Page 337 of House Ignis

This wasn’t the plan.

I’d gone to the Academy with one fucking mission. Get in. Find what I needed. Get out.

Simple. Clean. Controlled.

I’d planned for questions. Suspicion. The Astral Guard. Professors who watched too closely and students who didn’t watch closely enough. I’d planned every lie before I ever stepped through those gates.

I had not planned for Ava Pyreson.

Firecracker. Princess. Walking fucking catastrophe.

She’d been too curious from the beginning. Too stubborn. Too reckless. Too willing to look me directly in the eye and question every word that came out of my mouth.

I should have stayed away from her.

Gods, I’d tried.

Then came the Orb.

The blood oath.

The bond.

And everything went to shit.

For months, blaming the bond had been convenient. Ancient magic. Fae instinct. A blood oath neither of us had asked for. It explained the constant awareness. The hunger. The way her fear became mine and her anger burned beneath my skin. The instinct to protect her, touch her, keep her close.

Except I’d known for a long time that it was bullshit.

The bond had intensified what was already there.

It hadn’t created it.

And it sure as fuck hadn’t made me fall in love with her.

I’d managed that catastrophe entirely on my own.

Fuck.

I loved Ava Pyreson.

I loved her smart mouth. Her temper. The way she threw herself headfirst into danger and somehow expected everyone else to keep up. I loved the way she challenged me, the way she laughed, the way she looked at every dark piece of me I’d allowed her to see and never once fucking flinched.

Somewhere along the way, the mission had stopped mattering.

She mattered.

And now, when she woke, she was going to hate me.

The bond stirred faintly beneath my ribs.

I froze.

Still asleep.

For now.

I set the glass down before I shattered it.