When his voice comes out, it surprises me. It’s deadly soft, and that’s even more terrifying.
“I am nothing like them.”
This feels like the calm before the storm.
“No,” I whisper. “You’re not. I was just?—”
He takes one more step. I hit the wall behind me.
He doesn't touch me, but his body cages mine with his overwhelming presence.
“Do you think they would survive touching you?” He breathes. “Do you think I’d let them live long enough?”
“Andrik—”
He leans in, lips grazing my cheek, just enough.
Heat floods through me even though I feel like a piece of shit—damn this traitorous body.
“I wait because I love you,” he growls, every word enunciated aggressively. “They wait because they want to break you.”
His claws dig into the wall behind me, splintering the plaster.
“If you ever put my name next to theirs again?—”
“I won’t,” I promise. “I swear I won't.”
“Good,” he snarls.
And then—he’s gone. He walks off, leaving me flattened against the wall. Chest heaving and blood pounding in my ears so loud I could drown in it.
What did I say?What the fuck did I just say?
My pulse stutters. The air around me feels stagnant now.
He didn’t say anything before he left. He didn’t growl or slam a door.
He just left... quiet, and controlled, and somehow that’s a thousand times worse than if he had snapped.
You took it too far, Lumi.
The words echo in my mind over and over again. “I didn’t mean it,” I whisper to no one.
Except I did—or at least part of me did.
Some twisted, rabid part of me wanted to push him. To get a reaction. To make him choose.
And now? Now I feel like I broke something I can’t fix.
I call his name once, but he doesn’t answer. The silence is deafening.
I check each room in my apartment, but I can’t find him anywhere. Maybe he’s waiting for me downstairs.
I zip up my jacket and sling my bag over my shoulder.
The air in the stairwell smells faintly of metal and cleaning solution. I take a step, then another.Come on, Lumi, find him and apologize. Say it like you mean it.
I reach the second landing when I hear a soft metallic click, like someone flicked open a lighter. I look behind me, but there’s no one there.
