“You feel this,” I murmur, letting the words curl against the soft part of her ear. “Don’t lie to me, monster.”
She laughs, bright and terrible. “I feel…bored.”
It hits harder than a dragon’s tail to the fucking face.
The smile stays on my face because I made it to last through wars and funerals, but something ugly rakes along the inside of my ribs. I test the bond. Just a pulse. Just a little snap of heat. Nothing she can name. Andthere, the smallest falter in her breath. The tiniest catch like a wire drawn too tight.
“There you are,” I breathe, triumphant and mean.
She smooths it into a grin like it never happened. “You’re hallucinating, King Gaslight.”
I want to bite her hard enough the pain blinds her.
“Enough,” Creed says, and the corridor obeys, the braziers guttering to a sterner flame. He plants himself in the middle without quite getting between us, older-brother arrogance wrapped in a funeral coat. “You’re forcing something you’re not ready for.”
“Don’t make me kill you, brother.”
“Legend, take a fucking beat before you create a shitstorm that can’t be undone. Trust me on this.”
“She is mine.”
“So you keep saying.”
My eyes slide to his, holding.
Big brother grits his teeth. “Fine. But do not start a war in my hall because you can’t manage your teeth.”
“My teeth are perfectly managed,” I say, and then I look back at her mouth and decide that statement is a fucking tragedy.
She’s close enough to kiss. Close enough to kill. Close enough that if I breathe deeper, we’ll share a heartbeat. It’s a miracle I’m even pretending to be civilized. “You smell like detergent,” I tell her, because it offends me on a cellular level. “Fix it.”
“Aw,” she says. “Does it mask your cologne? Smoldering ego? Notes of petrol and delusion?”
“Gasoline,” I correct softly. “And hunger.”
The bond drags a claw down my spine. I swear I feel her flinch though she attempts to mask it. She’s stone. She’s smoke. She’s the first thing I’ve wanted to worship and ruin in equal measure. The calm that used to live in my hands is a ghost.
“Run, then,” I murmur, stepping back half a breath because I’m either going to kiss her or break the wall with her spine. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“I don’t run,” she says.
I grin. “I know.”
Creed tips his chin at her. “Dorm. Now. And if you see a blade on your way, don’t pick it up.”
“Terrible advice,” she says, brushing past him like a storm in a stolen jacket.
I let her shoulder hit mine as she goes. Let the bond yank. Let the heat rip. Let the hunger kick my ribs open from the inside. I don’t follow, because I want her to feel the space I leave behind like a hand at her throat. She doesn’t look back, of course, but rounds the arch and vanishes from sight.
I stand there, smile still cutting my face, and hate how empty the corridor gets without her.
Creed watches with an expression I can’t quite place, but when he speaks, it’s not full of anger like a moment ago. It’s lower, laced with something that sounds a lot like concern. “You keep pushing like that and she’ll tear the campus apart just to spite you. That is drama we do not fucking need right now.”
“I know,” I say softly, thinking of blood on black stone, of a smear at the corner of her mouth that wasn’t mine. “I’m just teaching her to enjoy it.”
He shakes his head as if at a loss. “Dawn. Don’t be late.”
He turns away, coat whispering secrets to the floor.
