Chapter Twenty-Three
Emmy
Darkness crashes into me without warning, crushing the breath from my lungs. I’m slammed back against something solid, warm in a way that feels wrong, unmovable in a way that makes my stomach drop. My heart detonates in my chest, panic tearing through me so violently my vision fractures at the edges.
This is it. This is the mistake that ends me.
A presence looms close, too close.
“Quiet,” a voice murmurs into my ear, low, measured, terrifyingly gentle. “Little Heaven.”
My body goes rigid, every muscle locking at once. Not because I feel safe. Because I know exactly who’s holding me.
A breath ghosts my neck, deliberate and unhurried, like he has all the time in the world. The hand covering my mouth loosens slightly, not enough to free me, only enough to remind me that every breath I take is something he’s allowing.
His other arm clamps around my waist, iron-hard, anchoring me in place. There’s no room to twist, no space to run. He’s not restraining me out of panic or anger, he’s controlling me because he can.
“I told you not to leave,” he says quietly, his words settling into my bones.
“Khai,” I whisper against his palm, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it.
Silence.
His breathing remains calm, even, unnervingly controlled. He doesn’t need to rush. He already has me. His presence presses in from every side, heavy and inescapable, a reminder that I never truly disappeared from his reach.
“I told you not to leave,” he repeats, the softness stripped away this time. There’s something sharp underneath now, something final. A promise. A warning.
The fear doesn’t disappear.
It mutates, coiling tighter, sharpening into something volatile.
I shove at his chest, twisting just enough to face him, my pulse still hammering violently in my throat. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I hiss. “You scared me. I thought,”
He cuts me off by pulling me closer, not rough, not gentle, decisive. His forehead rests briefly against mine, his presence overwhelming, caging me in without needing force.
I recoil, planting my palms against his chest, forcing what little distance I can manage between us. “You don’t get to do that,” I snap, anger burning through the last of the shock. “You don’t get to grab me like that and decide,”
“I don’t get to decide?” His jaw tightens, the calm cracking just enough to reveal something dangerous underneath. “You. Left.”
“I went to work.”
His eyes don’t leave mine. “After I told you not to.”
A sharp, incredulous laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “You don’t own me, Khai.”
Something flickers in his gaze at that, dark, unreadable, and gone too quickly to understand. But the air shifts, thickening, the silence stretching taut between us like a wire pulled too tight.
“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t.”
He steps closer anyway, close enough that I can feel the heat of him, the weight of his attention pressing down on me. “But don’t confuse that with thinking you’re out of my reach.”
“You’re mine,” he says slowly.
His hands settle at my waist, firm and unrelenting, fingers biting through the thin fabric as if he needs the proof of me there. “And you’re mine to protect.”
“That’s not protection,” I snap, my voice sharp despite the way my pulse stutters. “That’s control.”
Silence stretches between us, thick, volatile. My eyes have finally adjusted to the dark, and I catch the way his jaw tightens, the slow drag of his tongue across his bottom lip as if he’s restraining something barely leashed.
