I looked at Mira—really looked—and something inside me twisted, not with the usual hunger, but with something quieter, heavier.
She was sitting there, naked and unguarded in the dying firelight, her hand resting on my arm as it belonged there, her eyes soft with a worry that felt too real, too kind for someone I'd spent the night tormenting. She was worried about me. About the tears I couldn't hide. About the boy she saw beneath the beast.
And fuck, that kindness only made me want her more.
Not just her body—though God, that was still burning through me—but her. All of her. The mother who saw pain and didn't run from it.
The woman who could threaten castration one minute and comfort a stranger the next. The one who blushed even now, even after everything, like her own vulnerability was something shameful instead of sacred.
I swallowed, throat tight.
"Thank you," I said, voice low and rough, the words almost foreign after hours of filth and taunts.
