When I say nothing. When I just stand there, gaze flat, locked down tight…her frustration spikes so hard I feel it crackling through the bond.
Her voice drops, lower, tighter.
“What was that?”
I grind my teeth. Keep my expression still. I won’t say it. Won’t tell her what that instinct meant. What the bond is already doing to both of us.
I turn away from her.
Her breath stutters behind me. “Don’t you dare walk away?—”
But I’m already moving, each step deliberate. Controlled. Because it's the only thing I have left.
One word, and I’ll lose it again. The bond protests with every stride, the taste of her skin still burning against my mouth.
This can’t happen again.
It won’t.
ELEVEN
LINDSAY
I stormdown the dim corridor, boots hitting the stone floor hard.
I have no idea where I’m going. And I don’t care.
Fucking men. Fucking confusing men. I want to strangle Raiden.
I scrub a hand over my face, breath ragged. My skin still tingles where he grabbed me, where he?—
My fingers press against my collarbone, where that bite landed. It throbs. Not painful. Not bruised. But…a constant awareness just under the surface. Burning low and steady.
He didn’t even break the skin. I grind my teeth.
What the actual fuck was that?
No answers. No explanation. Just dragging me out of the library like I was some wayward child and—God—biting me. I rub harder at the spot, as if that’ll do anything.
Breath hissing out, I glance around and curse. I don’t know this hall.
The runes on the stone are different here—older, etched deeper. The air feels almost musty, shadows pooling in every recess. Great. Lost. Because of an asshole with too many muscles and not enough sense decided to act like a caveman.
I take another step—and freeze.
Something moves ahead. There's no sound, no clear shape. Just a darker patch among the shadows. A flicker of motion, smooth and deliberate.
I blink once.
And he’s there.
Leaning lazily against the far wall as though he’s been part of it all along.
Kael.
Cool, unreadable. Pale eyes catching mine from across the dim space. Kael doesn’t move at first.
He only watches me. Eyes half-lidded, unreadable. Like this is all some private joke for him. Or as though he can read my mind and knows I’m lost.
