He moved closer still, and I froze. My hands trembled as his presence filled the room entirely. Then he kissed me.
At first, I stiffened, pushing against him with everything I had. My hands pressed against his chest, trying to shove him away, but I couldn’t. Every rational thought screamed for me to resist, but my body betrayed me, burning with tension I had spent months denying.
He didn’t stop. His lips were firm, commanding, tasting my fury and grief all at once. My knees weakened. My hands clenched against his shoulders, but even as I resisted, my heart raced, and the ache in my chest shifted, mingling grief with something illicit, forbidden, unbearable.
We stood there, frozen for a moment. I stared into his grey eyes, and he stared back, unyielding. My hands dropped slightly, my chest rising and falling in ragged breaths, and then I let go. I pressed forward, letting myself kiss him with the same intensity I had shouted at him moments before. Rage, longing, pain, everything became fire between us. His hands cradled my head, fingers threading through my hair, holding me with a possessiveness that terrified me.
And then the door opened.
Ronan.
I jerked back immediately, stumbling a step, heart hammering. Lucien’s gaze lingered on me, dark and unreadable. I smoothed my dress, pressed my palms against my trembling legs, and whispered, “I should go.”
I didn’t look back as I left, but I could feel him watching me the entire way down the hallway.
CHAPTER 28
Lucien
She stormed out of my office, heels clacking against the marble, echoing like gunshots in the silence I had built. Every nerve in my body ached to pull her back, to hold her, to tell her that her grief, her rage, her fire, all of it, belonged tome.
I didn’t move at first. I let her leave. Let her think she had some control over the chaos she felt inside. Let her believe her anger could stand against me.
But I knew. I had always known. Her rage was a flame I had lit the night her father died, a flame that would burn bright until she either bent to it or burned herself out.
I paced slowly, hands brushing the edge of the desk, eyes on the door she had vanished through. The room still smelled of her faint perfume mixed with the tension of our fight, the heat of her kiss, the lingering scent of fear I had tasted on her lips.
Ronan appeared silently in the doorway. His expression was neutral, but I knew he had felt the tension, the storm that had erupted between us. He didn’t speak, didn’t move forward. He had learned not to intervene when I was tangled in her world.
“She will calm,” I said finally, voice low, almost to myself. “Eventually. She always does. She doesn’t yet realize that the world is fire, and I am the only one who can control it for her.”
Ronan inclined his head, silent acknowledgment. He knew there was no reasoning with the obsession I carried. She was mine in ways that terrified even him.
I turned back to the city outside the window. Marseille glimmered beneath the rain, a city of shadows and opportunity, but it could burn in seconds if I decided it should, and I would.For her.
CHAPTER 29
Seraphina
The hallway seemed to stretch endlessly. I tried to steady my breathing, pressing my palms against the cold marble wall. My father’s face haunted me again, his smile, the way he had looked at me the night before his death, the warmth I would never feel again. The memory collided with the fire in my chest, with the taste of Lucien’s lips lingering on mine, and I felt raw, frayed, torn.
I forced myself to move, to retreat from his office, but the image of him standing there, so calm, so impossibly powerful, burned into my mind.He had killed my fatherand yet, in some incomprehensible way, he ignited something in me, something I could neither name nor resist.
I found refuge in the library, rows of books surrounding me, the familiar scent of paper and polished oak calming my trembling hands. I wanted to hide. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run but every instinct, every thought, was tangled in the memory of him.
I hated him. I feared him. I wanted him. I wanted him more than I should’ve. I sank into a chair, head in my hands, letting the storm of grief and desire rage unchecked. Outside, rain hammered the windows, echoing the pounding in my chest.
The library was silent except for the storm fading outside. I could hear the faint drip of rain from the stone balcony beyond the tall windows, each drop echoing in the cavernous room like the ticking of a clock.
Time moved slowly here.
Too slowly.
My breathing finally steadied, but the heaviness in my chest refused to lift. I leaned back into the chair and stared up at the painted ceiling, my thoughts spiraling in endless circles.
Lucien.
Even thinking his name made my pulse quicken in a way that filled me with anger and something far more dangerous.
