Page 11
Mate.
The word felt more dangerous than any declaration of war.
Her eyes went wide, and she reached out before stopping herself. “Should I get someone?”
“What is your name?” The question tumbled out of me before I could stop it.
Her eyebrows pulled together. “Liv.”
I waited.
“Olivia Heart,” she amended. “I’m delivering flowers for Lux Draven.”
Olivia. The name settled easily under my skin. Plain. Human sounding. No old-clan weight.
Honest.
Honest got people killed in my city. I forced my fingers open, dried blood cracking across the knuckles of my gloves.
“Leave them. I’ll make sure he gets them.”
She glanced toward the security guard, who reached for the arrangement. I snapped my attention toward him. His hand stopped.
Olivia studied my mask for another second. She had no idea who stood in front of her. No idea what had happened beneath my skin, no idea that every instinct inside me had started screaming to lock the tower doors.
“Do I need a signature?” she asked.
Security handled the manifest before I made the mistake of stepping any nearer.
She tucked the copy into her jacket pocket. “Okay. Have a good night.”
A laugh almost tore out of me. War had begun, Hollowside was burning, and the Fates had placed my mate in front of me wearing a flower-shop jacket.
A good night seemed unlikely.
I stepped around her without answering. Every muscle in my body screamed when I turned my back to her, but I crossed the lobby and entered the private elevator before instinct won. The doors closed between us.
My hand hit the wall.
“Fuck.”
The elevator carried me upward. Each floor added more distance between us, and the bond resisted every bit of it. My shadows moved restlessly over the floor, searching for a path back to her.
I didn’t know her.
The bond wasn’t love. It created recognition, awareness, and an instinctive need to protect the person tied to the other end. Society treated the mark as proof of divine love because society preferred a glowing throat to asking if two people even liked each other.
The elevator opened into my office.
Vale was already on his feet. His tablet remained in one hand as he took in the blood, the mask, and the shadows crawling across the elevator walls behind me.
“Lux?”
I pulled the mask off and crossed the room before the doors finished closing. My chair scraped across the floor when I shoved it out of my path.
“Lux.” Vale rarely used my name twice. “Talk to me.”
I braced both hands against the far wall and ground my teeth. The burn beneath my jaw had settled into a brutal throb. My mark had appeared beneath the skin in patterns only she could understand.
