The heavy click of the lock echoed through the room—far louder than it should have.
As if the very walls were listening.
She was only a girl.
A lowly peasant.
A nobody.
I told myself this firmly, as if repetition could drown out the pressure blooming beneath my sternum.
I yanked the door open.
Enough of this nonsense.
Enough of books and curses and phantom pains.
It was time to act like the man of the house.
To reassert control.
To behave as any rational gentleman would—
Even if her scent drove me to distraction.
Even if my pulse stuttered at the thought of her.
Even if something deep, dark, and ancient unfurled inside me the moment I stepped into the hall.
Euphemia.
The whispered growl burst through my skull—violent, intimate, unmistakably not mine.
“Stop it,” I hissed, teeth clenched.
No.
The word tore through me like a command.
I froze.
Every muscle locked, breath lodged in my throat.
A cold sweat prickled along my spine.
My heartbeat wasn’t my own anymore—too fast, too heavy, as if something enormous paced inside my ribcage, testing the bars.
“No,” I whispered, this time to myself—pleading, bargaining.
Find her.
The voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
It reverberated through bone and marrow, a vibration more than a sound.
My hand shot out to brace against the doorframe.
