Zeraka was too close.
Her breath fogged against his cheek as she hovered above him like a muscle-carved nightmare in heat, fangs bared and brows drawn tight in some war she didn't know how to win.
Rein could feel her pulse through her grip—fast, erratic.
Like hers didn't match the predator calm her mouth was trying to sell.
He tried to twist out from under her again.
She held him in place easily.
"Let me up," he growled.
She didn't flinch.
Instead, she closed her eyes and inhaled again, slower this time, as if trying to confirm something she didn't want to believe.
"…No," she whispered.
Then again, louder, to herself. "No. No, this is nothing."
Her grip tightened.
"You're nothing."
"I've been called worse," Rein muttered. "Usually not during forced cuddling."
Her eye twitched.
Zeraka growled and yanked him upright with one arm, forcing him to sit with his back against a jagged boulder.
She straddled him now, thighs tensed, claws digging into the stone behind him to stop herself from crushing him outright.
"You think you're clever," she said.
"I think I'm not dead, yet. That's something."
"You're not dead because I'm curious."
Her face hovered inches from his, amber eyes boring into him with a wild hunger that was beginning to look a lot like frustration.
"Why do you smell like peace?"
Rein blinked. "What?"
"You smell like... quiet. Like the den before the first howl. Like breath before the kill. Before I was queen—before the blood and the teeth and the screaming... I knew that smell. I forgot it."
Her fingers curled into fists. Her arms trembled.
"You brought it back."
Rein didn't answer.
He couldn't.
He wasn't sure if she was about to hug him or rip his spine out through his throat.
She shook her head hard, growling.
"No. No. I conquer. I don't feel."
"Then maybe you're getting sick, your cheeks look red."
She snapped her gaze back to his.
"I should break you," she said, voice lower now. "Just to prove I'm not... whatever this is."
"Go ahead," he said quietly. "See if it helps."
The words surprised even him.
She blinked.
Her eyes narrowed.
Then, slowly, her body stilled.
Like something inside her paused.
She leaned in again, slowly, and pressed her nose to the side of his neck—just below his ear.
Rein froze.
Not from fear.
Because this time, the growl rumbling in her throat wasn't violent.
It was... confused.
"You don't flinch," she murmured. "Even now."
Rein spoke carefully. "Because you haven't hurt me."
Her next words came so softly he barely heard them:
"...I don't want to."
She pulled back. Her face hardened instantly—mask returning.
"That doesn't mean I won't."
And yet… she didn't move to strike.
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then reached up, and for the first time since the fight began, she touched his face gently—with the back of her clawed knuckles, tracing his jawline like she was still trying to understand why he did this to her.
"You make me hesitate."
Her voice was full of rage and wonder. Equal parts shame and awe.
"No one's ever made me hesitate."
Rein met her gaze.
And saw it.
The fracture.
The tiny, hairline crack in the armor of the Beast Queen of the Devourlands.