Page 60 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir

---

“You’re thinking too loud.”

“I’m always thinking.”

“Talk to me.”

I hesitate.

Then I say it, voice raw. “What if I become something I can't come back from?”

Leah pulls back just enough to look at me. “You’re afraid you’re already that thing.”

I don’t answer.

She brushes hair from my forehead, thumb grazing a scar I don’t even remember getting.

“Monsters don’t worry about being monsters, Kalev.”

I close my eyes.

“I’ve killed people. Not just combatants. Civilians. Collateral.”

“I know.”

“They were in the way.”

“And you still remember them. That’s the point.”

I turn my face toward hers. “You make me want to stop running from what I’ve done.”

“You make me want to stop hiding from who I am.”

We lie there in the quiet, not touching now, but not apart.

I feel it—unspoken but loud as war drums. The bond. Not just bodies. Not just timing. This thing between us has teeth.

I reach for her hand.

She laces her fingers with mine.

We don’t say love.

But it’s in the silence.

In the way I memorize the line of her throat, the rise of her ribs, the soft curl of her lips when she finally falls asleep.

I watch her for a long time.

Then I whisper a promise to the dark.

“I’ll protect you.”

Even if I have to protect her from me.

CHAPTER 20

LEAH

It starts small.

---