They didn't sleep.
Not really.
Kai lay curled beneath Adrian's arm on the massive bed, his cheek resting on the vampire's chest, listening to the dead-slow thrum of Adrian's heart or maybe the ache behind it. Outside, the city crawled into morning, but the air between them hadn't thawed.
There were still teeth in their silence.
Kai traced the faintest scar across Adrian's ribs, the one he'd never asked about. "Did Lucien do this one?"
Adrian hesitated. "No. That one was my father."
Kai flinched. Not because he hadn't expected pain but because Adrian had never spoken about that man before.
"Did he ever show you mercy?" Kai asked softly.
Adrian's chest rose, breath catching like it didn't know where to go. "Once. When I begged."
Kai swallowed. "And what did it cost you?"
"Everything that made me human."
The weight of that answer settled between them like a third body. But Kai didn't pull away. He only shifted, crawling upward until he could kiss the corner of Adrian's mouth. Not hungry. Not sweet.
Just there.
A vow that didn't need words.
"You never lost what made you human," Kai whispered. "It's in everything you try to hide from me. You just forgot how to believe in it."
Adrian didn't answer. He kissed Kai instead slow and bruising, like regret pressed between their teeth.
And when Kai broke the kiss, he straddled Adrian's hips, looked him right in the eye, and whispered, "Then show me, Adrian. Show me the part of you that's still worth saving."
Adrian's grip trembled on his thighs. "You already know it."
Kai nodded. "But I want you to see it too."
What followed wasn't sex. Not really. It was mercy in motion the kind that sinks its teeth in and doesn't let go.
It was Adrian learning how to let someone touch his wounds without bracing for pain.
It was Kai discovering that love, even broken, could still be holy.
And when they finally collapsed in a tangle of sheets and promises they didn't dare speak aloud, Adrian whispered against Kai's damp skin:
"I don't know how to deserve you."
Kai, half asleep, half alive with afterglow, murmured, "You don't have to. You just have to stay."