The door opened with a soft creak.

  Axel stepped in slowly, his massive frame almost too large for the quiet stillness of the healer’s hall. The golden morning light spilled in behind him, catching faintly on the green shimmer of his scaled arms and the edge of his armor.

  But his eyes were locked on her.

  Red-rimmed. Tired. Wide with something between hope and dread.

  “Mal…?” he said softly. Like her name alone might shatter the air between them.

  She didn’t speak at first.

  She just looked at him.

  Her hair was a mess, her face blotchy with tears, the blanket barely clinging to her shoulders and still, he looked at her like she was the most devastatingly beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  Axel took one hesitant step forward.

  She didn’t flinch.

  Another.

  Still no reaction.

  His throat worked as he swallowed hard, voice rough and low. “Darius said you… wanted to see me.”

  Her fingers clenched faintly in the blanket, heart pounding in her throat. But she nodded. Small. Sharp. Like if she hesitated, the whole thing might fall apart.

  “I don’t really know what to say,” she admitted, her voice hoarse.

  “That’s okay,” he said quickly, almost stumbling over the words. “You don’t have to say anything. I just… I didn’t know if I’d ever get to see you again like this.”

  He hesitated in the middle of the room, like he didn’t know if he was allowed to get closer.

  And then she did it, she reached out.

  Just her hand barely lifted from her lap, fingers trembling slightly but it was enough.

  Axel’s breath hitched and he dropped to his knees beside her cot like gravity had finally caught up to him.

  He didn’t grab her. Didn’t speak, just knelt by her side.

  Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, the weight, the strength, the ache but not touching unless she said it was okay.

  “I…” he started, then stopped. His voice was softer when he tried again. “I don’t care that you didn’t feel it.”

  Her eyes flicked toward him, wet and searching.

  “I mean, I care,” he corrected quickly, a huff of nervous breath escaping. “Of course I care. It hurts. But… I never wanted to force it. I just-” He looked down, jaw tight. “I just needed to know you still see me. Even without the bond screaming in your head.”

  She stared at him for a long moment.

  Then wiped her face with the sleeve of her tunic, sniffed hard, and murmured, “I do.”

  Axel looked up.

  Malachite gave a watery little smile.

  “I see you, Axel. I always did.”

  It landed like a stone in still water rippling out into everything he was holding back.

  And then, barely louder than a whisper, “I thought I lost you.”

  Malachite’s gaze flicked up to him, startled.

  He looked down, jaw clenched, hands flexing like they still remembered the weight of that moment.

  “When I saw your body-” His voice cracked. “Gods, Mal… you were broken. Mangled. Bloodied. Like you’d been torn apart.”

  His throat bobbed with a hard swallow.

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  “You were flung off a godsdamned mountainside, and you didn’t have wings to catch you. You landed like stone, and still you crawled up just to fight those things off of her.”

  His eyes lifted, blazing and wet.

  “You shielded her with your spine. And then tore through a swarm of serpents like death didn’t matter like you didn’t matter just to keep Imogen alive.”

  Malachite’s mouth parted, but nothing came out. The weight of it hit too fast. Too hard.

  Axel’s voice dropped lower and darker.

  “I didn’t care about the strategy. The lines. The war effort. I didn’t care what was smart, or noble, or right.” His jaw tightened, trembling just slightly. “I just wanted to burn the godsdamn world for what it did to you.”

  Her breath hitched, the raw truth of it crashing into her chest like a second fall.

  “I’ve never felt rage like that,” he whispered. “And I’ve never been so scared. Not for my life. For yours.”

  He looked at her, and everything in him softened.

  “I don’t need the bond to tell me what I already knew,” Axel said, voice rough and trembling. “I just need you. Alive. Here. Trying.”

  Malachite stared at him, her breath catching in her throat.

  The room was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Like even the air was waiting.

  She whispered,

  “I didn’t think anyone would care what happened to me.”

  Axel’s brows knit, but he didn’t speak.

  She blinked hard, her voice breaking as the truth spilled out slow and cracked and aching.

  “I thought… as long as I did the job as long as I completed what was expected of me that was enough. And if I broke along the way?” She let out a shaky breath. “That just meant I did it right.”

  Axel looked like she’d punched him straight in the heart.

  Malachite tried to laugh but it fell apart before it even started.

  “No one ever cared how I came back,” she said, eyes glassy. “Only that I did.”

  Her fingers dug into the edge of the blanket, the fight trying to come back but it didn’t land this time. Her voice was too tired and her emotions too raw.

  “And when I saw your face… when you looked at me like that…” Her lip trembled. “I didn’t know what to do with it. Because I’ve never been someone. I’ve just been… function.”

  A long silence stretched between them.

  Axel didn’t say a word, he just reached out again, this time slower. More certain and gently, without a word, took her hand and held it like she was everything.

  When he finally looked at her, his eyes were no longer calm.

  They burned.

  Not with rage at her. But with a fury so sharp, so ancient, it felt like the echo of something primal. Something draconic. Something bonded.

  His voice came low and shaking. “They made you believe that,” he growled. “Whoever told you that you were just a weapon. Just a role to fill. That you weren’t worth protecting-”

  His body flexed as he shook his head, “I should burn them for it.”

  Malachite blinked, stunned by the force of it.

  Axel leaned closer, his voice a rumble not yelling, but seething.

  “If the world made you think your pain didn’t matter, then the world is wrong. And I would watch it burn before I let it do that to you again.”

  His hand opened again, resting over his heart.

  “I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care if you never feel the bond, or if it takes years to wake. I’ll fight anything that tries to take you from me.”

  He looked her dead in the eye.

  “And I swear, Malachite, if I have to tear the mountains down stone by stone to prove you matter, I will.”

  She stared at him.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks silently now, no longer fought. No longer hidden.

  She leaned in, reaching for him. No jokes as armor, no hesitation.

  She reached across the space between them and pressed herself into his chest, small and trembling and whole in his arms.

  Axel caught her like he’d been waiting his entire life.

  And wrapped his arms around her with a gentleness no one would’ve expected from a dragon born for war.

  No words passed between them after that.

  They just held on.

  To each other.

  To the moment.

  To the beginning of everything.

  Malachite rested against him, her forehead tucked beneath his chin, her breath still ragged from crying.

  Axel held her like something precious, something sacred. His hand slowly brushed up and down her back, not saying anything, not rushing her.

  Just… being there..

  And then, barely above a whisper, she murmured into his shoulder- “Thank you… for not giving up on me.”

  Axel’s breath caught.

  His hand paused.

  Then he leaned in, lips brushing the crown of her head as he whispered back:

  “I’m not letting go.”