Cassian had plenty on his mind. He took his time walking to his tent, contemplating matters of kingdom, mostly oblivious to Regan’s tail. Mostly.

He entered into his tent and the other Royal guards entered as well, the four of them doing a quick but diligent sweep of the tent, looking for anything out of place. They had been a part of the set up so that they were aware of every nook and cranny.

As they checked, Cassian moved to the center of the tent and stood still, patiently waiting, gaze flickering over each guard. When they finished they would take their leave. His eyes fell on Regan. Would she?

Ten. Eleven.

Regan oversaw the other guards as they conducted their practiced scan of Cassian's tent, though she wasn’t passive in doing so. Regan was double-checking the places that needed it, breathing deeply for unfamiliar scents as her eyes grayed with smothered ash. But there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was only Cassian who she detected, which had Regan clenching her teeth as she and the guards finalized their search.

Eleven. Twelve.

Regan turned to see Cassian's eyes on her and the counting stopped. For a moment, her resolve faltered. All the hurt and the neediness started to surface but—no. Regan steeled herself as she tucked her hands behind her back to stand at attention, claws pinching into the inside of her wrist for distraction. Her expression was severely neutral and her eyes forward, not looking at Cassian, but facing straight ahead the way they would have when she was nothing more than a recruit addressing a senior officer.

"Will there be anything else, Your Majesty?"

Regan didn't mumble. She tried to articulate every word in measured order so that it was sanded smooth of any rough irregularity.

Cassian watched her. While Regan had schooled her face and stance into the kind of self control that was typical for him, Cassian's own gaze was a little less chizeled. It held a quiet vulnerability, a whispered hurt, one Regan missed as she drilled hers into a random place at the back of the tent.

The king turned away from her and towards the small fire that had been kept going for when he turned in. The other guards had exited. It was just them now.

He didn't know what to say. Of course he had thought of something, but it drowned in his throat before reaching his tongue. Something was broken between them, and he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. He wasn't sure what the cost of repairing it might be. He wasn't sure of anything as far as Regan was concerned, not right now.

So instead of speaking, he gave himself more time.

Regan dug into her wrist, trying to keep steady, trying fight against both nature and nurture that had made her what she was: a creature inclined to speak and act first, to reach with eager hands, to indulge her curiosity. She fought in Cassian's silence for as long as she could, digging and digging until she felt the sting of pierced skin. And then...she slipped. She let her eyes move to Cassian. His back was to her, the silence filling the room as if it were a sea to be drowned in.

"Your Majesty?" This time, her tone was different. It tried to hold on to the formality she'd before, but it cracked. Cracked with the familiar need for affirmation, of the concern that he'd told her to squash.

"Just," Cassian said abruptly when she spoke again, interrupting wherever he was, drawing him away from the conclusion of the words he would say; truth be told, he hadn't gotten far, "stay here." The words could have sounded cold, but they didn't. They were soft. Quiet. A reflection of the eyes he hid from her.

Regan crumbled. A shuddering breath left her in a sound of relief that had the faint rattle of a sob to it. She hesitated at first but then walked toward the fire, dropping her hands to her sides as she took a place next to Cassian—if he'd allow it. Regan still didn't look at him. She gazed into the flames, noting everything she could without turning her eyes toward him. Her heart pounded in her chest as she stood there, trying to keep herself from speaking, or doing, or...anything. Just trying to be.

Cassian still didn't find it. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to move forward...except...

His hands found one another, and with a twist and a will, he released his suppression of her fire. She was already staring into it. Had she developed the ability to manipulate it?

He turned his face towards her, trying to see any indication of what the sudden release might do to her, more than ready to suppress it once more if the need arose.

Regan's relationship with the hellfire that lived inside her was difficult to explain. Not have it was like to have a limb tied behind your back, while at the same time living in an empty home that you were used to having filled with light. There was also the satisfaction, like having an itch you couldn't scratch and having only one way to satisfy it.

To have it back, unexpected, made all those feelings rush to the surface. The whimper that hummed from Regan's lips as her eyes lit like bright coals was akin to sexual pleasure. She stifled it, face turning to Cassian with eager excitement. She didn't burst into flames, but the light in her eyes was more intense than it had ever been, and now laced with more red than amber.

“I—" Regan was speechless for a moment, eyes bouncing around Cassian's face as she tried to put into words the enormity of the gratitude she wore all over her features. She tried to put words together, but instead, they tumbled out in a jumbled mess, "I don't know if you, what you want me to be, or go, or...I just...I still mean it. Anywhere. And whatever that means, it's enough. I'll make it enough."

Cassian heard her words, and as soon as she finished then he turned to face her fully. In fact, he even stepped in to close the distance, his chest grazing hers, his face turned down so there would be no escaping his eyes.

His eyes. They were dark, unlike Regan's. Darker than when the light hit them. Dark with threat. Dark with dread. Dark with whatever tendrils of evil grew around the cold heart of the stoic king. Cassian wasn't a scary man, but if he ever was then it was now.

"Do not ever," he said, the words lashing from his tongue with merciless precision, "ever hurt me again." For all intents and purposes, it seemed as if he had missed the moment. She was beaming and hopeful, and he had responded this way. But it was what he needed. If he couldn't control her then he couldn't trust her, andif he didn't trust her then he would suppress everything that made her and leave her to waste away. She didn't really have any choices here.

When Cassian stepped toward her, Regan's breath stopped. She shrunk before him, the red in her eyes filling them with a more intense hue, pushing out the amber and gold. The hopefulness faded, the gratitude retracted, and instead of fear filling her it was hurt. Rejection. A pain that seemed ready to make her cry before she stifled it, tucking her hands behind her back, gripping her wrist so that her nails dug in deep. Her features flattened. The soldier who had walked into the tent returned.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Her voice was a hollow whisper of a creature resigned to a seemingly hopeless fate.

Cassian held his place, her gaze, for a long moment that couldn't be described as anything other than threatening. Only when he was sure she understood, when the crashing waves roaring in him quieted, did he lean away and tuck his chin, the darkness replaced by a kind of fatigue. Fatigue, or maybe vulnerability.

"I want to trust you again." It was a quiet admission, a branch.

Regan still clutched her wrist, still standing at attention as she looked at Cassian with faint desperation. It hurt, not her wrist but the feeling of her ribcage collapsing in on itself...or at least, that was what she was imagining it was as she stood before her king.

"I'll do anything," Regan responded without hesitation, "Anything."

Cassian's eyes fell. It wasn't because she had won some unspoken gaze holding competition. It was because in that moment he felt weak and defeated, and if there was one person who had seen that side of him more than others, it was Regan. She had sat at his side day after day as he lay in his bed, too weak to rise, too weak to hardly do anything. She had been his company, his companion. She had not scoffed at his state, but sought to be a crutch. Those days had passed with little words, but they had been significant for Cassian. Even now, he didn't quote know why she was so desperate, so willing. It had surpassed a woman wanting an in with a king. It was more.

The wolves.

Cassian nodded, accepting her words, but having none to return to her just yet.