A fantasy isn't dangerous.
A ghost can't break your heart.
For a moment, he can only stare at his own hand, then his knuckles curl over the glass.
The man standing before me is solid in a way his reflection never managed to capture. The dreams and the mirrors left out how impossible it would be to look away from him.
From his light.
He's tall, broad-shouldered, and impossibly striking in the cruel, unfair way Fae royals simply are. His platinum-blond hair falls across his brow in soft, unruly waves, framing a face that belongs in legends.
His jaw is strong, dusted with the faintest shadow. The severity of his features should make him intimidating, but his mouth softens the effect. His lips are full and infinitely moredangerous because I can picture exactly what they look like when he smiles.
Gods.
His chest is bare, exposing pale skin and hard muscles. My gaze drifts lower before I can stop it. Defined abs disappear beneath the waistband of his white cotton trousers.
Veins trace his knuckles, and tendons shift as his fingers flex. I remember those hands holding mine, touching my face. I know exactly how his mouth feels, how the lines of his stomach tighten under my touch.
But none of it compares to his eyes. They lock onto mine with such unbearable intensity that the rest of the room blurs.
His ice-blue gaze is something I could never see the bottom of. Beauty and light reveal only the first few feet of the turquoise ocean that are his irises before the rest disappears into a fathomless blue.
The scratches I carved into his shoulder with my nails add fresh streaks of color to his skin, and a few flecks of blood from his encounter with Iris still stain the bandages taped across his shoulder.
Standing here, close enough to see the pores of his skin and the uneven rise and fall of his chest, I can no longer hide behind excuses.
Ezra Lightbringer is real.
Painfully, terrifyingly real.
“We have to help him,” he croaks.
I raise a determined brow, teetering on the edge of insanity. “Instinct?”
“Instinct,” he confirms.
“Okay.” I search the room for something to break the tank, but he beats me to it.
He grabs a mallet from the table and slams it against the glass tank with all his might.
The glass cracks in a spiderweb pattern.
He hits it again.
And again.
And again.
Each impact sends new fractures racing through the enclosure, but it doesn’t give.
Tears streak down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, little fox.”
The words come out strangled.
“You were right. I never should have touched you,” he says, dropping the mallet down to the floor.
My stomach drops.
