Adoration

His fingers ghosted over her lips, soft and warm beneath his touch. A slow smile spread across his face when he noticed the bouquet resting beside her. Flowers meant for him, delicate and alive in a room that smelled too much like blood, antiseptic, and death.

Ignoring the sharp pain tearing through his ribs, Kai forced himself upright in the hospital bed. He pulled one of the heavy blankets from his lap and draped it carefully over Emily's sleeping body, as though shielding her from something unseen. She stirred faintly, sighing as she curled into the warmth.

Kai stared at her for far too long, his dark eyes tracing every part of her like he was memorizing something he refused to lose again. One day, he thought, she would cling to him the same way she clung to that blanket.

He wasn't that terrified little boy anymore.

And this time, if the world tried to take Emily away from him again, he would destroy everything standing in his way before he let her go.