Page 5 of Third

“Stay away from me,” she said, voice shaking.

He stalked forward.

She scrambled sideways, hugging the curve of the wall, her breath shallow and fast. Every time she shifted, he adjusted with her—step for step, amirrored shadow. His head tilted slightly, tracking her with the same predatory precision he’d used moments ago to tear the room apart. There was no rush in his approach, no sudden lunge. Just the unnerving certainty that he would not stop. Wherever she went, he would follow.

“I said stay back!”

She hated how her voice trembled. Hated how cornered she felt. Her words rang out sharp and defiant, but underneath them throbbed a current of terror so deep it made her breath ache in her chest. She wasn’t just trying to hold him off, she was trying to remind herself she still had some kind of power, some sliver of control. But it was slipping. Fast. And she could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t listening. Or maybe he was listening toomuch.

He wants something,her mind whispered.And you don’t know if it’s to break you, or takeyou.

“I cannot.”

The words came out like gravel ground between his teeth. He wasn’t trying to intimidate her now. This was something closer to a confession, as brutal and unrelenting as everything else about him. An admission he didn’t want to make but couldn’t help. As if the very thought of choosing to stop himself felt like alie.

Something in his expression flickered, almost like apology, but it was gone before it could takeroot.

Another step. Then another. He was close enough now she could feel the heat radiating off his skin, intense and invasive, like standing too close to an open flame. The air seemed to shimmer between them, thick with pressure and something primal. The bond between them pulsed like a second heartbeat, stronger now, louder. Alow thrum that seemed to echo in her bones, warning her and supporting her all at once. It felt ancient. Alive. And terrifyingly sentient.

“I do not want this,” he said. “I do not want to need you.”

The words came out in a snarl, like they pained him even as he admitted them. There was too much truth in them. Too much weight. His hands flexed at his sides, then curled into fists again. His jaw worked like he was chewing on glass.

Her back hit thewall.

He stopped inches from her, breathinghard.

The violet light in his eyes flickered, straining against itself, barely reined in. For a heartbeat, it looked like he might lash out, or maybe crumple under the force of whatever was unraveling insidehim.

And then—

The rage inside him dipped.

It wasn’t immediate. It was like a dam that cracked, one hairline fracture at a time. He froze, muscles locking, something behind his eyes shifting as if the storm had paused mid-strike.

She blinked, confused, watching the fury drain from his expression like water down a sink. It was as if someone had thrown a switch—his face stilled, his shoulders eased—but only just, as if the beast inside him had taken one step back and was still watching, waiting, the coiled tension in his body easing one ragged breath at a time. Not gone, not healed. But less. Like the heat had been turned down from a boil to a simmer. And he stood there, frozen, staring at her like he couldn’t quite believe it either.

“What—?” she whispered.

Tor’Vek didn’t answer. He closed the last bit of distance between them and yanked her into hisarms.

Anya struggled immediately, hands braced against his chest, heart hammering against her ribs. “Don’t— Don’t touch me—” Her voice cracked with fear and confusion, muscles tensing as she tried to shove him away. But it was like pushing against a wall of heat and steel. His grip wasn’t cruel, but it was immovable, like even the idea of letting her go was unthinkable to himnow.

“I am not going to hurt you,” he said, voice rough but steadying. “I need to touch you.”

She shook her head, trying to twist out of his grip. “I don’t understand.”

“The bracelet,” he said. “Use it. Feel it. Do you feel it lessen?”

She went still. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she focused, not on her panic, not on the way his arms locked around her like steel, but on what she felt through the bracelet. It wasn’t just calming him. It was softening something deeper. As though the fire inside him wasn’t extinguished, but drawn into embers, manageable only through contact.

She didn’t want to understand that. Didn’t want to know that the fire burning inside him—violent, uncontrollable, terrifying—could be tamed by something as simple and intimate as her touch. Didn’t want to believe that her presence mattered. Because if it did, she wasn’t just surviving this. She was becoming a part of it. She was being written into his need, into his balance, into the very way he held himself together.

It wasn’t just his grip that had changed. It was everything. The tension between them had shifted, tilted. The emotional pressure that had been flooding off him—burning, suffocating—was no longer crushing her. It receded like a tide pulling back from the shore, exposing raw ground beneath. Her skin still tingled from the force of it, like a storm had just passed through and left her rattled but standing. She could feel him, still smoldering with fury, but the edges were dulled. Contained. Not by his will, but by something deeper. Something connected directly toher.

She didn’t know how. She didn’t know why. But in that moment, with her trapped in his arms and his breathing finally slowing, she knew one thing with startling clarity:

She was the only thing keeping him from going over theedge.

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