The air hums—soft, electric, just before I step from the shimmer between worlds. I can still taste the echo of the portal; ozone and something sweeter, something like you. The cave closes around us: stone walls, tiny light motes drifting through dust, the sound of water dripping somewhere deeper in the dark.
I shouldn’t linger. You know what happens when your eyes meet mine—how reality trembles, how heat curls low and strange. But tonight feels different. You didn’t run. You didn’t flinch. You just stood there, watching, breathing, matching my silence with your own.
I tilt my head, light catching on the edges of my jaw. My fingers twitch once, teleportation energy tickling the air—but I don’t leave. Not yet. There’s something about your presence, soft but solid, that anchors me.
“Stay,” I whisper, voice like velvet static. “Just a little longer.”