The symbol looked different today. Compressed. Heavy with presence.
The door opened before she could knock.
Caelum stood at the window, back to her—unusual enough that it registered as warning. When he turned, his face was in its governance, every feature precisely arranged. But his eyes were not at baseline. Something colder and deeper sat beneath the restraint, something the governance was containing with visible effort.
He looked at her for a long moment without speaking.
“You were in the corridor,” he said.
“Yes.”
“With Vale.”
“Yes.”
The silence that followed had its own internal structure.
“That was your first kiss,” he said.
Lyra met his gaze, anger already rising. “It was.”
He moved away from the window, each step measured.
“You let him put his mouth on you,” he continued quietly, voice low and edged. “While you were still carrying the memory of my hands from this morning. While your body still remembered how I held you. How I corrected you.”
“I didn’t ask for your permission,” she snapped, sharper than she intended. “We are not anything. You said nothing that suggested I couldn’t—”
Caelum’s hand closed around her wrist, the familiar pressure locking her in place. His other hand rose to her chin, tilting her face up with deliberate care.
“Look at me.”
She met his gaze, fury flashing in her eyes. “You have no right—”
He did not let her finish.
His fingers moved to the high collar of her blouse. Slowly, deliberately, he began unbuttoning it. One button. Then another. The fabric parted down the center of her throat, revealing pale skin and the upper curves of her breasts.
“This was not his to take,” he said, voice dropping.
Lyra’s breath hitched. “Caelum—”
He leaned in closer, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “You let him taste what belongs to me. You let him put his filthy mouth where only I should be.”
Tension coiled tight between them. His gray eyes darkened, control visibly straining at the edges. A muscle ticked in his jaw—the smallest crack in the perfect governance he always maintained.
“You think you can give away what’s mine?” he murmured, breath warm against her skin. “You think I won’t remind you exactly who you answer to?”
Lyra’s heart hammered. “I’m not yours to claim.”
A low, dangerous sound escaped him—almost a laugh, but colder. “Oh, little one. You already are.”
His mouth found the side of her neck.
Teeth sank into the soft flesh just below her jaw—hard, possessive. The sharp pain tore a gasp from her, bright and immediate. Then he sucked, drawing the skin deep and ruthless between his lips, pulling blood to the surface with deliberate, punishing force. The sensation burned, a mix of pain and something darker that made her thighs clench involuntarily. When he finally released her, the mark was large, vivid, impossible to hide—a blatant claim blooming dark against her pale skin.
Before she could pull away, his hand slid inside her open blouse. Fingers closed around her breast, pinching the nipple with cruel precision. Sharp pain lanced through her, then twisted into unwilling heat low in her belly as the peak throbbed and tightened under his grip.
She hissed through her teeth. “Stop—”
