When we reach, I don't pretend as if I'm waking. I just straighten and step out of the car when Bal opens the door for me. My husband walks around the car and leads us to the elevator. With Bal with us, both my husband and I remain quiet.

When we step into the house, we keep our silence and enter into our separate rooms to shower and change.

After running the towel over my hair, I toss it into the hamper that opens up for me and step out of the room. I don't see Kri anywhere and I consider knocking on his door—

"He's waiting for you in the living space, Mrs. Kri."

Even Houston is more subdued today, as if she can tell from our moods that we were not in an exactly good mind space. I push past the swivel door and almost stop when I see my husband sitting with one arm spread along the back of the couch, relaxed into the seat as he flicked through something on his phone.

As if he sense me, his lashes lift.

Seeing the dim swirls, my anger splinters into my awareness. Not at him, at me. I hop off the path and stalk towards my husband.

His gaze is on me as he tilts his head back when I come to stand before him. I narrow my eyes at him.

"You haven't fed." I say.

He tilts his head, a small smile lifting his lips, "You haven't offered."

I clench my fists and press my eyes closed. God damn it. I open my eyes and look at him with all the anger and remorse I feel.

"I'm sorry." I say even as I settle on the couch beside him, one knee folded flat along the seat while the other leg hung over the side. My husband doesn't move, a lazy look in his eyes while still stretched out, except to turn his head to keep his face toward me.

"This is one thing you can always always take from me." I murmur, spilling the conviction of my feelings into my words, "Whether we fight or are having a good day or the house is on fire. This is a given."

My husband's eyes burn into mine.

"Do you understand?" I ask him, my gaze tracking over the purplish bruises under his eyes. I lift one hand as if to cup his face, but stop before our skins can meet.

I drop my hand.

My husband turns too, mirroring my pose, except his arm was folded with his elbow propped against the back of the couch.

"This, among many things, Alanna is not freely given." He says.

When I start to speak, he shakes his head once, almost gently and I quieten, sinking my teeth into my lower lip.

"It matters that it happens with your consent." He says, the weight of his conviction almost a touch across my skin.

I suck in a sharp breath and scoot closer, "Kri." I whisper, the backs of my eyes burning, "You always have my consent."

He has the most tender look on his face and it almost breaks me.

"Sometimes, I won't." He says, his gaze flickering over my face, "And that's fine."

My brows furrow, "What are you saying?" I whisper, "How could I..how would I ever withhold this from you?"

"Because, Alanna," My husband says, leaning closer, "It's an intimate act."

I still, his breath ghosting over my lips.

"You're providing me the sustenance I need to survive. I draw on the energy you create and release into the air. I tap into what the humans refer to as aura. Do you know what that means?" He says.

My eyes are wide on his. Enraptured by the intensity of whatever it is he is feeling.

"I'm taking something from you that no one should ever take from another." He says, the look in his eyes akin to the madness in my heart "And at any point, you are entitled to say no. Do you hear me?"

I want to lean in and press my lips against him, let him feel the quakes he creates in my heart so he can see, he can feel that everything I was, everything I created, was his for the taking.

I think he can tell, because his eyes soften on me.

"I won't ask." He says, "And I'll never make you feel like you are entitled to give what is yours."

His lashes lower, "Sometimes, I can't control it. When you're especially emotional or when I am, but I try—"

My expression crumples, tears tracking down my cheeks, I tilt my head, my hair falling on either side of my face. I sob out an apology for being the single most self-involved person in the world for having forgotten that this man hadn't eaten.

"Alanna." He murmurs.

I can't stop. I can't.

My shoulders quake and I curl within myself.

A sudden snap of realisation and I lift my head up. I would not lose myself in my own emotions and forget him.

"Yes." I say, "Please, feed."

I blink many times, trying to clear my gaze as the swirls in my husband's lock and interlock and begin to glow brighter. I physically see the difference. The bruises fade, the gauntness around his cheekbones retreat and the colour of his skin starts to shine healthily. I can only think about how much I want to kiss him.

About how, despite knowing what we were and how we had been I could be nothing like he was. I wasn't sensitive to his needs, not like he was to mine and I don't think I offered him as much space as he offered me. He saved me and my family and I truly haven't offered him anything.

Perhaps the reason he doesn't remember is because he doesn't need to, to be everything he was.

Love blooms and bursts inside me and I see my husband still, his eyes flaring icy blue and the swirls locking and interchanging quicker. My gaze drops to his lips and it takes me a moment before I can snap my gaze back to his eyes.

I want to kiss him.

And I know he must have not just seen my need but felt it.

A few seconds later, my husband's eyes close, his lashes a lush black against his skin, his hair shining blue under the lights. When he opens his eyes, they are far far healthier than they had been.

I vow to myself that never again.

Never again I would let this happen.

Another corner of my mind reminds me to speak to Houston. I had asked her for statistics on my husband and his consumption. Why had I not gotten it?

I drag in a deep ragged breath when my husband leans away and turns, settling back against the couch. I lick my dried lips as I trace my gaze over his profile.

"Kri," I say.

His gaze slants back over to me.

"I wouldn't have left you." I find myself saying, "Even if Fré hadn't come and saved us, I wouldn't have left you."

My husband says nothing for almost a whole minute, having turned his head to look at me.

"You would've died." My husband says.

I let him see in my eyes when I say, "I know."

Something flares in his own gaze in reaction and I can tell it's almost anger.

"That's the single most—"

"Would you have left me?" I challenge, my chin tipping up.

His jaw hardens, his eyes narrow.

"It's a moot point." He says.

I smile sweetly, "Let's make it a hypothetical one, husband." I say, leaning forward and propping my chin against my palm, my elbow resting against the side of my knee.

"Phrase it for me then, wife." He says, his own lips twitching.

"Let's say, it was my seatbelt that stuck. What would you have done?" I ask.

"I would have burned the water dry." He says and I straighten, eyes widening.

His eyes burn into me, reaching the depths of my soul as he says, "I would have broken the skies and used it as leverage against the world to save you." He says.

"I wouldn't have died in there with you." He says, "I would have ensured we lived."

A slow smile lifts my face, thrill speeding up my veins.

"Careful there, husband, I might start to think you actually like me."

His fierce expression relaxes to a smirk, "Then I would say that perhaps you inhaled too much water."

I let out a laugh. "Liar." I say, poking him in the arm. "You do like me."

He rolls his eyes, lifting the remote and turning on the large screen. The lights dim on their own to facilitate a theatre like viewing as I reach over to grab the remote from his hands. I know that only reason I can snatch it is because he lets me.

"Admit it, Kri." I say, smiling triumphantly. "You like me."

I hold up two fingers with little space between them, "A little."

He lifts one hand, spreading the gap between my fingers just a little bit more.

"That seems about accurate." He says and smiles widely at me when I beam at him, luxuriating at the warm electricity that travels up my fingers at his touch.

"Now play me something interesting, wife." he says, leaning away and crossing one leg over the other, the ankle of one leg resting on the knee of its twin. He spreads his arm out again along the back of the couch while I begin to search for the movie that we never finished watching.

When Houston sees me press resume, she says, "Uh oh."

I chuckle, then repeat the sentiment in my head when the movie plays. And it begins at the same glass shattering moment that it had ended.

Oh Lord.

I cover my eyes and lean back, the back of my head brushing against my husband's stretched out arm. But neither does he move nor do I.

But I'm not sure if it's because we don't want to, or because the protagonist is running to her bedroom from where the sound had emanated to find the jar and glass she had placed on the bedside table intact.

Just when we think everything is fine, the camera pans away and we see that while the water was filled in the jar and the glass was empty and upturned, there was a large patch of water on the carpet.

"Holy shit." I whisper.

"There are many plausible reasons for this." Houston offers, "Perhaps her water broke."

"She's not pregnant." I say, staring wide eyed through covered fingers at the screen.

"How do you know?" Houston asks.

"Her stomach is flatter than the floor." I mutter.

"I'm sorry, was there supposed to be a rational plot line in this movie?" Houston asks, "Because the first rational thing would be to leave that house."

I hold my breath when the protagonist kneels to the water spot on the carpet and reaches out as if to touch it. The moment she touches it, her fingers sink straight through the carpet and her hand disappears til her wrist. I let out a shriek in time in time with the protagonist as she rears back and falls on her bottom, crab walking away.

She gasps, looking at her whole hand and then back at the wet spot on the carpet.

"Kri." I whisper. Then shriek when continuous sounds of banging on wood is sounded through the speakers.

"Don't open the door, you deranged girl." Houston cries as the protagonist gets to her feet and rushes to the door.

"Yeah?" Kri says.

I watch with bated breath as she opens the door to reveal...

Nothing. No one.

She looks around and other than an empty porch lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling there's absolutely nothing but darkness. She shuts the door and begins to walk away.

Knocking sounds again.

"I don't think I can watch this." I tell my husband.

"You probably shouldn't." My husband murmurs.

The girl on the screen turns back to the door again and just as she's about to open it, the knocking sounds again. But from elsewhere. Elsewhere inside the house. The girl freezes.

"Oh hell no." I say and bury my face behind my knees.

My husband laughs and pauses the movie.

I begin to rock. "I can't." I tell him, locking my arms around my calves.

"Fine, let's watch something else."

I sit up immediately, feet touching the floor. "Really?" I ask.

"Should I be worried?" He asks me even as he hands me the remote.

"Kri," I say as I cross my legs on the couch, "With me, you probably always should be worried."

I start to scroll through the most romance-y of the films. Not flowers and unicorns. But deep and intense.

Choosing an old classic and a very favourite of mine, I press play and lean back. As the beginning credits begin to scroll, I look at my husband.

Only the light from the screen illuminated his face, his skin a luscious midnight that tempted me to lean closer and...

"Next time, don't make me leave." I tell him.

He doesn't say anything for so long, until—

"There will never be a next time." He says.

"I won't ever abandon ship." I say as if he hadn't spoken.

My husband turns to look at me and at the exact moment, a loud sound jerks me in my seat.

Thunder.

I turn to look and notice that shades had been drawn over the glass wall to add to the effect in the room and I could barely see past it to know if it were raining or not. I turn back to my husband as water begins to patter against the glass.

"It would be the smart thing to do." He says.

I smile, "I'd rather be an idiot with you by my side than a smart woman alone."

My husband's eyes narrow but he doesn't otherwise say anything else.

"Oh, I'm liking this."

I blink and wonder what in Heaven's name Houston was talking about until I realise that the hero had arrived on the screen. I roll my eyes, but chuckle. Of course this was her genre.

"How come she's so much like me?" I ask Kri.

Kri lifts one shoulder, "The program runs to ensure a generally even personality is created so clashing traits don't appear together."

I turn to stare at my husband, "She's just a smart home." I say, "Why did you write such a complex program for her?"

My husband looks at me, a little funnily, "You spend the majority of your time home. She's your all-time companion. Why would I write a half-assed program for her?"

My heart melts and I turn to look at the screen, my eyes stinging.

"Damn you, husband." I mutter under my breath.

"Damn you too, wife." He says, his own voice low and skating along my senses.

We sit like that for another twenty five minutes, our shoulders a hairsbreadth apart, the water thundering against the glass. With each minute that passes, the air between us start to simmer.

I barely even breathe, trying to sink my fingers into my palms to keep from reaching out to him. None of the words he said on that first day come back to me. All that comes to my mind is the words he said today. His actions. All of them.

All the different ways he's shown me what I mean to him.

He's evasive but he's also really really open.

How he balanced the two I don't know, but Lord...

I'm barely paying any attention to the screen, until—

A soft sound comes through the speakers. My shoulders stiffen and my eyes widen. A full-blown sex scene begins to play out on the screen before us. The air between my husband and me ratchets up and it all but burns me inside out.

My heart pounds all the way to my head and my heart struggles not to bound right into his arms. I press my eyes closed.

When the couple on the screen whisper soft words of love to one another, I turn to my husband. With a start, I notice that his own hand is fisted along the arm of the couch. It tightens when he realises I'm looking at him.

When I whisper his name, he gets up and is out of the room before I can blink. I pause the screen and turn around, looking for him.

I see him in the kitchen, his hands braced against the breakfast counter.

Heart pounding, I stand on shaky legs and head towards him. I walk through the kitchen door and come to stand behind him. I raise my hand and see that it trembles. I take a deep breath and lay it on his back.

He whips around and my hand falls away, shock registering on my face at the speed of his movement.

I'm looking up at him and he's staring down at me.

He looks as if he has a million things to say, but his lips press together as if suddenly he couldn't say them anymore.

"You should leave." He says finally, his hands fisting and releasing at his side. His gaze swirls and stops. Swirls. Stops.

"And...if I don't want to?" I whisper, taking a step closer.

He lets out a slow breath. "Back away, Alanna." His eyes begin to swirl again.

I see something in his stance. In his eyes. In the hard line of his jaw.

I realised that while his body wanted this, his mind...his mind wasn't ready yet.

I take a slow step away.

Another.

One more. Before I turn and leave.

I keep walking until I can close the door of my room behind me and lean against it.

I close my eyes as thunder shakes the skies outside.

The only way a future was possible between us if his mind joined the progress his body was making. And all this was only possible if I held his heart.

Like he held mine