Page 14 of Third

But he didn’t stepback.

Instead, he reached out and touched her face. Light. Careful. But it might as well have been a spark to dry kindling. The craving surged. Her lips parted. Her pupils expanded.

He sawit.

She felt it,too.

She inhaled sharply. “It’s the bracelet. That’s all.”

But the look she gave him—uncertain, questioning—hit low. She was trying to rationalize it, to name it something clinical and dismissible, but her voice wavered. He saw the tremor in her throat, the catch in her breath. And worse, he could feel the truth under her skin through thebond.

It wasn’tjustthe bracelet. Not anymore.

“Affirmative.”

She swallowed. “Then why does it feel like more?”

He had no answer. Only a matchingache.

He stepped closer, their bodies inches apart. Her breath caught, but she didn’t pull away. Her hands pressed lightly to his chest—not to push, not to resist. Just tofeel.

“This isn’t who you are,” she said, voice low and shaken. “And this isn’t who I want to become.”

“It is both,” he said quietly. “And neither.”

She searched his face, and he knew the moment she felt it—his control, still intact, but fraying.

The bracelet pulsed hard betweenthem.

And her hands curled against his chest.

“I must recalibrate,” he said aloud, to noone.

To himself.

To the beast clawing in his chest.

But there was no recalibration. Not fromthis.

Chapter4

ANYA DIDN’TMOVE.

Couldn’t.

Not with the way Tor’Vek was looking at her. Not with the heat radiating off him in thick, invisible waves. The bracelet on her wrist didn’t pulse anymore—it throbbed. Not with warning this time. With a deep, hungry craving.

And that terrified her more than anything that had come before.

His breathing deepened. He clenched his jaw so tightly a muscle ticked along the edge. Those violet-glowing eyes burned into her, not with rage now, but with a cold, calculating hunger that promised ruin—mind, body, soul—until there was nothing left buthim.

Not just destruction. Possession.

“I dreamed of this,” he said, voice rough and low. “You ran from me. Not far. You wanted me to catch you.”

Her stomach dropped.

He stepped closer, slow, deliberate, while she retreated, until her back met the cold metal wall. One hand came up beside her head. Not touching—yet. But caging.

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