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He moves a fraction more. So close my head meets the bottom of his chin. I thought I was tall, but Christian bypasses what I gauge is my 5 ’11 to his 6’ 4.
“I’m the only one wandering around blind while the rest of you trade glances over my head. Well, I don’t really know about you. But the point stands,” I murmur, a fluttering sensation tickling my lips.
He exhales slowly, stepping closer. Any nearer and he’d be inside me. “You’re not blind, Marisa. You’re remembering. And remembering takes effort. Takes trials and tribulations.”
“Then help me,” I demand, though the plea slips through before I can hide it in anger. “If you know something—about me, about why I’m here—then say it.”
His jaw tightens with restraint. Then he says quietly, “I can’t.”
“Won’t,” I correct.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then returns to my eyes, and there is something raw in it now. “Can’t. But I will protect you. In this world, and any world.”
“Why would you do that for a woman you barely know? You have nothing to lose if you tell me what you know.”
The air in the small closet thickens, pressing nearer. I become acutely aware of the narrowness, of the dust motes suspended in the sliver of light filtering through the crack in the door, of the steady rise and fall of his chest as he stands so close I can feel the warmth of him bleeding through the thin layers of my clothes. Nothing is a good idea when you let a man crowd your senses. But I find my body responding to him anyway.
“Because some things don’t belong to me to reveal,” he continues, voice lower now, stripped of its usual dark amusement. “And some of them, if I say them aloud, won’t reach you the way they’re meant to.”
“That makes no sense,” I whisper.
“It will one day.” His hand lifts, hesitating just short of touching my waist, waiting for permission like he hadn’t just held me tightly against him moments ago. My body betrays me before my pride can intervene, leaning into the warmth of him. Chest to chest, I feel the grooves of his muscle and the slight shift in his stance that indicates he too, is affected by me. What a strange turn of events.
“You think I don’t see what he’s doing? The way I can’t help in the way that I want to?” Christian murmurs.
“Kieran protects this land, doesn’t he?” The question is like ash on my tongue.
“And what does he protect us from?”
I search for an answer and find none that satisfy me. My intuition tells me that I’m being too paranoid about Kieran Lazarus, but a sneaking flutter in my heart tells me I’m supposed to be near Christian Valen. His hand settles at my waist and the contact sends a quiet spark up my spine, a slow burn rather than the violent blaze Kieran ignites. This feels anchoring.
“You deserve someone who stands beside you. Not someone who cages you.”
The softness in his tone unsettles me. I want to point out that he earlier said I didn’t need a man but my fingers curl into the front of his coat without permission from my mind. The fabric bunches beneath my grip, and neither of us comments on it. The silence stretches between us, but it is no longer clunky; it hums with electric tension. My breathing slows to match his. His thumb traces a barely perceptible arc against my side, testing the boundary, waiting to see if I will pull away. I don’t.
“I don’t know which of you to believe,” I admit, quietly.
“You don’t have to believe me,” his voice is low, brushing against my skin. “Just watch me.”
The words unravel something in me. Watch him. Isn’t that what he’s been doing to me? His face is close enough now that I can see the faint scar along his jaw, the tiny shift in his pupils as they flick between my eyes and my mouth. The air feels thinner, harder to draw in. I should step back. I should remember that I barely know him, that this entire house is a nest of secrets and I am foolish to crave warmth in the middle of it. Instead, I tilt my head. Not enough to commit. Just enough to invite. Because when you’re thrust into an imperceptible world, with lost memories and two men who keep secrets, you lean into it.
Carefully his hand slides higher. His forehead nearly touches mine. Our breaths mingle, uneven. “If I cross this line,” he murmurs, “it won’t be strategic.”
Does hitting your head and falling through the sky make you susceptible to bad decisions? Christian feels like one.
Or are you feeling guilt for choosing your own desires?
“Who said it has to be?” I reply, though my voice is softer than I intend. His lips hover a breath from mine. I can feel the heat of them, the restrained hunger in the way he stills himself at the last possible moment, giving me the space to decide. And I almost do. I almost close the distance. But somewhere in the tower, a floorboard shifts. The sound slices through the fragile thread between us.
Christian stiffens first, his instincts overriding whatever is about to happen. He steps back just enough to put space between our bodies. His hand lingers a fraction too long before releasing me.
“Not here,” he says quietly. “I will find you in a few days. Be ready when you see me.”
The loss of his warmth leaves a strange ache in its wake. I clear my throat, attempting to reclaim composure that feels newly unstable.“We should finish what we came for.”
“Yes, we should,” he replies, though his gaze lingers on me a heartbeat longer than necessary.
As we leave the closet and move toward the scattered photographs and sterile instruments, I feel the shift inside myself with disconcerting clarity. Kieran makes me burn. Christian makes me steady. And if I stand beside him in rooms like this, breathing the same air, sharing the same danger, the more I realize that whatever he is hiding is not to control me. It’s to protect something I have yet to remember, which may be far more dangerous.
