Zero's eyes are on me—ice-blue and sharp as broken glass. Tracking every micro-expression on my face, every tell I can't hide. Reading me like I'm an open book written in a language only he understands.
He looks me up and down slowly. Deliberately. Taking in my rumpled clothes, my messy hair, the fact that I'm walking out of his brother's room wearing what I slept in. His gaze is heavy, weighted with implication.
Then he breathes in. Deep. Deliberate.
His nostrils flare. His pupils dilate, swallowing the blue until only a thin ring remains. His jaw clenches so hard I can see the muscle jump beneath his skin, can hear the faint grind of his teeth.
And I know.
He can smell it. Whatever's happening to me. Whatever's wrong with me. The fever, the heat, the thing that's been building in my body for days.
He knows.
"Zero—" I start, but I don't know how to finish that sentence. Don't know what I'm asking for or what I'm trying to say.
"Go." His voice is harsh. Sharp enough to cut. "Go back to your room."
I blink, taken aback. "What?"
"You heard me." He pushes off the wall and steps closer, crowding me back toward Atlas's door. His presence is overwhelming—all barely leashed aggression and predatory focus. "Get the fuck back in your room and don't show your face outside it if you know what's good for you."
The words are a snarl. A warning. Practically vibrating with threat.
But there's something else underneath them. Something that sounds almost like—
Fear?
No. Not fear. Zero doesn't do fear.
Control. He's fighting for control. Fighting something inside himself.
And losing.
I can see it in the way his hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. In the rigid set of his shoulders. In the way he's breathing too hard, chest rising and falling like he's just run a marathon.
He's holding himself back. Barely.
From what, I don't want to know.
"Move," he growls, and there's something feral in his voice now. Something that makes every survival instinct I have scream at me to run. "Now."
I move.
Not because he told me to. Not because I'm afraid of him—though maybe I should be.
But because the way he's looking at me right now—eyes dark and hungry, body tense like a coiled spring about to snap—makes something dangerous and reckless coil in my gut.
Makes me want things I shouldn't want. From someone I definitely shouldn't want them from.
I slip past him, keeping as much distance as I can in the narrow hallway. I don't look at him. Don't breathe. Don't do anything that might trigger whatever predator instinct is clearly riding him hard right now.
I can feel his gaze burning into my back as I walk down the hallway toward my room. Can feel the tension radiating off him in waves so thick I could choke on them.
My hands are shaking when I reach my door. I fumble with the handle, finally get it open and slip inside.
I close the door behind me. Lock it. Lean against it and slide down until I'm sitting on the floor with my knees drawn up to my chest.
And I try to breathe.
