Page 52 of Heart of the Rebel Mate

I shove him back.

Cassian staggers a step, as shock flashes across his face like lightning. I hold my ground, although my pulse is hammering, resounding in my brain.

"Don't," I warn him.

The flicker of vulnerability vanishes and his countenance hardens. He exhales sharply, turns away for a brief second before facing me again. "I needed to know," he mutters, almost to himself.

My throat feels tight, but I keep my voice steady. "Now you do."

The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The silence is filled with everything we aren't saying.

Then, Cassian gives me a single nod, stiff and resigned, before walking away.

The door swings shut behind him.

I stand there for a long time. The wooden blade is still clutched in my fingers and I grip it so tightly that my knuckles turn white. Then, finally, I let it drop.

The silence in the training hall stretches long after Cassian is gone, yet his presence still lingers like a scent that refuses to fade. My breath comes in slow, controlled draws, but my pulse hasn't settled. A restless energy hums beneath my skin, a tremor in my muscles, the kind that comes from too much emotion left unchecked.

I should move. Shake off the encounter. But I don't. I stand there, hands clenched at my sides, jaw tight, staring at the empty space where Cassian had stood. His words replay in my mind, his accusations curling like smoke in my thoughts.

Betrayal.

As if I owed him something. As if I had ever belonged to him the way he once belonged to me.

A sound—a shift in the air.

I stiffen.

The training hall is mostly empty, the dim overhead lights casting long shadows across the floor. For a second, I think I'm alone, that the sound was nothing more than my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Then I feel it.

That unmistakable presence.

My breath hitches as I turn, my gaze searching the darkness beyond the training mats. He's standing there, at the far end of the hall, barely visible in the dim light.

Adrian.

He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. But his presence fills the room, heavy and charged, like the moments before a storm breaks.

The shadows cling to him, stretching across his sharp features, but I can still see the tightness in his jaw, the way his hands curl into fists at his sides. His posture is rigid, coiled, like he's holding something back.

I swallow, my throat dry. "Adrian."

The word is barely above a whisper, but it echoes in the empty space between us.

Still, he says nothing.

My stomach twists. I don't know how long he's been standing there, how much he saw.

But he saw enough.

Enough to have his eyes darkened with something raw and dangerous, his expression carved from stone.

I take a step forward, but he doesn't react.

"It wasn't?—"

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