I didn't know if she was alive or dead or somewhere in between.
"Every night," he continued, turning the book over in his hands like it was fragile. Breakable. "Even when she was too tired. Even when my father yelled at her for it."
My chest tightened.
I should've stayed silent. Should've let the moment pass without comment, without offering him anything that resembled understanding.
But something in his voice—something raw and unguarded—held me frozen.
He traced the worn edges of the cover, thumb moving absently over faded lettering.
"She said books made places safe."
The crack in his voice was barely there.
A hairline fracture.
But I heard it. Felt it settle somewhere behind my ribs where I didn't want it to live.
Gideon placed the book back on the shelf with aching precision. Too carefully. Like returning something sacred to an altar he had no right approaching.
The gesture hurt to watch. Made him human in ways I couldn't afford to acknowledge.
Because seeing him like this—quiet and almost vulnerable, haunted by memories he carried in silence—made hating him infinitely harder.
And I needed the hatred.
It was the only armor I had left.
He turned, lips parting around a question I'd never hear—and froze.
His gaze dropped to my throat.
Focused.
Absolute.
I felt the weight of it before I understood what he was seeing: the faint shadow of purple beneath my jaw, the mark his mouth had left last night when he'd pulled me against him and claimed that spot like territory.
I'd worn my hair down deliberately. Applied concealer with shaking hands this morning.
Apparently not enough.
His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing the green until almost nothing remained but hunger and something fiercer.
He moved toward me.
One step.
Deliberate.
I retreated instinctively, spine hitting the counter before I'd consciously decided to run. The edge bit into my lower back, grounding and trapping me simultaneously.
He followed.
Slow.
Patient.
