Chapter 81 Dangerous touch

Chapter 81 Dangerous touch

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The words followed her home like they had attached themselves somewhere behind her ribs and refused to let go.
He’d be proud of you.
It should not have affected her this much, not when it was only a sentence, not when it had been spoken so casually in an empty gym by the last person she ever expected to hear it from. Yet even three days later, Elowen found it returning at the strangest moments, slipping into her thoughts without permission like a melody she could not quite silence.
She heard it while washing dishes, the sound of water hitting ceramic suddenly feeling too loud against the memory. 
She heard it during lectures when her pen stopped moving and her mind drifted somewhere far away from equations and biomechanics. 
She heard it at two in the morning while calculating bills she already knew she could not afford, staring at numbers that refused to make sense no matter how many times she recalculated them.
And she even heard it again when she lay awake in the dark, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if it might offer an answer she had never been able to find.
He’d be proud of you.
For years people had called her strong, resilient, responsible, determined, and she had worn those words the way she wore everything else in her life.. tightly, carefully, without letting them break her but none of those words had ever touched the part of her that still ached quietly for something she had never allowed herself to say out loud.
That her father would have been proud, that she had not failed him, that everything she had carried alone had not been in vain and somehow Lucian had known exactly where that emptiness lived inside her.
The realization unsettled her more than she wanted to admit, because she had spent so long believing he was the disruption in her life, the problem she had been forced to manage, the boy tied to everything she had sworn to hate. 
And now, against every instinct she trusted, he was becoming the person her thoughts drifted toward without warning, as if her mind had decided to betray her carefully built boundaries.
That, more than anything, felt dangerous because she still did not know what to do with the shape of whatever this was becoming.
By Friday, training no longer felt like something she had to endure.
It felt easier.
Not softer in any obvious way but smoother in a way she did not notice until she realized the tension that used to sit between them had simply stopped existing. It had faded so gradually she could not pinpoint the exact moment it disappeared, only that one day it was there, and the next it was gone.
“Again,” she said, adjusting the wraps around her hands.
Lucian exhaled slowly, rolling his eyes as he stepped back onto the mat. “You say that like it’s a complete sentence.”
“It is a complete sentence.”
“It absolutely isn’t.”
“It gets the point across faster than the full sentences you’re used to.”
He let out an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head like she was a particularly exhausting case study. “One day I’m going to develop a complex because of you.”
“You already have several.”
His grin appeared instantly, as if it had been waiting just beneath the surface for an excuse to show itself. “There she is.”
Elowen immediately regretted engaging.
“I didn’t say anything,” she muttered.
“You absolutely did,” he replied, still smiling as he adjusted his stance.
She threw a hand wrap at him without looking up and Lucian caught it effortlessly, the motion so smooth it almost irritated her, and his laughter filled the gym in a way that lingered longer than it should have.
Something in her chest shifted at the sound, subtle and uninvited, and she forced herself to ignore it before it became something she could not explain.
Study sessions began the same way most of their routines did now, without planning, without discussion, as if both of them had quietly agreed to stop pretending there was anything accidental about it.
The first time had been biomechanics.. The second had been convenience.. The third had been inevitability.
After that, it simply became part of their week.
Tuesday and Thursday evenings, always the same corner of the library, always the same stack of books between them, always the same vending machine coffee that tasted like burnt regret.
Elowen sat with her legs folded beneath her chair, highlighting notes with focused precision while Lucian stared at his textbook like it had personally offended him.
“You hate studying,” she said without looking up.
“I hate this chapter,” he corrected.
“They’re the same thing.”
“They really are not.”
She snorted under her breath, and he immediately pointed at her like he had been waiting for it. “See?”
“See what?”
“That.”
“That what?”
“That little laugh.”
Her pen paused mid-line while Lucian’s expression remained entirely too serious for the accusation he had just made. “It keeps happening.”
Elowen finally looked at him. “What keeps happening?”
“You.”
The answer made no sense and yet felt strangely accurate in a way she did not want to examine too closely so instead of responding, she simply stared at him until he cleared his throat and returned to his book, as if nothing unusual had been said at all but the moment did not leave as easily as they did.
Shared meals followed in the same unspoken way.
Neither of them planned them. Neither of them acknowledged when they became routine. It simply happened, as if their schedules kept colliding in places where neither could avoid the other.
Elowen was always moving too fast, between classes, training, hospital visits, and shifts she could barely afford to keep. Lucian, on the other hand, existed on caffeine, protein shakes, and whatever food required the least effort and the least attention.
The first time she noticed, she had nearly lost her patience completely. “That is not lunch,” she said flatly.
“It absolutely is,” he replied.
“It is a drink.”
“It has nutrients.”
“It has chemicals.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it is not.”
Now it had become something else entirely. They ate from food trucks outside campus, leaned against cars after training, shared whatever was cheap and available and quick enough to fit between everything else that demanded their attention.
That night, it was tacos from a vendor parked just beyond the campus gates. Lucian sat on the hood of his car while Elowen leaned against the passenger door, the city lights stretching out around them in a quiet, restless glow.
For a long moment neither of them spoke and when Elowen realized the silence no longer felt uncomfortable, something inside her shifted in a way she did not have language for.
“You’ve been staring at that taco for five minutes,” Lucian said eventually.
She blinked. “What?”
“You haven’t eaten it.”
“Oh.”
His laugh came softer this time, almost thoughtful. “You were thinking again.”
“That’s generally how brains work.”
“Not yours.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “My brain functions perfectly.”
“Your brain works overtime,” he corrected, far too casually.
She looked away, because unfortunately he was not wrong.
After a moment, his voice softened in a way that made her glance back despite herself. “Kieron doing okay?”
The question was simple, but it did not feel casual. It felt real. Present. Concerned in a way that did not ask for anything in return.
Something warm settled in her chest before she could stop it.
“He’s better,” she said quietly.
Lucian nodded once, and relief flickered across his face so briefly she almost thought she imagined it.
And suddenly she remembered, with uncomfortable clarity, that he carried that guilt every single day. Not as a performance and not as an obligation but as something heavy and constant that never quite left him.
The warmth in her chest deepened, and she hated how easily it appeared.
The change did not happen all at once.
It crept in through small, unremarkable moments that neither of them named or questioned until it was too late to ignore.
A hand brushing a shoulder while passing notes.
A light correction during training that lingered a second longer than necessary.
A shared glance that lasted just slightly beyond what was normal.
Elowen told herself none of it meant anything. That it was all coincidence. That she was imagining patterns where none existed but her body did not seem interested in listening because now she noticed things she did not want to notice.
The way Lucian always stood a little closer than necessary when speaking to her.
The way his attention followed her even when she was not looking.
The way her own awareness of him had become constant, intrusive, impossible to turn off.
Lucian, for his part, was no better.
Though she did not know that yet.
He noticed everything about her now in a way that made it difficult to think about anything else. The way she pushed her hair behind her ear when she was concentrating. 
The way she pressed her lips together when she was trying not to react. The way her expression softened when she spoke about Kieron and the worst part was not that he noticed.
It was that he cared.. More than he should, more than he wanted to admit and more than felt safe.
By the time they found themselves alone in the gym after practice, the air between them had already changed without either of them acknowledging it.
Elowen stood near the bench reviewing her notes while Lucian stretched beside her, the quiet between them no longer empty, but full in a way that felt almost heavy.
Eventually, without thinking, he reached over and tapped the small crease between her brows.
She looked up immediately. “What was that?”
“You make that face when you’re thinking too hard.”
“I was concentrating.”
“You were plotting murder.”
She rolled her eyes, but the response came without real irritation.
His hand dropped, yet neither of them moved away from the moment they had just shared, as if something in it had anchored them both in place and that was becoming the problem.
Because it was no longer possible to ignore how often they were aware of each other or how little they seemed to want to change it.
Three days later, during sparring, it finally broke past the point of pretending.
The gym was mostly empty, the only sound coming from their movements and the rhythm of gloves striking pads.
Elowen circled him carefully, eyes sharp. “You’re dropping your right side.”
“I’m not.”
“You literally are.”
Lucian adjusted instantly, and she gave a small, satisfied nod. “See?”
“I hate when you’re right,” he muttered.
“You must hate me constantly then.”
He laughed, and the sound barely faded before they moved again.
Jab. Cross. Slip. Counter.
They flowed across the mat with a rhythm that no longer required instruction. Neither of them hesitated. Neither held back.
Then, in a single moment of misjudged distance, Lucian’s strike grazed her cheek.
Not enough to hurt, not enough to matter but enough to change everything.
Elowen moved before she thought, instinct overriding logic as she stepped forward and reached up, her hand finding his face without hesitation.
It was not deliberate, not planned, not even conscious.. It was instinct.
Her palm rested against his jaw, steadying him, checking without words if he was okay and the moment her skin met his, the world stopped behaving normally.
His breathing slowed. 
Her pulse surged in her ears.
His jaw moved slightly beneath her palm, not away from her touch, but toward it in a way so subtle it almost felt imagined.
And for the first time since her feelings and emotions became confused and weird, Elowen could not tell where sense ended and feeling began.
Neither of them moved.. Neither of them spoke and neither of them pulled away.