E L A R A

The chamber is barely a pocket, a cruel trick of stone. The ceiling curves low enough that Adrian has to hunch, and every breath I drag into my lungs tastes of salt and damp. Water laps at the rock like a patient predator, waiting for another chance to rise.

The deckhand is worse. His pulse flutters beneath my fingers, thready and faint, each inhale shallow enough to make my chest seize. His skin is clammy, lips tinged gray-blue. Shock is sinking its claws in.

I press harder on the makeshift dressing over his ribs, praying the bleeding has slowed. My jacket is already knotted tight across his chest as a sling, darkened with seawater and blood, but it won’t hold forever. I need compression, warmth and things I don’t have in this black hollow of a cave.

Adrian kneels beside me, his broad frame taking up too much of the small space. The water has plastered his shirt to his skin, and when he strips it off without hesitation, the fabric clings before peeling away. Steam rises faintly from his body in the cold air. He doesn’t look at me, just bunches the shirt in his hands, practical, focused.

“Use this,” he says, voice roughened from the salt and strain.

I take it, fingers brushing his, and knot the sleeves tight around the deckhand’s torso. The cotton soaks instantly, but it adds another layer against the chill. Adrian shifts closer, his bare shoulder pressing against mine as we tug the shirt into place, and for a heartbeat, the heat rolling off him is the only warmth in this whole drowned world.

“We’ll share it,” Adrian mutters, low enough that only I can hear. He tucks what’s left of the dry fabric across the deckhand’s chest, then covers it with his own arm like he’s willing the man’s body to keep fighting. His breath ghosts against my temple, steady despite everything.

I want to believe steady means safe. But the deckhand’s pulse skips again under my hand, and the weight in my chest sharpens. If he slips under, if I lose him here with no chart, no radar, no family name will matter.

I press harder, refusing to let go.

The chamber settles into a rhythm of sound: the rasp of the deckhand’s breath, the drip of water from the ceiling, the faint hiss of tide shifting just beyond the stone. My own heartbeat drums too loud in my ears.

Adrian is close enough that I feel the rise and fall of his chest against my shoulder as we lean over the patient. His bare skin radiates heat, cutting through the damp chill that seeps into my bones. Every time I adjust the bandage or check the deckhand’s pulse, my hand grazes his arm, slick and solid with saltwater. He doesn’t move away. Neither do I.

We whisper because the cave feels like it might shatter under louder voices.

“Why did you come here?” Adrian asks suddenly, voice low, roughened by exhaustion. His gaze isn’t on me, but I can feel it, steady as the tide pressing at the walls.

I blink at him, thrown by the question. “To save him,” I murmur, nodding at the deckhand between us.

“That’s not what I asked.”

The words scrape against me more than the salt on my torn palms. My throat tightens, but I don’t look away. “I came to save a stranger. That’s what doctors do.”

He tilts his head, eyes shadowed by the faint glow of phosphorescence. “You came to save yourself.”

The pulse under my fingers stutters, matching the hitch in my own chest. Heat flashes through me with anger first, then something sharper. “You don’t know me.”

His mouth curves, but there’s no mockery in it. “I’ve watched you since the moment you landed on this island. You don’t walk away when anyone else would. Even if it breaks you, you won’t let go. Not of a patient. Not of the past.”

I should argue. I should tell him he’s wrong, that I’m not the one who needs saving. But the cave swallows words I don’t believe in myself.

My voice is thin when it comes. “And what about you? Why did you come?”

His eyes lock on mine. No hesitation, no blink. “Because if I didn’t, I’d have been too late. And I don’t do it too late.”

The weight of his answer presses heavier than the rock above us. It steals the air from my lungs more than the damp chill ever could.

I look down at the deckhand again, at the fragile thread of life beneath my fingertips, and for the first time tonight, I wonder if it isn’t just his survival I’m fighting for.

A shiver rips through me before I can stop it. The damp has soaked through every layer, sinking into bone, leaving my fingers stiff against the deckhand’s skin. My teeth almost chatter with the effort of holding them still.

Adrian notices instantly. Of course he does. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask permission. His hand lifts, steady and warm, and cups the back of my neck.

The heat of him sears against the icy water crawling down my spine. His thumb brushes once, sweeping a strand of wet hair away, and his palm anchors me as if he’s bracing me against more than the cold.

I brace for the old instinct that is to  flinch, to recoil from touch that might cost more than it gives. But it doesn’t come.

Instead, my body leans into him, traitorous, desperate. The shiver eases beneath his hand, replaced by something sharper, hotter. My pulse kicks hard enough that I feel it against the thin skin of my throat.

“Better?” he murmurs, so low it’s almost a breath against my ear.

I nod, though the word doesn’t form. Because better isn’t the right word. Nothing about this is simple enough for that.

His grip doesn’t press, doesn’t cage. He just holds, steady, fingers threading through damp strands, grounding me in a world that’s all water and stone and danger. The weight of command in his touch is gentler than any I’ve ever known.

I should pull back. I should remind myself this is the man who embodies everything I swore I’d never trust again, the arrogance, control, power wrapped in a body too dangerous to lean on.

But with his hand on me, I can’t summon the will to move.

For a moment, the cave isn’t a trap. It’s just the two of us, heat sparking in the dark, his touch the only thing holding back the chill that wants to swallow me whole.

The chamber is quiet except for our breathing and the tide gnawing at the stone. For a moment, the silence feels fragile, almost sacred.

Then the walls tremble.

A low rumble shudders through the rock, distant but growing, the sound of water gathering its weight again. My hand tightens reflexively on the deckhand’s wrist, as if I could anchor him here by sheer will. His pulse flutters, unsteady, and I fight the urge to press my ear to his chest to make sure he’s still with us.

Adrian’s eyes flick upward, reading the cave the way his brother read the sea. The faint glow of phosphorescence paints hard planes of his face, jaw tense, shoulders taut. He doesn’t say the words we’re running out of time but then again, he doesn’t have to. I can feel it in every breath.

I smooth the sling across the deckhand’s ribs, fussing with fabric that won’t save him from what’s coming, just to keep my hands moving. Stopping feels too much like surrender.

Exhaustion drags at me, heavier than the soaked clothes clinging to my skin. My limbs ache with cold, my eyelids burn with the weight of staying open. I tell myself I’ll just rest them for a second, just one.

A hand closes over mine, strong, steady, unbearably warm. Adrian leans close, so close that his breath brushes my ear.

“If you sleep,” he murmurs, voice a rough command wrapped in something gentler, “you might not wake.”

The words lodge in me like a spark in tinder. My eyes snap open, my heart kicking hard against my ribs.

Not tonight. Not here. I won’t give in.

But with his hand on mine, with his voice in my ear, I don’t know if I’m fighting for my patient anymore… or for myself.