When he opens them, he looks through the window. At me.
The pull in my wrist — tight and controlled like the man it belongs to — spikes hard. Quiet to insistent between one heartbeat and the next.
Gray's composure cracks. A fissure. Something raw and wanting before he walls it back up. He says something to Stone. Sharp. Stone steps back.
Gray puts the book down.
He walks to the door.
He's coming outside.
My pulse kicks. The pull is doing something it hasn't done before — not just reaching toward him but responding to him moving toward me, getting louder with every step. Like the bondknows he's closing the distance and it's celebrating before he arrives.
The Gold House door opens. He steps out.
Up close, in daylight, with nothing between us — he's bigger than the window suggested. Wide through the shoulders. The hair cut short, the jaw clean-shaven, the gold shirt tucked and neat. Every detail under control.
His eyes are blue. Clear, sharp. And what's in them right now is a war.
He stops six feet from me. Close enough that I can feel something between us — not blazing, not urgent. Heavier. A gravity. The air has weight and substance and every inch of it is vibrating.
His hands are fists at his sides. A muscle jumps in his jaw. His chest is moving too fast — controlled breaths that aren't as controlled as he wants them to be.
He looks at my wrist. The mark is visible past my sleeve. And as he stares at it, the gold thread surfaces — that shimmer beneath the dark, there and gone in a heartbeat. The bond showing itself.
His nostrils flare. His body sways forward — one inch, involuntary, corrected immediately. The war in his eyes gets louder.
"I know what you are," he says.
His voice. Low. Steady. Controlled the way a hand is steady when someone is gripping so hard the tendons stand out. Every syllable placed with precision — language like architecture. Nothing wasted. Nothing accidental.
"I know what the mark means. I know what you're feeling right now and I know what I'm feeling and I know what it's called." Each sentence lands like a wall being built between us. "And I don't want it."
The words hit my chest. Physical impact. Like being shoved.
"I have spent months in that building." He nods toward Gold House without looking away from me. "Learning to hold this form. To think in complete sentences. To eat with a fork and sleep in a bed and not tear the throat out of every person who gets too close. I have fought for every single day of that and I am not giving it up."
His voice doesn't shake. His body does. Fine tremors running through his arms that he's pretending aren't there. The fists at his sides are so tight his knuckles have gone bloodless.
"The bond is biological. I understand that. It's not something you chose and it's not something I chose and it doesn't care what either of us wants." He swallows. Hard. "But I am choosing. Right now. I am choosing not to do this."
"Gray —"
"Don't." The word comes out sharp enough to cut. "Don't say my name like you know me. You walked past a window. That's all that happened. I felt something and I'm choosing to disregard it."
Something metallic hits the back of my throat. Copper. The ghost-taste of blood that isn't here. A sensory echo — my body pulling up a scent memory from somewhere I can't access. Blood. Cold. Dark floor.
Gone. Half a second. Gone.
"I am six months from reintegration review," Gray says. His voice has dropped. Quieter. Not softer — more intense. Like he's saying this to himself as much as to me. "Six months from leaving this compound and living in the world. I have a plan. I have a timeline. And I will not let some —" He stops. Breathes. "I will not let a bond that neither of us asked for take that from me."
My wrist is screaming. The pull toward him is so strong that my hand twitches — physically twitches toward him — and Ipress it against my thigh to stop it. He sees the movement. Sees me fighting the same thing he's fighting.
For one second, something in his face breaks open. Behind the discipline and the refusal and the walls he's laying down with every word — want. Pure, terrified, aching want. The face of a man who is saying no while every cell in his body is saying please.
Then it's gone. The wall goes back up. Seamless. Practiced.
"Stay away from Gold House," he says. "Stay away from me. Whatever the bond is telling you, ignore it. I am."
