She is asleep. She is having a nightmare. This is not the time.
“Safe. You are safe,” I repeated, keeping my voice low and soothing despite the guilt churning in my gut.
She let out a sigh—long and releasing, as if exhaling the nightmare itself. Her heartbeat steadied, dropping back to normal rhythm. Her breathing deepened, her body relaxing by degrees until the tension bled out of her muscles entirely.
Despite our complicated relationship, despite her constant protests against my presence and my frustration with her reckless choices, it pained me to see her this way. What had her fearing so much?
I stayed for hours, unable to leave her side. Every time I considered slipping out, her breath would hitch, or her face would tighten, and I’d freeze. Afraid that moving would trigger another nightmare, that my absence would leave her vulnerable to horrors I couldn’t fight.
It was past midnight when I finally forced myself to stand, my body stiff from sitting on the hard floor. I took one last look at Violet—peaceful now, her expression soft, her breathing deep and even. Then I left, closing the door with a quiet click as the sound of rolling thunder promised rain.
The walk back to my apartment felt longer than usual, my mind circling through everything I’d learned. Her nightmares. Her past loversthat made possessive rage burn through me. The way she’d looked at me during our fight—angry and flushed and so fucking beautiful it had stolen my breath.
I am in trouble. Deep, irrevocable trouble.
And I didn’t know how to stop falling.
Chapter 17
Violet
Thursday morning started off weird, thanks to Rowan.
I stood around the corner of Whitestone Hall, my back pressed against the cold stone still damp from last night’s rain, as I wondered what the hell I was watching him do. Students streamed past me in both directions, their voices a low hum punctuated by occasional laughter, the scrape of backpack zippers, the hollow thud of a coffee thermos hitting the ground. None of them seemed to notice the tall angelic man crouched in the dirt outside the lecture hall entrance, head tilted, studying the ground like it held the secrets to the universe.
Rowan.
My self-appointed shadow for the past four days. My unwanted bodyguard.My—I don’t even know what to call him anymore. The boy I’d known growing up had been quiet, observant, careful. This version? This Rowan, who’d inserted himself into my life with the inevitability of a winter freeze?
He was something else entirely.
I wanted to move closer, to see what commanded his attention with such focus, but I didn’t want him to know I was there. I wanted to watch him, to study him.
Rowan shifted his weight, the movement fluid and economical. Pale morning sunlight caught in his hair, turning his pearly hair almost translucent against the dark collar of his leather jacket. Pine. Even from here, I caught the scent of him, sharp and clean, cutting through thesmell of wet concrete and the cloying perfume of the girl who’d just walked past.
That scent filled every space he occupied, saturated the air until it felt thick, overwhelming, impossible to ignore. Like standing too close to a bonfire—the heat became part of your skin whether you wanted it or not.
“I know you are there, Violet.”
His voice cut through the morning noise, smooth and certain. Not loud. He didn’t need volume when every word landed with that kind of precision.
My breath caught.
He stood in one fluid motion, turned, and those pale eyes locked onto mine. Ice-blue and ancient, seeing too much, stripping away the comfortable distance I’d tried to maintain. His posture shifted—spine straighter, shoulders broader, chin slightly lowered. A predator’s stance. The boy I’d known growing up wouldn’t have looked at me like that, wouldn’t have held himself like violence wrapped in skin, like he was deciding whether I was a threat or prey or something worth pursuing.
ThisRowan was different. This Rowan made my pulse spike, my breathing shallow, and every survival instinct I’d honed scream.
“Will you not come closer?”
I shook my head before I could think better of it, my fingers fidgeting with my bag. My heart slammed against my ribs. “Your presence is overwhelming.”
His brow creased, confusion flickering across features that gave away so little. “I do not understand.”
Of course you wouldn’t.
How could someone like him—someone who filled every available space with that masculine scent, with the sheer force of his attention, with a physicality that made the air feel thinner—possibly understand what it was like to be on the receiving end? He was the storm. He’d never been the thing caught in the storm’s path.
“It doesn’t matter.” I forced the words out and tried to sound dismissive rather than rattled. “What were you looking at?”
