Page 77 of Zayrik

My activated mating marks swirled bright blue, gold and red on my pale turquoise skin. They burned. Drawn to her, always to her. Like they’d known her before I did. Like they’d been waiting for her all along.

“This,” I said, voice low, each word chosen carefully, “isn’t somethingIchose. It’s not somethingyouchose. But it’sreal.” As real as the way my body oriented toward hers. As real as the way she couldn’t stop looking at me, even when it scared her.

She stared at them.

At the way they pulsed brighter in her presence.

Her voice barely a whisper, rough with emotion she couldn’t hide. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“Neither did I,” I said, watching the way she tracked every movement, every breath between us. “But I believe in this. In what I feel when I’m with you.”In the way everything makessense when you’re near. In how protecting you feels as natural as breathing.

She looked back at me, searching. Like she was trying to find the lie, the angle, the reason to run. “And what’s that?”

“Alive.”

That stopped her.

Like she didn’t expect an answer she couldn’t fight.

Like she didn’t expect truth so raw it burned.

“Zayrik—” She faltered. Breath caught.

My name on her lips like something between a prayer and a surrender.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said quietly. The admission cost her, I could see it in her eyes. In the way her fingers twitched at her sides.

“Do what?”

“Trust. Stay. Not run when things get...”

She gestured vaguely between us. “This.” Real. Important. Worth fighting for.

I reached up, slowly brushing a strand of hair from her face.

She didn’t pull away.

If anything, she leaned into the touch, like her body knew what her mind still fought against.

“Then we figure it out,” I said. “Together.” A promise. A future. A choice.

Her breath caught again.

Something in her eyes shifted, softened.

And I saw it; the moment she let go.

The moment she chose us over fear.

25

Nyla

HIS WORDS UNRAVELEDsomething in me.

Not just the fear. Not just the walls I’d spent years building.

But the belief that no one would ever see me. Not really. Not without wanting something in return.

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