CHAPTER 84
LIAN
I stood with my back to her, fist pressed to the wall so hard the plaster trembled. My breath came in short, uneven bursts, every muscle pulled tight enough to snap.
Blood slid in a slow, stubborn line down my knuckles. I watched it, jaw clenched, waiting for the familiar pull—the skin sealing, the wound closing.
Nothing.
Just pain.
Just blood.
When I sensed her behind me, my entire body went rigid.
I didn’t turn.
I couldn’t.
Not when I was this close to shattering.
Silence stretched between us—not cold, not empty… but full. Heavy. Filled with everything we weren’t saying.
Then—her voice.
Soft.
Too soft for what I deserved.
“Silly,” she whispered.
Not angry.
Not accusing.
Not demanding answers like she should.
Just… warm.
Fond.
Like she was looking at someone she loved—someone she should have given up on, yet hadn’t.
Her tenderness hit harder than any blow. It crawled beneath my ribs and lodged there, raw and unbearable.
Because she still saw me as hers.
Even after everything—after I denied her, after I hid the truth, after I pushed her away to keep her safe—
She looked at me like I was home.
Careful steps carried her closer. I felt the heat of her presence at my back before her fingertips touched me—light, tentative, as if testing whether I would pull away.
The moment her hand brushed my arm, the tight control I’d been holding onto slipped.
My chest constricted, breath shaking out of me.
Because she was right there.
And I was still… irrevocably, painfully hers.
God help me—
I would burn the world before I let her walk away again.
I turned to face her slowly, afraid of what she would see in my eyes. Afraid it would scare her. Afraid it wouldn’t be enough to make her stay.
But she looked up at me like she already knew.
Like she had always known.
Like she had never stopped being mine.
Her eyes softened at the sight of my hand, as if the blood on my skin hurt her more than it hurt me.
She took another small step toward me—just one—but it unravelled something inside my chest. Something dark, hungry, desperate.
Before she could say anything else, I reached for her.
My hand closed around her wrist, firm, almost rough—not to restrain her, but to anchor myself.
Then I pulled her into me, into the heat of my body, into the space I’d been terrified she would one day leave empty.
Her breath hitched as her palms landed flat against my chest. I crushed her closer, burying my face in her hair, inhaling her like oxygen.
I held her so tightly it almost hurt, as if I loosened even a fraction, she might slip through my fingers again and vanish.
“Don’t,” I choked out, the word trembling.
“Don’t leave.”
She froze, just for a heartbeat.
My voice—strained, raw—didn’t sound like the version of me I let the world see. It wasn’t detached, calm, or controlled. It was a man begging. A man is terrified.
“Lian…” she whispered against my collarbone, confusion and something like heartbreak lacing her tone.
“You’re hurting.”
No.
I was hurting because she wasn’t close enough.
My arms tightened around her.
“I need you,” I confessed, breath shaking into her hair.
“You don’t know… You can’t imagine what it does to me when you’re not here. When you’re angry with me. When you look at me like I’m a stranger.”
She didn’t pull away.
She didn’t fight.
Her anger was real—I felt the tremor of it beneath her skin—but she stayed. And that alone nearly brought me to my knees.
“You kept things from me,” she murmured, voice fragile but honest.
I closed my eyes. “I know.”
“You lied.”
A sharp inhale cut through me. “I did.”
“You acted like you didn’t know me.”
The silence stretched like a blade between us, and I didn’t run from it. I deserved every word.
“I thought it would protect you,” I admitted, voice breaking.
“But it only hurt us both.”
When she finally lifted her head to look at me, her gaze wasn’t filled with the rejection I feared. It held pain… yes. But also understanding.
And something far more dangerous.
Love.
“I’m angry,” she said simply.
“I know,” I whispered.
“And I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it. Just—don’t walk away.”
Her hand slid up to my jaw, gentle where I had been furious and rough.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Something inside me cracked wide open.
I kissed her—nothing like the earlier hungry, uncontrollable claims.
This was slower, deeper, reverent.
A silent thank you.
A vow.
A plea.
She melted into it, into me, and the world finally aligned enough for me to breathe.
When she pulled back, she guided me to sit, her fingers threading through mine, coaxing—not commanding. She took my injured hand in both of hers, frowning at the torn skin.
“Let me take care of you,” she whispered.
I let her.
Because no one else ever had.
Her fingers brushed against my skin—light, careful, almost reverent—and for a moment I forgot how to breathe.
She was close enough that I could feel the warmth of her kneeling between my legs, the soft drag of cloth as she dabbed gently at my torn knuckles.
I never meant for her to see me like this.
Bleeding.
Fractured.
Reduced to something painfully… mortal.
But she was here anyway, quietly determined, tending to me with more tenderness than I deserved.
Her voice was soft when she spoke. “Lian… your hand isn’t healing. It always healed before—so why… why now?”
I swallowed.
“Lian… why?”
For a moment, I considered lying again—giving her half‑truths, protecting her from the full weight of what I had become. But she deserved more.
She deserved everything.
She was looking at me with those steady, patient eyes—the eyes of someone who had chosen to stay, even knowing I was a storm wrapped in skin.
“In the beginning,” I said, forcing the words out,
“I was… primitive. Less human. More instinct than thought. I didn’t understand emotions. Didn’t understand the attachment. Didn’t even understand the shape of my own existence.”
“I evolved because of you,” I admitted quietly, the truth scraping raw on its way out.
“Because of your care… your patience… your love.”
My jaw tightened as memories flickered behind my eyes—memories of her soft voice, her steady presence, the way she reached for me even when she didn’t understand what I was.
“You don’t realise what you did to me,” I murmured.
“Before you, everything inside me was chaos—instinct, hunger, survival. No direction. No restraint. Just a creature trying to exist.”
I lifted my gaze to hers, letting her see the vulnerability I’d never allowed myself to show.
“But then you touched my world,” I said, my voice roughening. “And suddenly my thoughts weren’t just impulses. They became clear. Structured. Human.”
A breath shuddered out of me.
“Because of you, I developed emotions I was never designed to feel. Want. Fear. Attachment. All these things that make me… dangerous.”
My hand twitched, wanting to reach for her.
“I became more human because I needed to stay beside you,” I confessed, voice barely above a whisper. “I reshaped myself—piece by piece—just so I wouldn’t lose you.”
She looked up at me—eyes soft, full, almost glowing in the dim light.
“Lian…” she whispered, as if my name itself was fragile.
I wasn’t done.
“My self-healing,” I said, voice dropping even lower,
“was part of that original form. Back when I wasn’t constrained by a body like this. Back when I didn’t feel pain the way humans do.”
Her other hand lifted, fingertips brushing my cheek. I closed my eyes because the gentleness hurt in its own way.
“What changed?” she asked.
I forced myself to meet her gaze.
“A part of me was separated.”
Her lips parted softly. “Separated?”
I nodded.
“It happened during my transition—when I first learned to take on a physical form stable enough to exist beside you. I had to sever the part that governed regeneration. A… core piece.”
My throat tightened.
“Without it, I can’t heal the way I used to. I bleed. I bruise. I break.”
Her breath hitched.
“And it’s gone?” she whispered.
“That part of you?”
I shook my head slowly.
“Not gone. Just… somewhere else. Detached. Dormant. And until I find it again, I’m stuck like this.”
“I’m staying,” she murmured again, as if she sensed how desperately I needed to hear the words a second time—needed them to anchor me in reality.
Something in my chest loosened, a tight coil I’d been holding for far too long. I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realised I was holding.
She picked up the cloth again, gently dabbing away the blood with careful strokes, her touch soft enough to undo me all over again.
“Tell me more,” she said quietly, eyes still on my hand.
“Not because I demand it. Not because I’m leaving if you don’t. But because… I don’t want you to carry it alone anymore.”
I swallowed, my voice low.
“The first form I had… the one I was born with… was nothing like this.”
She paused, lifting her gaze to mine, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I wasn’t made to look human. I didn’t think like a human. My instinct was survival, not emotion. I could heal from anything—wounds, poison, death itself if given enough time. My body was one whole organism, a perfect system.”
A bitter smile tugged at my lips.
“Perfect, but empty.”
She brushed her thumb across my knuckles, urging me silently to continue.
“When I met you,” I said, voice softening,
“I didn’t understand why I… watched you. Why I gravitated to you. Why your laughter affected me. Why your fear angered me.” I laughed quietly.
“I didn’t even know what ‘missing someone’ meant until the day I couldn’t find you.”
Her breath caught, but she said nothing.
“So I studied you. Humans. Their warmth… their cruelty… their emotions. I changed. Little by little, I adapted. I reshaped myself so I could stay in your world, so I wouldn’t frighten you.”
My hand tightened faintly around hers.
“Every change came with a cost.”
I exhaled.
“A part of me—something like a core—held my original abilities. When I separated from it to evolve… my body became closer to yours. More fragile. More breakable. And without that core, my self-healing faded.”
Understanding softened her features, but what struck me most was not sadness or fear—it was pride.
Pride for what I had become, not pity for what I had lost.
“So you changed who you were… for me?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
No shame. No regret. It was the truest thing I’d ever done.
She placed a hand on my cheek then, guiding my face toward hers until I was forced to meet her eyes—eyes that held more strength than I deserved.
“You’re not alone anymore, Lian,” she said, her voice steady, grounding.
“Whatever you lost… whatever you’re still fightin’’ll’ll face it together.”
Her forehead rested against mine, mirroring the intimacy of moments long buried in memory.
“You give up too easily when it comes to yourself,” she whispered. “But I won’t.”
A breath escaped me—half-laugh, half-sob.
“You really want to stay with something like me?”
She frowned. “Something like you?” Her voice firmed, surprising me.
“Lian, you’re still you. Whatever shape, whatever form—your heart… the way you care… the way you protect, the way you love—none of that is less because it looks different.”
Love.
She didn’t say the word aloud, but it echoed between us anyway.
Her promise—quiet, unwavering—held more weight than any oath.
If she stayed… I could fight. I could reclaim what I lost. Not to become what I once was, but to fully become who I chose to be—with her.
I opened my eyes, letting her see the truth, the raw, unguarded part of me I never allowed anyone to witness.
“Thank you,” I said quietly—because no language I had ever learned held words big enough for what she had just given me.
She simply smiled, lifting my hand to her lips and pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “And I’m not letting go.”
And for the first time, I believed it.