She stared at him, chest rising and falling in quick, uneven breaths. “So, just like that, it begins. And now, you’re just going to leave?”
“For tonight,” he said. “Until I can trust myself near you.”
Her fingers curled slightly, as if she hadn’t expected that answer.
He turned away, aware of her gaze tracking the lines of armor, the faint glow of the mask’s red eye-slits, the restraint in every step he took.
At the doorway, he paused—not turning, but letting his voice carry back to her.
“You survived me once,” he said. “You will survive everything that follows.”
Then he stepped through the threshold, letting the door seal softly behind him, shutting away the scent of her, the heat of her, the danger she posed to every boundary he had ever set.
He needed discipline stronger than instinct.
Because if he returned before he mastered himself…
He would not stop.
And she was not ready for that.
Not yet.
CHAPTER 18
The door sealed with a soft breath of air.
Morgan stared at it as if it had personally offended her.
He came to see you. And then he just walks out.
Her pulse still raced from the confrontation. Anger and humiliation churned together, tangled with the simmering heat his presence had left behind. Her body felt too tight, her skin too thin, as though every nerve had been stripped bare.
She took a step away from the bed.
The room tilted.
Her hand shot out to catch the edge of a low table, but the surface seemed to drift away from her. A rush of dizziness crashed over her, hot and cold at once. Her vision narrowed, the chamber shrinking to a long tunnel framed by dark stone and muted light.
“Oh, come on,” she whispered, dragging in a breath that did not seem to reach her lungs. “Not now.”
Her heart hammered painfully. The air felt wrong—thinner, harsher, as if something vital had been pulled out of it. Her senses strained for a presence that was no longer there, reaching instinctively for a gravity that had just stepped through the door.
He was gone.
And whatever thread connected them did not like that at all.
Her knees weakened. The table edge slid from under her fingers. She staggered, caught herself on the wall, then lost that, too. The stone blurred beneath her palm.
She heard the sound of her own breathing, harsh and shallow. Felt the wild, disordered pounding of her heart. Heat flashed through her body, followed by a cold so sharp it made her shiver.
This is absurd. You are not falling apart because some alien walked out of the room.
Except she was. Every part of her felt unmoored, as if someone had quietly reached inside her chest and twisted something out of place.
The floor rushed toward her, but she didn’t hit it.
Arms closed around her in a single, decisive movement. The impact was firm but carefully moderated, the kind of strength that could have easily crushed her, bent instead into control.
