Page 132 of Mystic's Sunrise

I moved back to the bed and sat beside her, letting my thigh press against hers, letting the warmth of my body push into the space she tried to keep. Her breath barely changed. But I felt it, that flicker. That pull of resistance buried under the surface.

I reached for her chin, fingers curling gently until her face tilted toward mine. She didn’t resist. Her gaze lifted, soft and blank. Trying too hard to look natural.

“You’re not thinking of leaving me again… are you?” I asked.

Her voice was steady, cool. “No.”

It was the right answer. The right tone. But it was wrong.

She hadn’t leaned into me. Hadn’t softened. Hadn’t given me what she used to give so easily.

That cold, distant thing between us, it wasn’t going away.

“You need to remember,” I said, thumb brushing along her lower lip, letting the words settle between us like a promise I intended to keep. “I’ll never let you go.”

She nodded again, slow and mechanical, and I let my hand drop to her collarbone, tracing it slowly. Down her arm. Over her wrist. Redrawing the edges of her body with my touch like I was mapping stolen territory.

“I gave you everything,” I whispered. “Pulled you out of the fire and gave you something no one else could. That club—those bastards—they don’t know what it means to protect a woman like you.”

I pressed my lips to the inside of her wrist, slow and deliberate, feeling the pulse that betrayed her. It was steady. Too steady. Like she’d trained herself not to feel anything at all.

“You said his name in your sleep,” I murmured, trying to hold my temper.

Her breath caught. “What name?”

“That fucking freak Mystic,” I snarled, holding her wrist tighter. “Why the fuck would you say his name?”

“I don’t know,” she said, lowering her eyes. “He was always around so that must be why.”

She was lying.

My jaw clenched. My blood turned cold. He was somehow there. Under her skin. Behind her eyes. She might’ve come back with her body, but I hadn’t reclaimed the rest.

Not yet.

My hand slid from her face down to her collarbone, then lower. My voice dropped lower as I leaned in, my breath grazing her ear. “But he doesn’t know what we have. What we’vealwayshad.”

She didn’t move.

Didn’t fight.

But I felt the tension humming through her like a live wire.

And still, I kissed her wrist—slow, deliberate—and said, “Do you know what you do to me, Zeynep?”

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

“No other woman could ever replace you,” I reminded her as I stood, reaching for the lamp, clicking it off with a flick of my fingers. The room dropped into shadows, the soft glow replaced by thick, quiet dark. “And no other man will ever replace me.”

I stretched out on the bed and pulled her into my arms. This was how I’d remind her. This was how I’d erase that freak from her memory.

I wouldn’t hurt her. She meant too much to me to ever lay a violent hand on her. But she’d remember the difference between being looked at—and beingclaimed.

And by morning, there wouldn’t be a trace of Mystic left on her.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

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