"I didn't expect company," I replied, keeping my tone light, careless. "And I was in my own room."
"That doesn't make it acceptable."
I tilted my head. "Since when do you care about that?"
I watched the moment he noticed it the way my hands weren't shaking anymore, the way my breathing had steadied too quickly for someone who'd supposedly just been crying.
So I moved first.
I stepped closer, slow and deliberate, closing the space between us before he could decide what he was feeling about it. My fingers brushed his chest, just barely, like I was testing the reality of him being there.
"Are you here to lecture me," I asked softly, "or to check on me?"
His jaw tightened. "Seren said you were crying."
I let my eyes soften, lashes lowering. Not a lie. Just incomplete.
"I was."
Silence stretched between us.
I pinched myself hard to make my eyes watery so he'd take my side, trying to act like the victim even though I already was. My eye watered from the pain, the old bruise still there, just starting to heal.
"I don't like seeing you upset," he said finally. "Especially when I don't know why."
That was the truth.
I could've stopped there. Could've stepped back. Could've told him to leave.
Instead, I leaned in.
"Then don't leave me alone tonight."
The words landed heavier than I expected.
Claude inhaled slowly,
"Reanna," he said quietly.
The nickname he uses when he's trying to be nice is just a softer, slightly different way of saying my name, Reanna not Rihanna.
I reached for the buttons of his shirt, undoing one. Just one.
He caught my wrist immediately.
"You don't get to do this," he said, voice soft. "You don't get to act fragile one moment and then "
"Then what?" I asked, meeting his eyes. "Act like I don't care?"
That stopped him.
The silence cracked.
Claude let go of my wrist, his touch easing like he didn't want to hurt me anymore. His hand slid up slowly, fingers slipping into my hair, careful and steady, like he was trying to hold me together instead of hold me still. When he kissed me, it wasn't harsh or demanding, just warm and certain, quieting every racing thought. I didn't resist. I didn't need to.
I let myself fall back onto the bed.
His hands moved slowly, never wandering where they shouldn't, gentle without even trying to be, respectful like it was simply second nature to him. When his fingers brushed my shoulders, something in me reacted on instinct my back arching, my body going still for just a second too long.
Claude noticed.
"What is it?" he asked quietly, easing back just enough to see my face.
"Nothing," I said, too fast, the word tripping over itself.
He didn't look suspicious, just worried, like he hated the thought of me being uncomfortable. His gaze softened as he studied me, then, mercifully, he didn't push. His hand simply shifted, resting warm and steady at my side instead.
Later much later when the room had gone quiet again and the tension had drained into something almost peaceful, I lay still beside him, listening to his breathing even out.
Claude didn't sleep easily.
I did.
Her breathing slowed gradually, the tension easing from her body in quiet increments Claude hadn't realized he'd been counting. What had begun as shallow, uneven breaths evened out until they settled into something softer, something steady.
She was asleep.
Claude didn't move right away. His arm remained around her, careful not to shift her weight, as though any sudden motion might wake her or send her pulling away. The room was quiet except for the faint sound of the curtains stirring with the night air.
His hand rested against her back.
At first, he hadn't meant to notice anything unusual. It was an absentminded touch, a familiar gesture meant to ground himself more than anything else. But then his fingers slowed.
Stopped.
There beneath his palm.
Faint ridges, barely raised, tracing lines across her skin where no one would ever think to look. Old. He could tell that much immediately. Not recent, not healing. Carefully hidden.
Deliberate.
His chest tightened.
Claude shifted just enough to see without waking her, the movement slow and controlled. The scars caught the dim light only when he tilted his head, thin enough that they could be mistaken for nothing at all unless someone knew what they were looking for.
He traced one lightly, barely touching.
His jaw clenched.
"Who did this to you?" he murmured, the words meant for no one.
The thought that someone had hurt her enough to hide the evidence sent something cold and sharp through him.
He forced his hand still, as if by stopping himself he could stop the questions forming in his mind. Where. When. How long. And why it had never shown on her face, her arms, anywhere the world could see.
Smart placement.
He brushed her hair back gently, careful not to disturb her sleep, and pressed a brief kiss to her temple. It wasn't a promise. It wasn't a claim.
It was protection.
She shifted slightly, settling closer, and Claude adjusted instinctively, letting her rest fully against him. Even unconscious, there was a tension to her like something coiled beneath the surface, never fully at ease.
Why the field? he wondered.
Why was it always there?
Why tonight?
He didn't voice the questions again. Instead, he stayed where he was, memorizing the weight of her, the warmth, the fragile certainty that for this moment, at least, nothing could reach her.
Tonight, she was safe.
And if the world thought otherwise, it would be wrong.