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I lifted my head. He stood in the doorway dressed in the same tactical gear as before. The mask still hid his face, but it did nothing to hide the blood on his hands, chest, and neck.
My heart stopped as concern filled my head.
His whole body froze when he saw my face. I knew what I looked like. Wet cheeks. Red eyes. Hair tangled from the wind. Bare legs tucked beneath his shirt on the stone. I was a mess.
He crossed the balcony in three strides, knelt, and scooped me up silently. As if I weighed nothing. I stared at his throat while he carried me inside. “You’re bleeding,” I whispered, reaching for him before I remembered I was supposed to be angry. Or afraid. Preferably both.
His hand caught my wrist.
Gentle.
“It’s not my blood.”
That should have horrified me.
It comforted me.
He carried me through the living room, past the windows, and into his bedroom. He set me on the mattress carefully, as if one wrong move might break something in me he already blamed himself for cracking. Then he turned away, opened a drawer, and pulled out clothes with the same grim focus he probably used to select weapons.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Dressing you.”
“I can dress myself.”
“You’re shaking.”
Before I could argue, he crouched in front of me and held out a pair of soft black pants. Warm, loose, and folded once over his forearm like he had already thought about my comfort before I knew I needed it.
“Lift your foot,” he said.
His fingers wrapped around my ankle, warm and steady, and guided the fabric over one leg, then the other. He did not rush. Did not let his hands linger in a way they could have. He kept his touch practical, almost reverent, like the point was not seeing me but covering me.
When he reached my hips, he paused. “Up.”
I pushed myself off the mattress an inch. He slid the pants into place and tied the drawstring with a neat, vicious little knot, because of course even his knots looked threatening.
A jacket came next. Dark. Heavy. His. It smelled like smoke, cold air, and him.
He wrapped it around my shoulders, then knelt again to zip it slowly, shielding me from the room, the balcony, the city, himself. The zipper rose inch by inch until the jacket swallowed me almost to the chin.
“There,” he said roughly. Then he tipped my chin up. “Now, what’s wrong?”
The question broke something loose. At first, I only stared at him. At the mask. At the blood. At the man I had wanted too much, trusted too little, and suspected too late.
He climbed onto the bed behind me and pulled me back against his body. His warmth closed around me. His heartbeat moved steadily beneath my ear. The tactical gear came off piece by piece, but the blood stayed in faint traces, iron under smoke and leather.
I listened to his heart. To the slow rise and fall of his breathing. To the silence he held as if it were another weapon.
That was when the words finally found me.
“I know who you are.”
He stopped breathing and went still. Completely still. He waited for the name he knew was coming. My throat tightened.
“Lux.”
His hand closed around mine.
