Page 13 of Third

The sound was soft, barely audible over the pounding in his head. The mattress whispered against skin. Abreath catching. Amurmur of movement.

“Tor’Vek?”

Her voice was low, raspy with sleep. Human. Soft.Real.

He didn’t answer.

“Are you okay?”

Still, he said nothing. His back remained to her, his hands planted against the wall, his body vibrating with restraint. He could hear her getting up—bare feet skimmed against the floor. The bond flared in response, humming, eager.

“Did he do something?” she asked quietly. “Selyr?”

The word snapped something inside him. He turned slowly, every motion controlled, deliberate. Anya had stepped closer, arms folded protectively, confusion etched across herface.

“I felt it,” she murmured. “The bracelet. It changed again, didn’t it?”

He nodded once. Unable to resist, he took one step toward her. The bond pulsed.

“You’re shaking,” she said slowly, brows drawing together. “What did he do?”

His chest rose, then fell. “Something worse than rage.”

Anya didn’t move. Not away. Not forward. She watched him the way one might watch a fuse inch toward flame—calm, but tense.

“I can feel it,” shesaid.

His breath hitched as he struggled for control. Non-existent control. “What do you feel?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. Heat. Need. It’s not mine. Idon’t think it’s mine. But... it’s strong.”

He advanced again, slower this time, but no less dangerous. His body fought him at every step—not with violence, but with heat, with hunger, with the ache of needing something he couldn’t name. Each movement was too fluid, too tense. He didn’t test the bond anymore. He stalked it. Pushed at the edge of it like a predator feeling out a cage he meant to break. There was no restraint left—only the thinnest thread of discipline, fraying fast, unraveling between each heartbeat.

“You are not wrong,” he said, his voice low, tight. “But it is not entirely mine, either.”

She shook her head in confusion. “What’snot.”

He stepped even closer, pulse pounding in his ears now. His gaze locked on hers. “You feel it. The craving,” he growled. “Do not deny it.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. She opened her mouth, closed it again, then took half a breath like she meant to argue—but nothing came out. Her silence was answer enough, but he didn’t let her retreat into it. He held her gaze, let her see everything—his control, frayed and smoking, and the demand pulsing just beneath the surface. It wasn’t a question anymore. It was afact.

And she felt it, too, and it startled her. She stepped back on instinct, breath catching, but it was a mistake. The moment she moved, something in him sharpened. His head tilted, shoulders squaring, as if her retreat had triggered a deeper instinct. Achase reflex. His muscles tensed, strained, eyes darkening—not with anger, but with focus. Apredator who’d spotted motion.

And she had just flinched.

She froze in place, realizing too late that she’d provoked something he hadn’t yet unleashed.

“This craving is not a weapon pointed only at me,” he said. “It reaches for both of us. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Their eyes met. Something shifted. “You’re wrong,” she whispered forcefully.

“I can control it,” he said. But the words came ragged and brittle, carved from the edge of a breath too shallow. He wanted them to be true. Willed them to be. But even as he spoke, he felt the bond pulse again—demanding, relentless. The hunger in his blood answered before his mind could override it. And heknew.

The words were alie.

“Then control it,” she urged, athread of desperation underscoring her words. “Because this—” she gestured between them, “—this isn’t you.”

He nodded.

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