Page 51 of Owned By the Hvrok

Just… contact.

It was the only thing grounding her right now.

The door to her quarters slid open with that low mechanical hiss. The room looked the same—windowless, smooth, inhuman—but her perception had changed. She understood now. She wasn’t just being kept in here to be controlled.

This was protection.

A cage, yes.

But one meant to keep the monstersout.

She stepped inside.

He followed.

She turned, expecting him to retreat, to vanish again behind that seamless door the way he always did. But he didn’t.

He stayed.

His hands were still bare.

She stared at them for a moment, irrationally fixated on the shape of them. The lines. The dark nails. The fact that he hadn’t re-gloved them. That he hadn’t stepped away the moment he could.

Thatmeantsomething.

Didn’t it?

She couldn’t ask. Couldn’t speak to him in any meaningful way. But she clung to that detail like it mattered. Like it proved he wasn’t just a brute in armor, but something more.

Something that couldlearn.

He looked at her—no movement, no sound. Just that intense, unreadable gaze behind the helm.

And still… he didn’t leave.

A heartbeat passed.

Then another.

And somehow, in that strange, tense silence, she didn’t feel afraid.

Not exactly.

Because he wasn’t leaving her alone.

And maybe… just maybe… that was what she needed most right now.

She stood there, breath caught in her throat, as he remained in the doorway.

Watching her.

Still helmeted. Still unreadable.

And then… he stepped closer.

Her instinct was to retreat—but she didn’t. Couldn’t. Her feet stayed rooted, her muscles taut, her mind caught in that strange limbo between apprehension and something she couldn’t name.

And then… he touched her.

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