Page 12 of Born in Fire

I huff out a breath, touching the screen automatically.

Go ahead. Forgot something.

A lie. I haven’t forgotten anything except, apparently, how to function like a normal person. I’ve dated beauty queens, actresses, the daughters of tech billionaires. I don’t linger in lobbies staring at coffee shop employees.

Yet here I stand.

She’s making a latte now, her brow furrowed in concentration as she creates some design in the foam. When she presents it to the customer—a middle-aged man in an ill-fitting suit—her smile is genuine but reserved. He says something, and she laughs politely, but I notice how she steps back slightly, maintaining distance.

Interesting. Not standoffish, but… careful.

I spin the smooth silver of my ring around my finger, a habit I’ve had for centuries. When she spoke about her parents—astronomers who studied Jupiter’s moons—something electric shot through me. Recognition, almost. As if I’d been waiting to hear that specific detail about a stranger.

“Losing your mind, Craven,” I mutter to myself.

A group of executives walks past, giving me curious glances. I must look insane, talking to myself while staring through windows. The playboy heir to Craven Industries, stalking servers in coffee shops. Tomorrow’s gossip column practically writes itself.

My phone buzzes with another incoming text. I check it reluctantly.

Lawyers waiting. Where the fuck are you?

Jesus, could my fucking brother get any more uptight?

Two minutes,I respond, though I make no move toward the elevators.

Inside the coffee shop, Juno glances toward the windows. For a second, our eyes meet through the glass. Something hot and visceral surges through my veins—a possessive instinct so unexpected and intense it leaves me breathless. She looks away quickly, returning to her customers, but not before I feel something. A strange thrumming vibration in the airwaves between us. Like I’m sensing her pulse… and it’s growing erratic.

What the actual fuck is that?

I’ve felt attraction before. Lust. Infatuation. Hell, I’ve practically made a career out of fleeting connections with beautiful women. But this is… different. More instinctive. More urgent. Like recognizing something vital I didn’t know I was missing. It’s a pull that bypasses my brain entirely, hooking directly into whatever primitive part of me still remembers what it means to hunt, to claim, to possess. Fuck. I don’t even know this woman beyond her name tag, yet something in me is already carving out space for her, as if she’s always belonged there.

My phone buzzes again. Goddamn Caleb has his panties in a twist.

Need you here NOW.

Business. Reality. Right. I’m not some lovesick human mooning over a pretty face. I’m Dorian Craven, centuries years old, responsible for a multibillion-dollar acquisition that could cause a significant blip on the stock exchange. I have actual important shit to do.

I force myself to turn away, striding toward the elevators with a purpose I don’t feel. As the doors close, cutting off my view of the coffee shop, an uncomfortable pressure builds in my chest.

The elevator rises smoothly to the 48th floor. I straighten my shirt, adjust my cuffs, and try to focus on the NyxCorp deal. Thepaperwork. The financials. Important matters requiring my full attention.

But my mind keeps circling back to sandy-blonde hair and a voice explaining constellations. Fuck’s sake. I’ve known women with more impressive credentials than NASA engineers, women who could recite poetry in seven dead languages, women who owned private islands. Who commissioned artwork by Leonardo.

Yet here I am, fixated on a girl who can draw patterns in milk foam and name a few stars. What the hell is wrong with me? Generations of existence, and I’m suddenly acting like a teenager with his first crush.

Pathetic, Dorian.

“He’s waiting for you in Conference Room 1.” Caleb’s assistant falls in step beside me, handing me a folder, which I flip open and glance through.

“Thanks, Sloane. Who else is in there?” I shoot a look at her.

“The usual suspects,” she responds, her expression studiously neutral. Nothing unusual about that. I’ve often wondered whether the woman is human or something Caleb cooked up in a robotics lab. Whatever she is, she practically runs this place.

“Malakai?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Mr. Steele will remain out of the legal proceedings from this point.”

“Good,” I say. I’m not in the mood for the old fucker today. He normally leaves me alone, but he’s always had a hard-on for my brother for some reason, and watching the pair of them sparring is a ball-ache.

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