Alchemised

by SenLinYu

When anything we wanted became a sin or form of vice simply because it inconvenienced them for us to have it?

She couldn’t fix herself anymore, and no one else seemed inclined to even notice she was breaking.

Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing, Unhesitating, and Unyielding.

“You don’t get to lie to me and then get angry when I make the mistake of believing you,”

She wanted him to know. It was real. For her, it had always been real.

“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.”

When he kissed her, it felt like the beginning of something that could be eternal.

Kaine Ferron was a dragon, like his family before him. Possessive to the point of self-annihilation. Isolated and deadly, and now he held her in his arms as if she were his.

I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you.

Someday, she promised herself, someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.

“After all, not every single horror that I’ve ever imagined has happened to you yet. Losing you and spending fourteen months trying and failing to find you. Finally getting you back, tortured and broken. Keeping you prisoner—the transference—raping you—” His voice was growing raw with grief and rage. He had gone white, that scalding gleaming white. “Is this not enough?

“I’ve never gotten to tell anyone about you. I’d want someone to know what you were like.”

“I don’t want to choose. I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”

“I hate it when you kill people because of me,”

“You need a willing soul for that, and you’re not going to find one, because the only person who’d die for me is you.”

“Why is it that I have to keep all my promises, but you never seem to keep a single one of yours?”

“The first promise I made to you was that I’d be yours for as long as I live. I’m keeping that one.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting him nearer, under her skin, beneath her ribs, inside her heart. To hoard him so close nothing separated them and the terror of losing him would finally end. Time always ran out for them. They’d spent years surviving on stolen moments, and now she finally felt how starved it had left her.

“We said always, didn’t we?” she asked, her voice strained. “Always. Well, if you don’t want that promise in full any longer, I’ll give it to you in increments.” She clutched his hand tighter. “Every day. I’ll choose you. That way you’ll know it’s still what I want.”