I reach out—plucking a stray pine needle from her hair, myfingers brushing her temple. Her breathing falters. The gold flecks in her eyes shimmer like sunlight through a field of wildflowers, all the colors melting together—impossibly magnetic. Impossibly her. She stills beneath my hand. Her eyes meet mine—open, raw, infinite.
Every instinct screams at me to close the distance, to claim what’s always been there. My whole body leans into the fight—want against control, need against restraint.
For a wild second, I almost do it, ready to taste her there and everywhere else on this damned rock. To hell with the consequences.
But she pulls away, and the moment fractures.
The loss of her skin against mine feels almost violent. Like losing a war I never even got to fight.
She rises and steps off the rock, voice soft. “I’m with Noa.”
My jaw ticks. “I know.”
But her words land like a blade sliding between my ribs.
I hold my face still, keep my breathing even. I don’t even let my damn shadows twitch. Because discipline is a language I’m fluent in.
She walks away, the lake singing loudly behind her. And I let her go. Let her get far enough away from me before I can make a mistake. Before I let the animal within try to remind us both of just how truly I remember how to ruin her, body and soul.
I remain on the rock, shadows lingering around my hand where the bloom I picked for her sits like a quiet show of power. I toss it into the snow without looking. It disappears into the white like it never existed.
My shadows curl at my feet, restless—hungry, like they’ve scented blood. They want to follow her. Wrap around her and pull her back to us both.
But I don’t let them.
I leave the lake behind.
Whittaker’s paths are slick with ice now. The air is sharpenough to cut. Students move in packs, loud with adrenaline, still buzzing from the duel and the delicious lie that this is all for sport.
I let them stare. Let them flinch. Let them look away when their eyes meet mine.
Fear is useful. Respect is optional.
The Ivy House rises ahead—white stone, high windows, a pretty cage. Whittaker loves aesthetically pleasing facades. It hides the rot better.
I slip in through a side door. Teo is leaning in the corridor like he’s waiting for something to entertain him. Too bright. Eyes that miss nothing. He lifts a brow when he sees me.
“You look like you got stabbed,” he says quietly.
“I’m fine.”
He huffs a soft laugh. “That’s what people say right before they do something stupid.”
I stop, just long enough to make the air between us go cold. “Don’t you have someone else to bother?”
Teo’s smile flashes, quick, knowing, before he disappears down the hall to his room.
I open my door, locking it behind me. My room is sparse. Military neat. Everything in its place because if I let one thing drift, everything else will follow.
I stand there for a beat, palm on the latch, breathing through the tightness in my chest like it’s a wound that refuses to close.
The trunk sits at the foot of my bed.
I don’t want to look inside. But I open it anyway. Because I’m an idiot with control issues and a talent for self-inflicted damage.
Uniforms. Weapons. A shadowsteel dagger wrapped in cloth. Everything practical. Everything sharp.
And beneath it—what I keep buried like a sin:
