Chapter 13
Callum
I perch on the rooftop across from her building like a fuckin’ wraith, boots braced against rusted iron piping, fingers curled tight ‘round the ledge.
Wind bites at my jacket. Rain’s threatening, sky gone dull with clouds, but I don’t move. Don’t blink. My eyes are fixed on her window—third from the left, light still on. Curtains half-drawn like she forgot how to close the world out proper.
Or maybe she wanted me to see.
She looked at me like I was hers.
Not afraid. Not trembling. No scream. No retreat.
Just that wide-eyed stare full of questions and heat and madness that mirrors my own. Like some unspoken tether snapped taut between us and neither one of us had the good sense to sever it.
I should walk away.
Should disappear like the monster I am. Cut the thread before it coils tighter. Before it wraps round her throat. Round mine.
But I won’t.
I never could.
The second she grabbed my hand… fuck, I was already gone. And then that look—after the fight. After I showed her what I really am. There should’ve been terror. Should’ve been revulsion.
Instead she stepped toward me. Reached for me like I was salvation, not sin.
Doesn’t she get it?
I don’t save people. I ruin them.
She’s not safe with me. She’s not safe without me, either. I saw the fear flash in her eyes when that bastard grabbed her. Saw the panic when she realized how alone she really is in this fucked-up world.
She needs protection. Not the kind the law hands out with restraining orders and call buttons. Real protection.
Violent, sharp-edged, no-mercy kind.
My kind.
And she’s mine to protect, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
Even if it means tearing down everything between us brick by brick.
My jaw ticks. I swipe the blood from the cut on my cheek, not bothering to flinch. Pain reminds me I’m still human… barely.
She’s pacing now. I see her shadow move across the curtains, slow, like she’s trying to calm the storm in her chest.
I get it.
Because I’ve got the same fuckin’ hurricane in mine .
I lean back against the brick, drag a hand through my hair, and close my eyes just long enough to picture her face.
Little siren.
Didn’t mean to say it. The words flowed out before I could stop ‘em. But they fit.
She sings without sound. Calls to something dark in me.
And the more I try to resist?
The louder she gets.
Seraphina
I should be sleeping. Should be curled up with my comfort playlist on and the safety of blankets piled high around me.
But I can’t sit still.
I’ve been pacing the same four feet of carpet for the last thirty minutes, arms wrapped tight around myself like I’m trying to hold something in—or maybe keep something out.
I can still feel him.
The heat of his body when he stepped in front of me. The absolute stillness before he struck. The snarl that sounded too primal to belong to a man. The way his eyes burned—not with rage, but something deeper.
Like possession .
Like the world didn’t exist past me.
And I know I should be scared.
God, I should be terrified.
I watched him beat a man to the ground like he was built for destruction. There was nothing normal about the way he moved—so precise, so fast. I didn’t imagine the flicker in his eyes. Or that growl. It wasn’t human.
None of it was.
But I didn’t run.
I stepped closer.
I touched him.
And when he looked at me—really looked at me—I swear something inside me broke loose and hasn't settled since.
I keep replaying it all in my head. The almost-kiss. The way he leaned down, hand on my jaw, breath warm against my mouth like he wanted to consume me and was holding back by a thread.
“You don’t even know what you’re daring, little siren.”
That nickname.
It’s lodged in my brain like a song I can’t stop humming. Little siren.
Why does it feel… familiar?
Why does it feel like a warning and a promise all at once ?
I move to the window and pull the curtain back just enough to peek outside. The street is quiet, empty except for a flickering streetlamp and a shadow moving—wait.
Nothing.
Just my imagination.
He’s gone, right?
I should be grateful. I should take that slice of silence and shove this night into the vault of things we don’t think about.
But I can’t.
Because the moment he brushed me off and vanished, it didn’t feel like the end.
It felt like the beginning.
Of what, I don’t know.
Something wild.
Something dangerous.
And for reasons I can’t explain—
I want more.