I turn back to her. She’s standing exactly where I left her, a pale, dark-haired statue by the door, her tote bag clutched in onehand like a shield. Her eyes are huge, swallowing her face. Her lips are slightly swollen, and I can see a faint smear of my blood at the corner of her mouth.
A savage, possessive pride roars through me. Mine.
“Look at me,” I command, my voice softer than I intend.
She flinches but obeys, her gaze lifting from the floor to my face. She doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t recoil in horror at the sight of my bruised and bloody face. Aria just… looks. Her eyes trace the path of the blood from the cut, the swelling of my lip, the raw state of my knuckles. She is cataloging, observing. The scientist is back.
“You’re bleeding everywhere,” she whispers. Her voice is the first sound in the apartment that isn’t me, and it hangs in the air, fragile and clear.
A harsh, bitter laugh escapes me. “Is that what you see? A little blood? I’m surprised you see anything at all. I thought your eyes would be screwed shut by now.”
I take a step toward her and she shrinks back against the door, a cornered, beautiful animal. Good. Fear is honest.
“I asked you a question. Back on the catwalk,” I say, closing the distance between us until I can see the frantic pulse beating in her throat. “You nodded. I want to hear you say it.”
Her eyes are locked on mine, a swirling storm of terror and something else. Defiance. “Say what?”
“Say you’re still here,” I demand, my voice dropping to a low growl. “Say it. After all that, after seeing what I am, after tasting it. Say it.”
The moment stretches, thick with tension. I expect her to break, to cry, to beg me to let her go.
“I’m still here,” she says, her voice quiet but steady, unbroken.
The words hit me harder than any punch from the Minotaur. My breath catches. I have to force the air back into my lungs.
“Why?” The question is ripped out of me, a raw, desperate need for an answer that fits the narrative I’ve held for years. The broken girl from the file, the victim—she should have run. She should be shattered. “A sane person would have run the second I got in that ring,” I say, my voice raw. “A sane person would have screamed when I kissed them. Why are you still here?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers, and it’s the first lie she’s told me tonight.
“Liar,” I hiss, leaning in closer, my hands clenching into fists at my sides to keep from touching her again. “You’re not afraid of the blood. You’re not afraid of the violence. What are you afraid of, Aria?”
“I am afraid,” she says, and the admission is so quiet, so honest, it stuns me. “I’m afraid of you.”
“Good,” I breathe, a wave of satisfaction washing through me. “You should be.”
“But that’s not what you asked,” she continues, her gaze unwavering. “You asked why I’m still here.”
I wait, my entire being focused on her, on her next words.
“I saw you stop,” she says.
The four words hang in the air, completely derailing me. Of all the things she could have said, that was the last thing I expected.
“What?”
“With him,” she clarifies, her voice gaining a sliver of strength. “The Minotaur. You were going to… and then you didn’t. You looked at him, and you stopped. I saw you.”
She didn’t see the monster, she didn’t see the victory, she didn’t see the bloodlust of the crowd. Aria saw the one second of mercy, the one moment of control that mattered. She saw the man.
The realization is a punch to the gut. This whole time I’ve been trying to scare her, to show her the monster, and she was looking right past it. She was looking for me.
A new kind of hunger, sharper and more dangerous than simple obsession, claws at me. I need to own that. I need to own the part of her that sees that.
“And the kiss?” I ask, my voice rough. “Did you see that, too?”
A faint flush rises on her cheeks, a beautiful stain of color against her pale skin. “Yes.”
“And?” I press, needing to hear her say it, needing to confirm the brand is as real for her as it is for me.
