Sochi;

[sochi]

SOCHI

There is a part of her that is relieved to hear the words. Part of her that wants to swallow them down and then forget the suspicion that has ever sprouted in her mind—whichever part of her first picked up on the sense that was something was amiss. But the larger part of her loathes that reaction—hates herself for even feeling it. It is a weakness, she knows. It is a cowardly thing to cow to her own needs, letting it bend her spine like a sapling so that she may continue to keep that which she was unable to keep on her own.

No, she may turn a blind eye to her emotions, but she would not blind herself to the truth.

So she doesn’t instantly warm to his raw confessions, despite the way she would have once folded into his embrace. She remains steely, still, her face wiped clean of whatever emotion churns within her. She just watches him and realizes that he wouldn’t be saying such things if there was nothing to spur it onward. She, after all, had not accused him of anything—or even demanded answers.

This reaction more than anything perhaps cements the feeling in her belly.

Turns the suspicion into something more real, more tangible.

A single ear flicks toward him in the thicket of her mane, her scarred lips pressed into a clean, neutral line. For another section, she is silent before she continues. “I once told you to never apologize to me for being a predator.” She remembers the day clearly; remembers how often she has told him that he would never need to apologize to her for his base desires, his feral nature. She would not turn her back on her word now. “I certainly don’t need nor want to hear you begin apologizing for it now.”

It is still a guess, a pivot of the conversation based purely on her conjecture, but she doesn’t waiver or act anything but confident. Her nose twitches lightly, tail flicking at the back of her legs as she brings her gaze to his mismatched ones, holding it steady without blinking. “But if you are not mine, completely,” she lingers on the word a little, mulling it over as though to learn the meaning, “then I am not yours.”

She says it decisively and yet, still, almost casually with little heat behind the words. After all, she meant was she said about him not apologizing for acting every inch of the predator he was—for going after that which he may want in the moment. She knew he was a dragon before she agreed to these ties, but she was not something to be tucked away—someone to be content being claimed and owned while he was free to act on his every whim. So she lifts her chin, studying him, surprisingly relaxed in the silence that follows.

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed