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“To you.” The words came out before he could stop them.

Daven’s eyes darkened.

Ryneth swallowed, then forced himself to hold the stare. “You don’t get to interrogate me every time I blink wrong.”

“You were about to bolt.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“Maybe I just don’t like being cornered,” Ryneth shot back. “Ever think of that?”

Daven’s grip tightened, but Ryneth didn’t look away. He couldn’t. Not when he carried a secret this big.

“Nothing happened,” he said again, more quietly now. “You’re imagining things.”

Daven studied him. “Try again.”

Ryneth’s temper finally broke. “Nothing, you asshole.”

The word hung between them.

For a second, Ryneth thought he’d gone too far.

Daven’s thumb pressed harder under his chin. “You think I’m the enemy?”

“I think you like acting like one.”

Daven didn’t step back, didn’t release him, but something shifted.

“You don’t get to shut me out,” he said, voice dropping lower. “Not when you’re in my world and I’m the one keeping you upright.”

Ryneth’s stomach flipped at that. “Then maybe stop trying to own me,” he said, breath shaking despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’m not your project.”

Daven’s eyes flicked over his face, searching. “You’re scared.”

Ryneth hated that he was right. “I’m fine.”

Daven held him there a second longer. Then, slowly, he released his chin. “Don’t lie to me again.”

Ryneth straightened, pushing off the wall himself this time. “Then don’t corner me again,” he shot back.

They stared at each other, neither backing down, until footsteps echoed down the corridor.

“Daven.” Vandor, the broad-shouldered Luminary guard who’d hauled Ryneth through half of Helion already, approached with two other guards at his side. “Is everything all right, Ryneth?”

Daven’s mouth hardened. He hated the way Vandor always addressed Ryneth first, like he had some claim to the right.

“Yes, he’s fucking fine,” Daven snarled, his amber eyes never leaving Ryneth’s face. “And you were disrupting our conversation.”

Ryneth snapped his head away, his back hitting the wall with a dull thud that spread pain. He looked at Daven, really looked at him, and saw a stranger.

He couldn’t trust the heat. He couldn’t trust the bed they’d shared or the coffee Daven had brewed.

Every look Daven had given him, every order he’d barked, every hand he’d put on Ryneth’s body turned uglier in his mind. What had felt like hunger now looked too much like ownership.

“Don’t touch me,” Ryneth wheezed.