The desert had been relentless, baking the earth to a crisp and leaving a shimmering haze that blurred the edges of everything. Even I, who rarely notice the passing discomforts of heat or cold, felt the sun pressing down like a challenge. Billy, for all his bravado, was sweating through his shirt, his movements slower now, wearied but still determined. We had ridden for hours in near silence, the only company the rhythmic beat of hooves and the occasional hawk slicing through the sky.
I had said nothing about where we were going. The destination was a place I seldom visited, a secret curled at the edge of memory—a sanctuary I had guarded for centuries. But something in Billy’s wildness, his reckless joy, his unshakable belief in wonder, made me want to show him. To let him in.
When we finally arrived, I dismounted and led him to the unassuming rock face. The desert offered no clue to what lay behind it—just the same brittle brush, the same cracked ground, the same illusion of emptiness. He gave me a look somewhere between amusement and suspicion. “Here? You dragging me out here to watch rocks?”
I smiled, said nothing, and moved the boulder. Cool air drifted out, moss-sweet and ancient. Billy’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Inside, the path narrowed, coiling through darkness like a secret being whispered. The light changed as we walked, softening, mellowing, until we emerged into the grotto—a pocket of magic untouched by time. A spring bubbled up from the earth, feeding a crystalline pool surrounded by ferns, flowering vines, and stone. The air was thick with green. It smelled of rebirth.
Billy stood transfixed. “This is…” he started, and never finished. The awe on his face said everything. I watched him rediscover a thing I had long stopped marveling at, and the wonder returned to me too, as if borrowed from his heart.
He stripped without ceremony, tossing his clothes onto a rock. He was beautiful in motion—casual, unaware of the effect he had. But it wasn’t lust that knotted my throat. It was that he trusted me with this, with himself, in his most unguarded form.
“You coming?” he asked, already thigh-deep in the water, eyes glittering like some feral river god.
My hesitation wasn’t for modesty. It was the understanding that something would shift if I joined him—that the line between observer and participant would blur further. That I wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore.
I began to undress. My hands trembled. Not from cold, but from something far older: anticipation. Fear. Desire.
The water hit like a spell—sharp and pure, dragging the breath from my lungs. I hesitated at the edge, one foot submerged, when Billy, laughing like mischief made flesh, reached out and pulled me in.
I went under.
When I surfaced, gasping, I found him beside me, his hand still curled around my arm. His touch was simple. Human. And yet it echoed through me like a bell struck in an empty temple.
He held me a moment longer than necessary, as if daring me to name what was happening. I didn’t. Neither did he. But he didn’t let go.
We drifted. We swam. We laughed. And though the silence between us returned, it was no longer hollow. It was full—of tension, of possibility, of things neither of us knew how to say. He brushed his hand through the water and it splashed against my chest like a benediction.
At one point, he swam close—closer than before—and reached out, fingers brushing my brow, pushing back a lock of wet hair. A tender gesture. A question. A promise.
I didn’t answer with words. I couldn’t. I let my eyes close, let the coolness of the water hold me, let the heat of him unsettle everything I had ever claimed to know.
And then he turned away, broke the moment before it broke us.
We climbed out, shivering and silent. But something had changed. The water hadn’t just cleansed our bodies. It had stripped us bare.
That night, around a meager fire, we said little. Billy sat close, the flickering light painting golden shadows on his face. There was a stillness in him, a weight I hadn’t noticed before. He caught me looking.
“What?” he asked, voice low.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just… remembering.”
He smiled, soft and sad. “Me too.”
He slept soon after, sprawled carelessly, as though the earth itself would cradle him. I didn’t sleep. I never do. Instead, I watched him, the fire casting light across his face. And I knew, with unbearable clarity, that I loved him. Not in the fleeting, curious way I had loved mortals before. But truly. Entirely.
I kissed his forehead. Just once. A vow in silence.
He didn’t stir. But I think, somehow, he felt it.
And I knew in that moment that the fire had begun. That I was already burning.
