I tried to jerk free. “Let go—”
“Come with me.”
The voice was silk over steel, the grip unbreakable.
“Please. Please stop touching me.” My heartbeat slammed in my ears. “Please.”
He didn’t answer.
Dev’s face was unreadable as he steered me away from the cafeteria and down a narrow, dark hall. The air smelled of metal and floor wax. At the far end, an old elevator waited, its doors yawning open like a mouth.
“Please. Please!” The words tore out of me now, raw and useless.
My sleeve slipped down, and his fingers brushed a strip of bare skin.
The world shuddered.
Something surged through me—heat, light, power that didn’t belong to me.
“No!” I ripped my arm back with a strength I didn’t know I had.
The elevator doors slammed shut between us.
I stumbled to the far wall, chest heaving, every nerve screaming.
Dev stared down at his hands, eyes wide. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t do anything!” My voice cracked.
He looked at me, mouth slightly open, then slowly lowered his arms.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said carefully. “I’m just taking you to—”
The elevator chimed.
“K.”
The doors slid open.
He was standing there.
A large suite stretched behind him—high ceilings, wide windows barred with iron, the light from a dozen candles throwing gold across the walls. The place smelled faintly of smoke and cedar.
Kieran filled the doorway like a shadow made solid. The years had carved him harder—broader shoulders, sharper jaw, eyes the same impossible blue that used to laugh when I couldn’t.
For a second, no one moved.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Seph,” he said softly.
My name.
It burned.
The sound of it, the familiarity, thebetrayalin it. I wanted to cover my ears.
I backed into the elevator. Dev hovered by the controls, uncertain, pressing the button to make it stay open.
