It’s a flimsy excuse, but all I can manage as my skin pulls tight over bone and muscle, stretched thin enough to tear if I stay here with him another second.
The bedroom door slams behind me with satisfaction, the barrier between us solid and real. On the other side, Gabriel doesn’t call out or try to follow, but he doesn’t leave, either, his presence both infuriating and the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
The drawer slides open with a familiar scrape of wood on wood, and my fingers hover over the leather case within, trembling in the dim light filtering through the blinds. The case contains sharp, clean, predictable relief.
I pull it out, the shape in my palm both comforting and sickening. The zipper makes a soft hiss as I open it, revealing the gleaming metal inside, the blade that has carved lines of control into my skin when everything else spiraled beyond my reach.
The pressure under my skin pulses with each heartbeat. My thighs itch where old scars lie hidden beneath denim, calling for fresh company.
With shaking hands, I shove off my jeans and tug up the leg of my boxer briefs, searching for a clean patch.
I lift the blade, watching light catch on its edge.The promise of relief pulls at me. One cut, and the noise will stop. One line of fire to focus the chaos in my head, to draw out the poison Darrow planted there.
A soft knock interrupts the ritual, and my head snaps toward the door.
“Saint?” Gabriel calls, muffled by the door but clear. “May I come in?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. The words stick in my throat like glass shards, and the blade trembles between my fingers.
The door opens, inch by slow inch, giving me time to hide what I’m doing. But I remain frozen, caught between impulse and shame as Gabriel steps inside.
His gaze lands on the open case and the blade in my hand without a hint of shock or disgust.
He doesn’t rush toward me to take away the blade. Instead, he sinks to the floor, back to the wall, knees bent in front of him, allowing distance without abandoning me to it.
“You’re thinking about hurting yourself.” The statement hangs in the air, neither accusation nor question, just truth, spoken without judgment. “I’m not going to stop you. But I’d rather you talked to me instead.”
His gentleness breaks through the walls I’ve built, and rage floods through the breach. “Don’t ever try to influence me with your pheromones again. Not now. Not ever. Not without my consent.”
Gabriel doesn’t flinch at my anger. “You’re right.”
“You manipulated me.” My fingers tighten around the blade, metal biting into skin without breaking it. “You decided I needed calming down, and you?—”
“I’m sorry.” The interruption comes soft but firm. “I misjudged the moment. I was trying to help, but I crossed a line.”
I wait for the qualification, the “but” that always turns an apology into self-defense.
It doesn’t come.
“It won’t happen again,” he continues, hands resting on his knees, palms up, open and undemanding. “You have my word.”
“You don’t get to fix me,” I tell him, the words less heated but no less true. “You don’t get to decide when I’m broken or how I should heal.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” The question scrapes my throat. I’m giving Gabriel more chances than I’ve given anyone in my life, and I don’t want to question why. “Because your family treats the world as something to bemanaged. Problems to solve. People to arrange into neat patterns.”
“I’m not my family.” He shifts on the floor, trying to find a comfortable position. “And you’re not a problem to solve.”
My fingers ache from gripping the blade too tight. The need to cut hasn’t disappeared, but the urgency recedes.
“Then why are you here? Why follow me into my room? Why not leave?”
“Because I care.” The simple statement steals my breath. “Not about fixing you. Just about you.”
Time stretches between us, measured in heartbeats and shallow breaths. The blade in my hand grows heavier with each passing second, desire to use it dimming in the face of Gabriel’s presence.
Without breaking eye contact, I set the blade aside.
