Alchemised
by SenLinYu
Contents
Chapter 37
Overview
Helena and Kaine Ferron share a drunken, emotionally exposed evening after Ferron’s healing, moving from guarded conversation into genuine tenderness. Their attraction culminates in an intense kiss, but Helena’s shame over her mission and fear that Ferron only wants her because he is intoxicated and newly free of pain cause her to recoil.
Ferron’s decision to stop and send Helena away leaves their relationship more complicated: Helena has seen a vulnerable, lonely side of him, but her feelings are now entangled with Crowther’s order and her own sense of being used as a tool.
Summary
After Helena finishes healing Kaine Ferron’s array wounds, Ferron presses her to keep drinking with him. Helena nervously sits at the far end of the sofa, but Ferron moves close, newly comfortable in his body and openly relieved to lean against something without pain. Helena warns Ferron to be careful over the next few days and offers to keep checking on him; Ferron notices her instinct to feel responsible for everyone.
Their conversation softens when Helena asks whether Ferron will call her Helena instead of Marino. Ferron does, awkwardly but deliberately, and the intimacy unsettles Helena. Ferron lets Helena touch his chest to confirm he is warm and well, then admits that seeing her again had blindsided him because she had become lovely. Ferron compares Helena to a rose in a graveyard and wonders what Helena might have become without the war.
Ferron’s comment makes Helena cry, and the moment turns raw. Wanting to comfort Ferron when he looks suddenly lonely and bitter, Helena massages his hand and explains that Helena’s father used to do the same for her after Helena’s mother died. Helena says she became afraid of sleep because she feared she or her father might die in the night and leave the other alone.
Ferron asks Helena to take down her hair, and Helena reluctantly unpins and unbraids it. Ferron is fascinated by its length and softness, touching it with increasing intimacy. When Ferron asks Helena to say so if Helena does not want him to kiss her, Helena chooses to kiss him, moved by Ferron’s gentleness, by feeling seen, and by her own loneliness.
The kiss becomes intense, and Ferron pulls Helena onto his lap and then beneath him on the sofa. Helena initially responds, realizing how starved she is for touch and intimacy, but her thoughts turn to Crowther’s mission, her assigned role, and the fear that Ferron only wants her because Ferron is drunk, newly healed, and ravenous for sensation after months of pain. Shame and panic make Helena recoil. Ferron immediately stops, pulls away, and tells Helena it is time for her to go.
Who Appears
- Helena MarinoHealer and captive; grows emotionally vulnerable with Ferron, then recoils from intimacy and shame.
- Kaine FerronNewly healed necromancer; shows tenderness and desire, then stops when Helena withdraws.
- Helena’s fatherRemembered as comforting Helena after her mother’s death by holding and caring for her hands.
- Helena’s motherMentioned in Helena’s childhood memory; her quiet death shaped Helena’s fear of abandonment.