He was the first man she had seen since stepping foot on land.
The first voice to call her something other than myth or memory. The first soul who looked at her without reverence or fear but with curiosity sharp enough to slice through the carefully woven veil of who she was.
And Nerina had fallen silently, completely, and far too fast.
It wasn't just the dark waves of his hair or the strong, precise lines of his jaw. It wasn't just the way he moved, like someone who carried his world alone and made no apology for it. It was something beneath all that a shadow in his gaze that whispered of a sadness that matched her own. She saw it in fleeting glances when he forgot to guard himself. She heard it in the silences between his sarcastic remarks.
It was loneliness, maybe. Or the kind of heartbreak that hardened instead of healed.
And now, he sat across from her again this man with the weight of empires behind his name and offered her not love, not tenderness, but escape.
"No promises, no complications. Just... this."
Just one night. Just the body. Just the ache.
Her heart didn't break in one clean line. It splintered slow and quiet like driftwood crushed under the tide. She had imagined the first time differently. Softer. Honest. Sacred, even.
But here she was.
His voice, usually smooth and sharp, held something unsteady now. A rawness she hadn't expected.
Theo wasn't pretending to be gentle he was simply being honest in the only way he knew how. He had told her who he was from the start: a man who didn't believe in love, who buried his wounds in work and polished steel. But even so, hearing those words those cold, transactional words rattled her more than she could have prepared for.
Her hands, folded neatly in her lap, trembled just enough to give her away.
He only wants the surface of me.
He doesn't see the soul. He doesn't know the storm.
Her pearl a small, warm weight at the hollow of her throat pulsed faintly, sensing the emotion swelling behind her chest. Her last one. Her final tear. It hadn't fallen yet, but it was close.
She swallowed hard.
Outside, the moonlight stretched thin across the sand. Waves whispered to the shore, hissing secrets only the old knew. The sea called her in those moments of doubt. It always had. But tonight, it didn't feel like home. Not fully. Not since she'd seen him.
"I don't know your world," Nerina said softly, her voice trembling like the tide pulling back before a wave crashes. "And maybe you don't know mine. But this… this isn't nothing to me."
Her words came out thinner than she intended. There was no defiance only ache. Only truth.
Theo's brows furrowed, ever so slightly. She couldn't read him, not fully, and it made her feel foolishly fragile. Maybe he was regretting asking. Maybe he didn't care about her hesitation. Maybe he'd already started detaching, like so many surface men were taught to do.
She looked away, ashamed of her own silence. Ashamed of how much she wanted him despite everything.
How could she want someone who couldn't see her?
Because he's the only one who ever tried.
He reached across the table slowly, fingers brushing the side of her hand not quite a touch, more of a test. Her skin shivered at the nearness.
"I don't do this often," he said quietly. "I barely do this at all."
She looked up again, startled.
"I've been alone a long time, Nerina. Not because I have to be, but because it's easier. Safer."
There was a flicker of honesty in his eyes now barely there, like the glow of distant lighthouse in fog. And she realized he wasn't offering her nothing. Not truly. It was the most he could give, the only way he knew how to let someone in briefly, temporarily, beautifully flawed.
Still, it wasn't what she needed. And yet… she was frozen.
Every instinct urged her to say no. To preserve her soul, her pearl, her hope. But the air between them was thick with longing unspoken, unanswered, undeniable.
She wanted to know what it would feel like.
To be touched by someone who made her forget she was waiting for fate.
Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Her lips parted, but the words wouldn't come. Refusal, acceptance neither felt quite right. She was caught in a tide far stronger than herself.
In her silence, he stood. Slowly. Gently.
"I'll go," he said, voice low. "Unless you ask me to stay."
He wasn't pressuring her. He wasn't pleading. Just standing there, vulnerable in the only way he knew how.
Nerina stared at him, heart pounding like the surf. Her voice always so clear, so certain had abandoned her.
And somewhere, far in the distance, the sea held its breath.