The light in the hallway was grey and thin, morning pressing through the kitchen windows at the far end of the corridor.
Elara stood frozen in her bedroom doorway, one hand still braced against the frame. Vael had not moved. He remained outside Saige’s closed door, shirt hanging open, bare feet on the worn floorboards, his chest still carrying the warmth of another body.
His grey eyes held hers.
Patient. Waiting.
As though he expected her to speak first.
Elara could not find the words. They were there somewhere—a hundred of them, sharp and hot—but they lodged in her throat, tangled with the image of him stepping from that room, his hair dishevelled by hands that were not hers, his mouth still soft from someone else’s kiss.
Something cracked behind her ribs.
Not her heart.
A wall.
The one she had built from every glance she had ignored, every touch she had explained away, every morning she had looked at Saige and told herself there was nothing to see.
“Elara.”
His voice was low, familiar and utterly calm.
He said her name like a greeting, not an apology.
She turned and walked into the kitchen.
Her bare feet struck the linoleum harder than she intended. She heard him follow, felt the air change as he entered behind her, but she did not look around.
She gripped the edge of the sink and stared at the tap, the faded tea towel draped over it, the same view she had faced through a thousand ordinary mornings.
None of it looked familiar now.
“How long?”
Her voice came out flat.
Not angry. Not yet.
Only a fact she needed before she could feel anything else.
Behind her, Vael stopped.
“Five weeks.”
She closed her eyes.
Five weeks.
Five weeks of dinners with Saige sitting beside him. Of her daughter’s hand on his arm. Of smiles over coffee and conversations that continued after Elara went to bed.
Five weeks of watching it happen and convincing herself she was imagining it.
“Did she come to you first?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She came to my room. She asked if I was awake.”
Elara’s grip tightened around the sink.
“She asked me questions about where I came from. About why I spoke differently. She touched my hand.”
“And?”
“She kissed me.”
Elara waited.
The silence forced him to continue.
“I did not stop her.”
She turned.
Vael stood in the kitchen doorway, his shirt still open, his hands loose at his sides. His body remained relaxed in a way that felt almost insulting.
“And after that?”
“She returned several nights later. After that, she began asking me to go to her room.”
The words landed with brutal simplicity.
Saige had gone to him first.
Then she had begun taking him to her own bed.
Elara laughed once, but there was no humour in it.
“And you just went.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me.”
“That was enough?”
“I was curious about her.”
“The difference between us?”
“Yes.”
The answer struck harder than it should have.
Vael studied her face.
“She has some of your movements,” he said. “The way she tilts her head when she is examining something. The way her mouth tightens when she disagrees but has not decided whether to speak.”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“Do not stand there comparing us.”
“I was explaining.”
“I don’t want you to.”
He accepted that with a small inclination of his head.
Elara pushed away from the sink.
“You watched me sit across from both of you. You watched her touch you. You watched me leave the room night after night.”
“Yes.”
“And every time she left, you came back to my bed.”
“When you asked me to.”
Her anger finally found its edge.
“I stood there watching her and convinced myself I was imagining it. Every time you came back to me, I told myself that proved there was nothing between you.”
Vael’s brow tightened.
“I did not know you believed that.”
“No. You didn’t know anything, apparently.”
He took one step into the kitchen.
Elara stiffened.
He stopped immediately.
“I want to understand.”
“You should already understand.”
“I do not.”
The answer was quiet and direct.
Not defensive. Not dismissive.
That made it worse.
“You don’t get to do both,” she said. “You don’t get to be with me and with her.”
“Why not?”
The question was genuine.
Elara stared at him.
“Because that is a betrayal.”
“What did I betray?”
“You were with me first.”
“Yes.”
“You came to my bed. You touched me. You let me trust you.”
“Yes.”
“You made me think this meant something.”
“It does.”
“No.” Her voice broke around the word. “You don’t get to say that while you are standing there fresh from my daughter’s bed.”
Vael looked down at himself as though only then noticing his open shirt.
He fastened one button.
The small, practical gesture made her want to scream.
“What I share with Saige is not what I share with you,” he said.
“You don’t get to decide that makes it acceptable.”
“I am not deciding whether it is acceptable. I am telling you that one has not removed the other.”
“That isn’t how it works.”
“For you.”
“For people.”
His head tilted slightly.
“I am a person.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes. Humans.”
Elara pressed both palms against the edge of the table.
Among all the things she had taught him—how to dress, how to eat, how to work among humans without drawing attention—somehow she had never explained the one rule she had assumed would require no explanation.
“You should have told me,” she said. “The first time she came to you, you should have come straight to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to know.”
“I did not know that.”
“You should have.”
“How?”
The question was gentle.
Not a challenge.
It stopped her anyway.
Vael moved closer, slowly enough that she had time to pull away. He stopped on the other side of the table.
“I have been learning your customs,” he said. “Your language. The things you say and the things you expect without saying. I did not know this.”
“We were together.”
“I know.”
“Exclusively.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I did not know that was part of what you meant.”
Elara opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
She searched backward through the months. Every night. Every whispered instruction. Every moment of trust and surrender.
She had never asked him for exclusivity.
She had simply believed intimacy contained it.
“What did you think we were?” she asked.
“Connected.”
“And that means nothing?”
“It means a great deal.”
“Clearly not enough.”
His expression changed then. Not guilt. Something closer to hurt.
“What I share with another person does not diminish what exists between us.”
“It does to me.”
“I understand that now.”
“No, you understand that I’m angry.”
“I understand that you are hurt.”
“You caused it.”
“Yes.”
The word came without resistance.
Elara looked at him.
“You don’t even look sorry.”
“I am sorry that you are in pain.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
He did not pretend otherwise.
The honesty left her nowhere easy to place her anger.
Vael rested one hand against the back of the chair opposite her but did not sit.
“Among my people, connection is not possession,” he said. “We do not believe that intimacy with one person removes something from another. Attachment can be shared. Desire can be shared. Care can be shared.”
“And betrayal?”
“We can deceive. We can abandon. We can use another person against their will. Those things would be betrayal.”
“But not this.”
“No.”
“Fidelity means nothing to you.”
“I understand the word. I did not understand that you believed it existed between us without being spoken.”
Elara turned away.
The kitchen window had begun to brighten. Beyond it, the paddocks emerged from the dark in strips of grey and green.
“I did not know you believed my body belonged only to you,” he said.
She flinched.
The words sounded ugly when spoken aloud. Ancient. Possessive.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then explain what you meant.”
“I meant that what we had was ours.”
“It is.”
“Not if you share it.”
“I did not share what was ours.”
“You shared yourself.”
“Yes.”
The simple answer hollowed her out.
Vael’s voice softened.
“What I give you is shaped by you. What I feel when I am with you belongs to this connection. Saige does not replace it. She cannot.”
“You never told me about her.”
“I did not conceal her.”
“You said nothing.”
“I did not know silence was concealment.”
Elara stared at the table.
“You never told me that accepting another person would injure what existed between us,” he continued. “If I had understood, I would have asked what you wanted.”
“And would you have refused her?”
He did not answer immediately.
The pause hurt more than a lie would have.
“I do not know.”
Elara’s throat tightened.
“At least that’s honest.”
“I would have understood that there was a choice.”
“There should not have needed to be one.”
“For you.”
She looked up sharply.
Vael held her gaze.
“For you,” he repeated, quieter. “It was already decided. For me, it was not.”
The anger remained, but its shape had changed. It no longer had a clean place to land.
He had not hidden from her.
He had not lied.
He had not understood that a rule existed.
That did not make the hurt smaller.
It only made blame harder.
Elara pulled out a chair and sat. Her legs felt unreliable beneath her.
Vael remained standing.
“Sit down.”
He obeyed.
The kitchen clock ticked behind them. Somewhere outside, a horse called, and another answered from the far paddock.
Elara rubbed both hands over her face.
“She asked me about you.”
“When?”
“Before this started. She wanted to know if something was happening between us.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t.”
Vael waited.
“I avoided the question. She decided that meant no.”
“She told me you were not connected to me in that way.”
Elara looked up.
“And you believed her?”
“I had no reason to think she was lying.”
“She wasn’t exactly lying.”
“She told me something untrue.”
“Yes.”
The word tasted bitter.
Saige had not known for certain. Elara had given her enough room to believe whatever suited her, and Saige had chosen the answer that cleared her path.
“She understood more than you did,” Elara said.
“About what?”
“About what it would mean.”
“To you?”
“To Bryce. To me. To everyone.”
Vael considered that.
“She said she loved Bryce.”
“She does.”
“And she wanted me.”
“Yes.”
“He did not prevent the other.”
“For her, maybe.”
“For you, it does.”
Elara looked away.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first honest thing she had said since entering the kitchen.
Vael leaned forward slightly.
“Does Bryce know?”
“No.”
“Should he?”
The question hit a different nerve.
“Yes.”
“Will you tell him?”
“No.”
Vael studied her.
Elara heard the contradiction even before he spoke.
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t my secret to expose.”
“But you believe he is being betrayed.”
“Yes.”
“And you will allow it to continue.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said you would not tell him.”
Elara pressed her fingers against her temples.
“I cannot explain human relationships to you before sunrise.”
“I am trying to understand.”
“I know.”
That was the problem.
He was not trying to trap her in hypocrisy. He was following the lines she gave him and finding where they failed to meet.
“Does Saige know what you are?” Elara asked.
“No.”
“Does she know what you can do?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“She has noticed that I am different. She has asked. I have not answered directly.”
“So she thinks you are human.”
“Yes.”
“A strange, quiet farmhand.”
“That is how she described me.”
Despite everything, a bitter laugh escaped her.
“What do you feel for her?”
Vael took his time.
“I am curious about her. I enjoy her company. I enjoy what she shares with me.”
“Do you care about her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love her?”
“I do not know her well enough to answer that.”
The answer should have relieved her.
It did not.
“And me?”
His gaze did not leave hers.
“You are asking whether I love you.”
“Yes.”
“I believe I do.”
“You believe.”
“I am still learning what the word contains for humans.”
“What does it contain for you?”
“You are part of how I understand this world. When I think of safety, I think of this house. When I think of this house, I think of you. I want to know what you want before you ask. I notice when you are absent. I choose your company when I am free to choose.”
Elara’s eyes burned.
“That sounds like love.”
“Then I love you.”
The words came without ceremony.
No performance.
No attempt to use them as a weapon against her anger.
That made them more painful.
She looked down at his hands resting on the table. The long fingers. The faint iridescence visible only where the morning light caught them.
The same hands that had held her face.
The same hands that had touched Saige.
“Do you still want me?” she asked.
The vulnerability of the question humiliated her almost as much as everything else.
Vael answered immediately.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No qualification.
“What I share with Saige does not change what I share with you. It does not remove anything from us.”
“It changes it for me.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Not completely.”
His honesty remained unbearable.
“But I understand that you are hurt,” he continued. “I understand that I caused it without intending to. I would not have chosen your pain.”
“That isn’t an apology.”
“It is the truth.”
She swallowed.
“Are you sorry?”
“Yes.”
“For being with her?”
“No.”
The answer cut cleanly.
Vael did not look away.
“I am sorry that I did not understand what you believed existed between us. I am sorry that you felt foolish. I am sorry that you were hurting while I believed nothing had changed.”
Elara’s breath caught.
There it was.
Not guilt for an act he did not consider wrong.
Regret for what it had done to her.
It was not what she wanted.
It was, perhaps, all he could honestly give.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
The agreement surprised her.
“You understand that now?”
“Yes. If another connection begins, I should tell you.”
“Before it begins.”
“If I recognise that it is beginning.”
She almost laughed.
“You really do need everything spelled out.”
“I have found that humans prefer to leave important rules unspoken.”
Despite herself, the corner of her mouth twitched.
It vanished just as quickly.
“Don’t go to her tonight.”
Vael nodded, then paused.
“Do you mean tonight, or always?”
The question hurt more than it should have.
Elara looked towards the hallway.
Saige’s door remained closed.
“Tonight,” she said. “I cannot decide the rest yet.”
“Then I will not go to her tonight.”
“And if she asks?”
“I will refuse.”
“What will you tell her?”
“That you asked me not to.”
“No.”
Vael waited.
Elara forced herself to think past the anger.
“Tell her you cannot. Nothing more.”
“That would be incomplete.”
“Yes.”
“You want me to conceal the reason.”
“For one night.”
He considered the request, then nodded.
“For one night.”
Silence settled between them.
The light shifted from grey to gold, warming the kitchen table between them. The house began to wake around their stillness—the pipes ticking in the wall, birds gathering along the verandah rail, the old refrigerator shuddering into life.
Elara did not forgive him.
She did not send him away.
She sat across from the man who was not a man and tried to understand the shape of a betrayal that had existed entirely in her expectations, yet hurt as deeply as any deliberate wound.
Vael remained with her.
Still.
Patient.
Waiting while she decided what came next.
The day passed in fragments Elara could not hold together.
She fed the horses. Mucked three stalls. Checked the water troughs in the south paddock. Her body moved through the routines while her mind circled the same ground—the image of Vael closing Saige's door, the curve of his spine in the grey light, the way he had not looked guilty because he had not understood there was something to feel guilty about.
She showered in the middle of the afternoon.
She stood under the water until it ran cold, watching the dust and hay and sweat spiral down the drain, and she tried to find a version of this where she was not still waiting for him to appear in the doorway of her bedroom tonight.
She found none.
By evening she had stopped trying.
——
The house settled into darkness. Saige's door had stayed closed since morning—she had claimed a headache, stayed in bed, emerged only once for tea before retreating. Elara had not knocked. She had not known what she would say if she did.
Vael had worked the western boundary fence alone. She had seen him from the yard, a distant figure moving along the treeline, his shape familiar and strange at once—a man she had taught to wear clothes, to hold tools, to walk through human hours without breaking the rhythm.
And now a man she had to teach what belonged to her, because he had never known it could.
Saige left just after breakfast.
She moved through the house with the brittle efficiency of someone who did not want to linger. Bag over one shoulder. Keys in hand. A quick kiss against Elara’s cheek that landed slightly off-centre.
“I’ll call you later.”
Elara nodded.
She watched her daughter cross the yard, climb into the car and reverse towards the track. Vael stood near the stables with one hand resting on the top rail, his attention following the vehicle until it disappeared beyond the trees.
Then he looked towards Elara.
She turned away first.
The day passed with deliberate distance between them.
They worked on opposite sides of the property where they could. When their paths crossed, they spoke only about what needed doing. Feed. Fencing. The chestnut mare. A loose hinge on the machinery shed.
Vael did not press her.
That almost made it worse.
By evening, the house felt hollow without Saige in it.
Elara cooked because the routine gave her hands something to do. She made too much food, served it without asking whether Vael was hungry, then sat across from him at the kitchen table and ate almost nothing.
He did not comment.
When the plates were empty, Vael stood and reached for hers.
“Leave them.”
He stopped.
“Sit down.”
He returned to the chair.
Elara gathered the plates and carried them to the sink. She rinsed each one slowly, set it in the rack, wiped the bench, then folded the tea towel into a square that did not need folding.
Only when there was nothing left to do did she turn around.
Vael waited exactly where she had left him.
The kitchen was the same room in which everything had broken open the morning before. The same table. The same chairs. The same clock ticking too loudly on the wall.
But the house was empty now.
No closed bedroom door down the hall. No daughter close enough to overhear what came next.
Elara leaned back against the sink.
“I’ve decided what happens for now.”
Vael’s attention sharpened.
“When Saige is here, I stay away from you. She already believes there is nothing between us. That remains true as far as she is concerned.”
“You want me to conceal you from her.”
“Yes.”
The contradiction sat plainly between them. Elara had spent the previous morning demanding honesty and now asked for secrecy.
She did not try to make it cleaner than it was.
“I’m not ready for Saige to know that I know. I’m not ready for Bryce to know anything. And I’m not ready to end this with you.”
Vael watched her without interruption.
“When she is gone,” Elara continued, “you may still come to me. If I ask.”
“And when she is here?”
“You do not come to my room. You do not touch me in a way she could notice. Whatever happens between us stays hidden.”
Vael accepted that with a slight inclination of his head.
“There are other rules.”
“I am listening.”
“Saige never learns what you are.”
He remained still.
“She does not learn about the crash. She does not learn you are alien. She does not see you transform. Not once.”
“Even if she asks why I seem different?”
“You tell her what you have already told everyone else. That you came from far away.”
“She may continue asking.”
“Then continue not answering.”
He considered that, then nodded.
Elara looked down at the table before forcing herself to continue.
“And you do not tell her about us.”
“She may ask directly.”
“Then you avoid the question.”
“That is concealment.”
“Yes.”
“You were hurt by concealment.”
“I know.”
The words came more sharply than she intended.
Vael waited.
Elara folded her arms, holding herself together.
“I am asking for time. I am asking you to let me decide when this becomes something spoken aloud.”
He studied her face.
“You want Saige to believe she is the only person connected to me.”
“For now.”
“And you will know that she is not.”
“Yes.”
The imbalance sounded ugly when he laid it bare.
Elara did not deny it.
“I know it is unfair.”
“Why choose it?”
“Because part of me thinks this may pass.”
Vael remained quiet.
“She is curious,” Elara continued. “She reaches for new things hard, then decides whether they belong in her life.”
“You believe she may stop.”
“Maybe. She may get bored. She may realise Bryce is what she actually wants and choose him properly.”
“And if she does not?”
Elara looked towards the dark hallway.
“Then I will deal with that when I have to.”
“You are allowing this because you want her to be happy.”
“I want both of them to be happy. That is the problem.”
She looked back at him.
“Bryce loves her. She loves him. I do not want to destroy that over something she may decide was only curiosity.”
“And you?”
Elara held his gaze.
“I still want you.”
The admission settled into the space between them.
Vael did not move towards her. He did not soften it with reassurance.
He simply listened.
Elara crossed the room and rested both hands against the back of the chair opposite him.
“If another connection begins with anyone else, you tell me the moment you recognise it. You do not wait until I discover it.”
“I will.”
“If I ask a question, you answer honestly. Even when you think the truth will hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“You do not assume silence means consent. If you do not know whether something is allowed, you ask.”
“I understand.”
“And when I tell you a human rule matters, you trust that it does, even if it makes no sense to you.”
Vael nodded.
“I will learn.”
The promise landed differently from an apology.
It did not change what had happened. It did not ask her to forgive him. It offered only the possibility that he would understand more next time.
Elara looked at him across the kitchen where they had argued until the morning light turned gold.
“Do you accept what exists between Saige and me?” he asked.
“No.”
He waited.
“It means I know what I am choosing now.”
Something shifted in his expression. Recognition, perhaps.
Elara released the chair.
“Come with me.”
Vael rose.
She led him down the hallway.
⸻
Inside her bedroom, Elara stopped and turned.
The room looked exactly as it had the day before. The bed neatly made. Curtains half drawn. Clothes folded across the chair. The water stain still spreading slowly across the ceiling.
Only she had changed.
Vael remained near the door.
“Human tonight,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I do not need something new.”
She looked over the body she knew. The same shoulders she had watched disappear through Saige’s door. The same hands that had touched them both.
“I need to know I still want you exactly as you were yesterday morning.”
Vael held her gaze.
“And do you?”
Elara crossed the room until only a breath remained between them.
“Yes.”
She kissed him before she could think past the answer.
The kiss carried everything she had not spent. Anger. Humiliation. Need. Vael absorbed it without retreating, his hands settling at her waist and stopping there.
Waiting.
Elara pulled back.
“Do not make me choose every movement tonight.”
“You told me not to assume.”
“I am telling you now.”
His grip tightened.
He kissed her again.
This time he moved with intent.
One hand slid into her hair. The other drew her hard against him. Elara felt the familiar heat of his body through their clothes, and the knowledge of Saige remained between them like a shadow neither could erase.
She did not try.
Vael’s mouth moved along her jaw.
Elara caught his face and turned him back towards her.
“Do not lie to make this easier.”
“I will not.”
“Did you want her?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
She kissed him again anyway.
Jealousy sharpened everything. The pressure of his hands. The scrape of his jaw. The familiar taste of his mouth complicated now by the knowledge that he had given it elsewhere.
Elara pulled his shirt over his head.
He reached for hers.
She let him.
They undressed without performance, every movement direct and unhidden. When they were naked, Elara stepped back and looked at him.
Human.
Entirely.
No borrowed traits. No unfamiliar anatomy to hide behind.
Vael reached for her.
She took his hand and led him to the bed.
He sat when she pressed against his shoulder. Elara remained standing between his knees, looking down at him.
“You understand that this does not make yesterday disappear.”
“Yes.”
“That I am still angry.”
“Yes.”
“That I may change my mind.”
“I understand.”
His hands settled against her hips.
Elara climbed onto his lap.
She took his face between her palms and held his gaze as she lowered herself against him. The first contact was painfully familiar.
No surprise.
No discovery.
Only recognition.
She knew this body. She knew what it did to her.
Knowing he had shared it with Saige changed the meaning of the moment, but not the fact that she still wanted him.
Elara kissed him slowly.
Vael’s hands moved over her back, her waist, the curve of her hips. Every touch belonged to a pattern they had built together. There was no novelty to distract her from what she was choosing.
She moved against him.
Vael drew a breath and held her closer.
“Look at me,” she said.
He did.
Elara kept his eyes as she guided him inside her.
The stretch was familiar. The angle known. His body entered hers without adjustment or experiment, filling the space it had already shaped over months of nights together.
She stopped when he was fully seated.
Neither of them moved.
“This is different now,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You are not mine.”
“No.”
The answer cut through her despite everything they had already said.
Vael’s hands tightened at her waist.
“But I am here because I choose to be.”
“With me.”
“With you.”
Elara began to move.
Slowly at first, holding his shoulders, controlling the rise and fall of her body. Vael followed until she stopped him with a hand against his chest.
“I said not to wait for every choice.”
He shifted beneath her.
The next movement came from him.
His hands pulled her down as his hips drove upward, harder than she expected. Elara gasped and caught herself against his shoulders.
Again.
This time she met him.
They found the rhythm together. No instruction. No experiment. Only two bodies already fluent in each other.
Vael’s mouth found her throat.
Elara closed her eyes, then opened them again.
She would not disappear into sensation. She wanted to remain present inside the decision she had made.
The same man.
The same body.
The same hands that had closed Saige’s door.
Still wanted.
Still here.
Vael turned them, lowering her onto the mattress without breaking the connection between them. He braced himself above her and moved deeper.
Elara wrapped her legs around him.
“Do you regret coming to me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you want me to stop seeing her?”
The question entered the room between movements.
Elara’s fingers tightened against his back.
“I don’t know.”
Vael slowed.
She pulled him closer.
“Do not stop.”
He obeyed.
The uncertainty remained. So did the anger. Neither prevented her body from answering him.
Pleasure gathered gradually, built from familiarity and the unbearable clarity of her own choice. Vael watched her face, adjusting as he always had.
There was no borrowed form to make the sensation strange.
Only him.
Elara reached between them.
Vael caught her wrist gently.
“Let me.”
She released the choice.
His fingers found her with practised precision, and her breath broke.
The climax rose quickly once it began, tightening through her until she could no longer hold his gaze. She pulled him down and buried her face against his shoulder as her body clenched around him.
Vael held her through it.
He followed moments later, his rhythm breaking, his mouth against her temple as he came.
They remained tangled together while their breathing slowed.
⸻
Vael lay beside her afterward, human and quiet.
Elara rested on her back, staring at the ceiling.
She had not forgiven him.
She was no longer certain forgiveness was the right word for something he had never understood as wrong.
She had accepted nothing cleanly.
She had only drawn a boundary around the contradiction and chosen to remain inside it.
When Saige stayed at Ironstone, Elara would keep her distance.
When Saige was gone, Vael could still come to her bed.
Saige would never know he was alien. She would never see him transform. She would not know that Elara still touched him, slept beside him, or asked for things Saige did not know were possible.
Bryce would know nothing.
Only Elara would know the whole arrangement.
Perhaps Saige’s curiosity would burn itself out. Perhaps she would return to Bryce and decide the life they had planned mattered more than the temptation of something new.
Elara wanted to believe that.
For now, she let herself.
She turned her head.
Vael was watching her.
“What?”
“You are still thinking.”
“I may never stop.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Elara considered the question.
“No.”
He settled back against the pillow.
After a moment, she moved closer and rested her head on his chest.
“It means nothing is solved,” she said.
“I understand.”
“It means I may change my mind.”
“I understand that too.”
Elara closed her eyes.
For now, Saige would have him when she was there.
Elara would have him when she was gone.
Only Elara would know they were sharing him.
It was unfair.
Dishonest.
Temporary, she told herself.
But when Vael’s arm closed around her, she did not move away.