Page 16 of Make Me
“No.”
Just one word. But it hits harder than I expect. Because it’s not fierce or sharp. It’s soft in a way that feels worn out, like everything inside her is tired of fighting.
I believe her. And still, it doesn’t matter.
Whatever she’s endured…it’s written all over her.
Her silence. Her stillness. The fact that she hasn’t looked away.
Kasha’s been forged in fire. That much I knew the second she shoved me back in the ballroom. She’s not someone I can fix. More importantly, she’s not someone who needs fixing.
But gods, I’d give anything for the chance to help her heal.
I don’t move closer. I want to—hell, every instinct in me is screaming to close the distance—but I hold the line. Not until she chooses to step toward me.
Her dress shimmers in the candlelight, layers of black and stardust catching the glow like she’s wrapped in dying constellations. Her hands stay clenched at her sides, and her breath comes quick and shallow, like she’s still in the fight and not sure if she’s won.
And then I realize her eyes are locked on me.
Unblinking. Wild.
Like I’m a dream she’s afraid to wake from.
Or like she’s the one about to disappear.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say, lowering my voice. “I just… I couldn’t feel you. And I?—”
I bite off the rest before I admit how deep that terror ran.
Before I sayI needed youout loud.
Her feet shuffle, just slightly, and I catch the faintest scent. Not just her jasmine, but something stirring beneath it. Something sharper, familiar in a way that makes my wolfhowl.
She doesn’t feel the bond yet. But something’s changing.
“Vaelora told me I’m being blocked,” she murmurs, voice cracked and dry like she’s been screaming inside herself for hours.
Still, she doesn’t look away.
Her eyes keep me trapped, as if she’s determining right at this moment whether or not I’m worthy of the truth.
My heart continues to hammer. “Then you know I wasn’t lying.”
She nods again. Her movement still soft but steadier.
“I’m not here to force anything, Kasha,” I tell her. “Not the bond. Not your wolf. Not us. I’m just…here.”
Her lips part, but she says nothing. She doesn’t have to. Everything I need to know is in the fact that she hasn’t run.
I draw a breath, chest aching from more than just exertion.
“If it takes a day or a year or even a century,” I say, “I’ll wait. Whatever you need from me—space, silence, fury, fire—you have it. All you have to do is ask.”
She flinches, but I don’t sense any fear.
Something inside her seems to have changed. Maybe, just maybe, she wants this as much as I do.
I take a tentative step toward her, and in that charged silence, my hand inches closer until it lightly brushes hers. A whisper of contact that I hope reminds her that she’s not alone in this. Not if she doesn’t want to be.
