I pick up my fork. My hand trembles slightly.
I glance down at my wrist without meaning to. The skin flickers—gold, red, gone. Heat pulses once, sharp and sudden, right where everyone else’s mark sits.
Then nothing.
I curl my fingers into a fist and don’t look again.
“Nova?”
Beckett’s voice. Quiet, but it cuts through the noise in my head.
I look up. He’s watching me with that careful expression, the one that means he’s already figured out something’s wrong.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I reach for my water again, drain the rest of it. “I think so.”
“You don’t look okay.”
“I’m fine. Probably just tired.”
Trey’s hand tightens on my knee. Like he’s trying to anchor me to something solid.
It doesn’t help. If anything, the contact makes it worse. Heat pulses under my skin like a second heartbeat, too fast, too loud. I can hear my pulse pounding in my ears.
“Nova.” Vaelor this time, leaning forward. “You’re flushed.”
“I’m fine, I just—”
A knock at the door.
Everyone freezes.
We don’t get visitors. We especially don’t get visitors at eight o’clock at night, three days after someone threw flaming trash through my window.
Locke pushes back from the table. “Stay here,” he says to me, and the command in his voice leaves no room for argument.
He and Vaelor move toward the front door. I hear it open. Low voices—Locke’s rumble, someone else’s clipped professional tone. Words I can’t quite make out.
Trey’s hand is still on my knee. Beckett hasn’t looked away from my face. Kyron and Rane are both watching the doorway, bodies tense.
Footsteps returning.
Locke appears first, jaw tight. Vaelor behind him, his expression carefully blank.
“That was someone from Nightmare Order Security,” Locke says.
My stomach drops.
“They want to have a conversation. Tomorrow. Eight AM.”
“A conversation,” Kyron repeats flatly.
“That’s what they said.”
“And if we’re not interested in having a conversation?”
Vaelor’s mouth twists. “This would be a required conversation.”
