"I'm here to talk," Theron said.
He didn't like the way she looked at him—guarded, distant, as though he were someone she had already decided to leave behind. But this time, he wouldn't walk away. Not again.
Once, she had pushed him away when she had nothing. Now she stood there with a fire-breathing creature at her side and a will strong enough to keep him out entirely.
So he forced himself to be careful. Painfully careful.
Against every instinct, every shard of pride and status he had been raised with, Theron admitted something he would never say aloud…
He needed her more than she needed him.
And somewhere beneath all that distance, all that hurt, he knew she didn't truly hate him. She couldn't. She still felt too much. But that hurt he had caused… it sat between them like something sharp, something she couldn't touch without bleeding.
He wasn't going to lose her because of it.
Not this time.
"About what?" Aveline asked.
