Focused.
Absolutely terrifying.
I try to match his pace, but the gown keeps catching around my legs, and the heels are making my calves scream, and the diamond choker around my throat feels like it weighs about ten pounds.
His mother's choker.
The one that marks me as his.
The one that every single person in that ballroom recognized.
I touch it briefly, feeling the cool weight of the obsidian and raw diamonds against my skin.
It grounds me.
Reminds me why we're doing this.
We reach the emergency stairwell at the end of the corridor.
Cyprian pauses, his hand hovering over the biometric scanner beside the door.
"Kael," he says quietly. "Status?"
Kael's voice crackles through the earpiece. "Security feeds are looped. You have a three-minute window before the system cycles. Third floor, east wing, executive suite 3-A. The enforcer is stationed outside the vault entrance."
"Understood."
Cyprian presses his palm to the scanner.
It flashes green.
The door hisses open.
And we step into the stairwell.
The stairs are brutal.
Not because they're steep—they're actually pretty standard—but because I'm wearing a floor-length silk gown and heels that were designed for standing still and looking intimidating, but I'm climbing three flights of industrial stairs.
The first step echoes.
Sharp.
Metallic.
The sound of my three-inch designer heel striking bare steel riser bounces off concrete walls, way too loud in the enclosed space. I hike the skirt up around my thighs, exposing way too much leg, bunching the obsidian silk in one fist while my other hand grips the cold metal railing. The gown keeps catching—snagging on my knees, pulling at my hips, the fabric designed for gliding across polished marble, not hauling ass up industrial stairs in the middle of a corporate heist.
My breathing is frantic. Loud. Each inhale echoes back at me from the concrete stairwell, mixing with the rhythmic click-click-click of my heels on steel. My calves are screaming—actual burning pain shooting up from my ankles as the unforgiving angle of the heels forces my muscles into positions they were never meant to hold during a three-story climb. The choker feels heavier with each step, the obsidian and raw diamonds pressing against my throat, the weight shifting and settling as I move, a constant physical reminder of exactly whose I am and exactly how insane this entire situation has become.
Cyprian moves ahead of me, his wings folded tight against his back, his sprawling, towering frame blocking most of the light from the overhead fixtures.
But I can feel him.
The heat radiating off his body cuts through the cool concrete air of the stairwell, rolling back toward me in waves. He's only two steps ahead, close enough that I could reach out andtouch the base of his wings, and the temperature difference is stark—volcanic warmth against industrial cold. It makes the contrast even more surreal: me, gasping and stumbling in four-thousand-dollar silk and designer heels, and him, moving like a shadow made of stone and fire, completely silent despite his four-hundred-pound frame.
He glances back once.
His amber eyes flick to my exposed thighs.
