesn’t pull away.

Doesn’t snarl. Doesn’t tell me to stop. He just breathes through it—each exhale ragged, deep, molten with pain.

And somewhere in that ragged breathing, our faces draw closer.

I can feel the heat of him, smell the iron tang of his blood mixed with the dust of crumbling concrete.

His scales brush my knuckles, hot and alive, and for a heartbeat I forget the scavengers, the bodies cooling on the floor, the box behind me holding the only hope for a camp full of dying people.

All I see is him.

I search his eyes, hunting for the frost I’ve seen there before—the soldier who bound me in silence, who glared at me like I was nothing but a liability. An enemy. A threat.

But there’s none of that now.

Only exhaustion. The kind that sits deep, marrow-deep, heavier than armor. And something else—something he’d never admit, something he’s probably choking on just trying to keep buried.

Something that feels an awful lot like love.

My throat tightens. I want to say it. The words claw at my chest, burning to get out. But I don’t. Because saying them would make it real, and real is dangerous. Real gets you killed.

So I swallow them, choke them back, and settle for silence.

Instead, I shift, reaching past him for the case. My fingers brush the cold metal latch, but before I can pull it toward me, his hand covers mine. Heavy. Warm. Steady.

I freeze.

It’s not restraint. Not command. Not even a soldier’s instinct to control. It’s… something else.

His claws don’t dig in. His grip isn’t tight. It lingers, that’s all. Just rests there, solid and sure, like he’s anchoring me to the ground. Like if he lets go, I’ll float away into the ash.

My breath hitches.

He doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. There’s no need. Because I understand it now.

We’re in this together. Not because of the mission. Not because we’re cornered animals fighting the same fire. Not even because war has shoved us into the same broken place.

But because we chose each other.

When he first dragged me out of the ruins, I thought survival was the only tether between us. Then it was necessity. Then maybe chance. But here, now, with the bodies cooling at our feet and his blood drying under my nails, I know better.

It’s choice. Raw and dangerous. Fragile, but fierce.

I curl my fingers under his, just for a second. Not to hold. Not to bind. But to tell him without words: yes. I choose you too.

His gaze flickers, heat rippling through those molten eyes, and then—just like that—he lets go.

I pull the case toward me, check the seals, make sure not a single injector cracked. They’re intact. All of them. That child—the one whose little hands I held as he coughed blood onto my apron—he might live now. Mercy has teeth tonight.

But mercy isn’t gentle. It never was.

It’s cost. That’s what I finally understand, kneeling here in a pool of blood with his handprint burning phantom heat on mine. Mercy isn’t something you give like a gift and walk away lighter. It takes from you, again and again. It eats at you, leaves you raw, makes you bleed.

And the price doesn’t stop.

I look at Krall—his scales dull with fatigue, his breath still heavy, his thigh wrapped in hissing mesh—and I know. I’d pay it. Over and over, until nothing’s left of me but ash.

Because somehow, against every law of war and reason, he’s worth it.

Dust curls in through the cracks in the ceiling, turning the air into a haze of silver. My chest heaves as though I’ve run miles, though all I’ve done is kneel, bleed, and watch him breathe.

“You’re shaking,” he mutters.

I let out a laugh that isn’t really a laugh. More a crack in my ribs. “I just killed a man with my own hands, Krall. Of course I’m shaking.”

His gaze hardens, but not at me. Never at me, not now. At the corpses. At the world that made us.

“They would’ve killed you,” he says simply. “Would’ve killed both of us. What you did wasn’t weakness.”

I look down at my blade, still wet, dark streaks running down my wrist. My stomach lurches. “Doesn’t feel like strength either.”

“Good.” His voice is low, rough, like stones grinding. “The day it feels like strength… that’s the day you’re lost.”

I meet his eyes, and I see it there—the line he walks, the abyss yawning at his heels. He’s danced with it too long, fed it too much. He knows what it costs better than I ever will.

And still, here he is, bleeding and broken and choosing to stand in front of me. Choosing to keep me alive.

I swallow hard, tuck the blade back into its sheath. My fingers linger on the latch of the case.

“Then let’s not get lost,” I whisper.

His lips twitch. Almost a smile. Not quite. But enough.

We sit there in the wreckage for longer than we should, both of us listening to the silence like it might break at any second. My body aches. My bones feel hollow. But when I lean back against the pillar beside him, the world steadies.

Krall closes his eyes, just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for me to see it—the way his chest rises, slower now, the way his hand falls open on the ground between us, claws curling loose instead of ready to tear.

I let my fingers brush his again. Not holding. Not yet. Just… reminding him he’s not alone.

And maybe reminding myself too.

Because mercy’s not clean. It’s not pretty. It costs blood and sleep and pieces of yourself you don’t get back. But as his warmth seeps into me, steady, alive, I know the price doesn’t scare me anymore.

Not if it means this.