His eyes stay on me. Only me.
“You shouldn’t be walking around looking like this, Zvez.” His voice is calm; his eyes are anything but. “You’ll start a war you don’t intend to.”
The way he’s looking at me makes heat crawl up my spine. Like he can see every freckle, every mark, every scarbeneaththe gown.
Something catches in my throat. My heart races, erratic andhelpless, and I hate that he can do that, that he can make my body respond to him with the slightest look or touch. His mouth twitches. A shadow of a smile. That one dimple flickering into existence.
And then it’s gone. The air grows impossibly tighter in an instant as a tall figure steps beside him.
General Kamenov is granite hidden within a marble exterior. Commanding. Beautiful in a cruel, unyielding way that leaves no trace of warmth. His features are Gavrail’s, but colder. Stripped of softness and emotion.
Gavrail’s home was one where children were neither seen nor heard. Most of my memories of his father are of his silent, judging presence… or of him scolding Gavrail in a low, lethal voice after we’d been caught doing something we shouldn’t.
“Celeste,” he says smoothly. “What an extraordinary surprise.”
The look he gives me tells me that it’s not. My lips tighten, and cold prickles at the base of my spine.
“Gavrailneglectedto mention that you were a student here as well.” His words weigh more than they should. An accusation.
I see Gavrail’s jaw tick as he glances from his father to me, instinctively putting himself between us.
“Gavrail,” the general says, not taking his eyes off me, “why don’t you ask Celeste to dance?”
Not a question. A directive.
Gavrail’s nod is clipped. Dutiful. But when he reaches for my hand, his fingers close around mine like he’s claiming—not obeying.
Without a word, he draws me onto the marble floor as the string quartet shifts into something nuanced and lilting. It drifts over the ballroom like fog, coaxing couples into motion in a slow, obedient tide. And around us, the room subtly recalibrates: laughter thinning, conversations stuttering, headsturning as people sense something dangerous moving among them.
Gavrail’s hand finds the small of my back. Heat bleeds through the silk where his palm rests, a brand laid down with courtly precision. His other hand closes over mine, fingers firm, unyielding.
He doesn’t speak as he guides me through the first steps—smooth, effortless, like he was born knowing how to move people where he wants them. But there’s something under the calm. A thread pulled too tight. A tether humming with strain.
His thumb drags once over my knuckle, a quiet, proprietary stroke. His mouth brushes close to my ear and a shiver runs through me.
“Why are you trembling, Zvez?” he asks, voice low. Barely a sound.
I turn my head, daring to meet his eyes.
It’s a mistake.
He holds the stare, unflinching. There’s no concern there. No softness. There is calculation: the same patient brutality he carries into a duel, the same cold certainty that makes people step aside without being asked. He’s watching me like he’s cycling through outcomes he’s already measured… and choosing the one that hurts the most. But there’s something else too—something likerecognition.
The glint in his eyes isn’t cruel.
It’shungry.
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close—as he spins me outward with a flick of his wrist, then snaps me back into him before I can catch my balance. The air leaves my lungs in a small, involuntary laugh—startled and breathy.
His hold tightens a fraction. The mask he wears so well falters for a second.
Our bodies fit with a familiarity sharpened by absence. Too close. Too perfect. My traitorous pulse races.
His breath skims my cheek. “That laugh,” he says, voice hushed, almost a confession, “has found its way into my dreams more times than I care to admit.”
The music swells.
He dips me low—and for a heartbeat my world becomes his hand at my back, his arm like iron, the ceiling spinning into a chandeliered blur. When he lifts me again, he keeps me close, as if letting go isn’t an option. And I can feel it then—the gravity between us. Inescapable and bone-deep.
