She felt him. Distant, but unmistakably there.
Her pulse quickened, and something in her answered, although she wasn’t sure she wanted it to.
I can sense him.
The realization spread through her like wildfire.
And she didn’t know whether to fear it…
Or crave it.
CHAPTER 17
The Bastion corridors dimmed as Kyrax made his way toward her chambers, the violet light drawing back from him the way mist retreats from fire. His boots struck the stone in a slow, deliberate cadence, each step echoing the need he fought to contain.
The Council’s warnings still whispered at the back of his mind, but they no longer held shape or meaning. He had what they feared.
A human who survived him.
A human who resonated.
A human who might be the first true bond in centuries.
And she was alive. More than alive—she pushed back, resisted, endured. Rage and strength interwoven so tightly she couldn’t tell them apart.
He paused outside her door. The urge to enter without restraint pulsed through him, primal and unwelcome. He quelled it. Barely.
The door opened.
She was standing this time—unsteady but furious, her breath sharp, her hands balled at her sides. Her hair fell in a dark spillaround her shoulders. Her pupils were dilated, her skin flushed from the venom still coursing faintly through her.
She looked wild, beautiful, and dangerous to him in a way he had never experienced.
The moment her eyes met his mask, her anger flared.
“You could have killed me.”
The accusation struck with more force than any weapon. Her voice trembled with equal parts fear and fury, yet she didn’t retreat. She stood her ground, glaring up at someone who could snap her in two with a careless movement.
He admired her for it.
Slowly, he stepped forward—just a single pace, enough to acknowledge her strength without pressing his presence too hard.
“No,” he answered, his voice lowering to a deliberate, resonant calm. “I could not.”
She huffed, incredulous. “You breathed something on me. I could feel it. It tore through me like—like heat, like fire, like—” Her throat constricted around the words. “How do you know it wouldn’t kill me?”
He held her gaze. “Because I tested your body’s response before I came to you.”
She blinked, stunned. “You—what?”
“A minute dose. Infused into your tea aboard the vessel.” His tone remained even. “You survived it effortlessly. That was how I knew.”
Her lips parted in shock, then flattened. Anger rose again, sharper this time. “So you experimented on me.”
“I observed,” he corrected, though his voice softened. “It was necessary to protect you.”
The words seemed to catch her off guard. Not enough to placate her, but enough to interrupt the next outburst.
