He didn’t smile. “I can pick where I stand when it does.”
That was the problem. Alaric always stood between danger and everyone else. He didn’t do it loudly, the way his twin, Magnus, did. He did it quietly, like the world had assigned him a job and he’d accepted it without complaint.
Anger twisted in Sera’s chest, sharp and unexpected.”I’m not glass,” shesaid.
“No,” he replied. “You’re a target.”
The bluntness stole her breath.”I’m a what?”
His voice stayed calm. “Someone already reached for your access paths. Someone already tested whetheryou can be used.”
Sera’s hand curled at her side. The Brand pulsed in response, as if it agreed.”And you think touching you makes me more usable?”
“I think it makes you more valuable,” he corrected. “And definitely more vulnerable.”
His use of the word valuable should’ve been flattering. It wasn’t. It sounded like a sentence. And vulnerable made her seem weak and helpless.Sera forced her shoulders back. “If we’re going to talk about both value and vulnerability, then you need to talk about the Brand.”
Alaric’s gaze lifted to hers, sharp and assessing. “You want to talk about it right now?”
“I want to talk about it before it decides to talk for us.”
Silence held. Not empty, not neutral. It pressed against her skin, stretched thin between them like a wire pulled too tight. Her own need rose inside, quiet, sharp and insistent, not just for answers but for contact, for some acknowledgment that what she was experiencing wasn’t unilateral or imagined. She wanted him to break first. Wanted him to admit that stopping her had cost him something real, that restraint wasn’t painless on his side of theline either.
Then he nodded once, arestrained concession.
“Fine,” he said. “Come with me.”
He didn’t reach for her. He turned and walked, and the choice not to touch seemed deliberate. Amessage. Restraint wasn’t just sexual. It was operational.
Sera followed him through the open-plan space of his house, past clean surfaces and curated emptiness. The place was beautiful in a way that didn’t invite anyone to relax. It was a fortress pretending to be architecture.
They stopped near the kitchen island, awide slab of stone that looked like it could hold a body without absorbing warmth. The sight of it hit her unexpectedly, not as a metaphor but as memory. This island. This surface. Stone beneath her palms when they’d made love here, when heat had mattered very much and restraint hadn’t existed at all. For a split second, memory overlaid present: skin against skin, breath at her throat, the way he’d held her there as if the world had narrowed to that exact point. Her pulse stumbled, heat rushing low and fast, and she hated that her body remembered before her mind could pull itback.
Alaric poured water from a carafe as if he were buying himself time. He set one glass in front of her withoutlookingup.
Sera didn’t touch it.
“Show me,” he ordered.
Her pulse kicked.She lifted her right hand.The Brand flared immediately, heat blooming across her palm. The lightning bolt appeared in crisp, ink-dark lines, as if etched into her skin. It wasn’t delicate. It was an imprint. Aclaim.
Alaric’s breath changed.
Sera watched his eyes track the mark, not openly, not greedily, but with a focus so intent it made her skin tighten. He didn’t touch her, didn’t reach, but she saw the cost of that choice in the way his restraint tightened, visible only in the way his fingers curled against the edge of the counter, knuckles whitening as if the stone were the only thing keeping him connected. It told her more than words ever could. He experienced this too. He was holding himself back just as hard as he was holding her atbay.
“You feel it too,” shesaid.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
His gaze flicked to hers, then away, then back. “Everywhere.”
Her throat went dry.
She held her palm up, forcing herself to look at it fully. The lightning boltstared back at her, stark and unmistakable, ajagged line etched into her skin like a verdict. And suddenly she understood why it looked likethat.
Alaric was all self-containment, aman who built walls inside himself and called it discipline. This was the opposite of everything he was. Not ordered. Not contained. Not cold. Lightning didn’t ask permission. It didn’t obey systems. It tore straight through whatever stood in its path. If this was what the Brand looked like on her, then this was what it must do to him—rip through logic, short out restraint, devastate the careful distance he relied on to survive.
