She didn't respond for a moment.
The fire moved across her collarbone. Across her shoulder. Down her arm. Alive and restless and real.
Then—quietly, in the specific low register of a woman who has spent twenty years deciding when to deploy her dignity and has just decided not to:
"Is that a threat."
He chuckled against her ear.
"It's a fact."
She pressed her lips together.
And he felt—through his palm still flat against her breast—the fire on her skin settle. Just slightly. Just at the point of contact. Like the thing burning in her had recognized the hand holding it and decided to be less dangerous there specifically.
He filed that information away.
He straightened.
Turned to face the room.
All of them looking at him. Five women with fire and water and light running across their skin like things newly born—which was exactly what they were. Light moving through them for the first time. Old blood finding new channels.
Yuna sat on the bed behind him. He didn't need to look.
