My heart pounds hard in my chest, my hands are burning, and somewhere in my head, a voice that sounds suspiciously like my own, is screaming I should run. I should get out of here, and stop asking questions before I learn answers I can’t unknow.
“You’re home, Sloane.”That same woman’s voice from weeks ago alarms in my head, louder this time, so loud I have to close my eyes, a slight headache forming in my temples.
I should get the fuck out of here.
But I don’t.
I simply open my eyes and stare right back at Ronan with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. “Prove it,” I say. “Do something right now. Show me this is real.”
Ronan’s grin falters. “I don’t think—”
“Show me!”
He glances over my shoulder, and his expression changes. Turns carefully neutral. Almost guilty.
I spin, and Crave is standing ten feet away, and the look on his face is terrifying.
Not angry.
Worse.
Controlled.
The kind of control that comes right before an explosion.
“Ronan,” he says, his voice deadly soft. “A word.Now.”
“Boss, I was just—”
“Now!”
The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. Conversations fade. Even the music seems quieter. Everyone is watching, waiting to see what happens next.
Ronan sets down his cue and follows Crave toward the back hallway. But before they disappear, Crave’s eyes find mine, and in them, I see something that makes my blood run cold and hot at the same time.
Warning.
Apology.
Hunger.
Then he’s gone, and I’m left standing by the pool table, my hands shaking, my mind reeling.
‘Magic you don’t wanna understand.’
But I do want to understand.
Desperately.
I want to understand why my hands glow in the dark and why I can feel emotions in my blood, why Ronan can bend probability, and why Crave looks at me like I’m both salvation and damnation.
Why this place, these people, feel more real than anything in my regular life.
I return to the bar, but I don’t sit down.
Eden watches me with those too-knowing eyes. “You should probably go home,” she says quietly. “Before you see something, you can’t unsee.”
“What if Iwantto see it?”
