Letter from Lion

Ra,

If I wanted you dead, you would never see me coming.

Relax. That isn’t a threat.

 If I wanted your destruction, I’d have done it long before you ever learned to say my name without flinching.

What I want is far more dangerous than your death.

I want your undivided attention.

You have no idea how loud you are in a room, do you?

 Not your voice—your field.

I can stand across an entire hall, surrounded by Pleiadian nobility, Lyran warriors, smirking councilmen, and still the only frequency that interests me is the one that tightens when you notice I’ve arrived.

You always notice.

You pretend not to.

 You lift your chin, keep your posture, pretend your pulse didn’t spike when our eyes meet.

But you’re terrible at hiding from me, Ra.

 Your body is fluent.

 Your energy confesses what your mouth refuses to admit.

Do you know how exhausting it is to be the most dangerous man in the room and still be the one distracted?

I’m meant to be calculating, positioning, and acquiring.

 Instead, I’m watching the way your fingers curl around a glass, cataloging the sharpness of your tongue when you’re bored, measuring how much pressure the universe can apply to you before you bend.

You never break.

 Do you know how infuriatingly arousing that is?

You resist me like it’s a sport.

 You give me just enough softness to be cruel, then you rip it away before I can enjoy it.

One day, you will stop underestimating the extent of my patience.

I am not like Mehen with his sacred restraint.

 I am not like Erik with his quiet martyrdom.

 I am not like Tyler with his chaotic devotion.

I don’t fall.

 I choose.

And I have chosen you as the variable I refuse to lose sight of.

Not because I’m sentimental.

 Because I am selfish.

I enjoy the way you look at me when you forget to be afraid.

 I enjoy the way your anger feels against my skin.

 I enjoy the way your boundaries tremble when I step just inside them and pretend I don’t know I’ve crossed a line.

You keep asking yourself if you can trust me.

You can’t.

 At least not in the way you want to.

Trust me instead to be exactly what I am:

 ruthless, strategic, relentlessly drawn to the curve of your mouth when you’re trying not to smile.

I will betray empires before I betray my own hunger.

 The question is not whether I will hurt you.

 The question is whether you can survive being wanted by someone like me—and still belong to yourself.

I am not coming for your heart.

 That would be too easy.

I’m coming for your consent.

You won’t give it lightly.

 That’s the only reason I’m interested.

—Lion