Chapter 5
KELSEA
Ifind the scarf draped over the back of my chair like it belongs there.
No note. No tag. Just fabric—black as pitch, with the kind of weave that whispers money.
Not the flashy kind. Quiet money. Serious money.
It's fireproof mesh, the good stuff. The kind you can’t snag from vendors or stitch together in back-alley tailors.
This? This came from someone who knows what they’re doing.
I stare at it for a long minute, arms crossed, hip cocked against the dressing table. It’s folded too neatly. Whoever left it meant for me to see it—meant for me to know.
And I do.
I don’t need a name signed in ink. Only one person’s gaze has ever crawled down my spine like it’s got claws. Only one pair of eyes watched me like he already owned every inch I tried to keep hidden. Him.
My pulse stutters, half panic, half...something else. I grab the scarf too fast, like it might catch fire in my hands. It’s heavier than it looks. Strong. I could hurl it at a wall, set it ablaze in a flame barrel, stomp it flat, and it’d just smirk at me.
Part of me wants to. Throw it out. Pretend I didn’t see it.
Instead, I wrap it around my neck.
The fabric’s cold at first—then warm. Like skin against skin. Like a question I’m not ready to answer.
I tug it tight, right up under my chin. Just a gift. Not a message. Just a gift.
The door creaks open behind me. Ceera slips in, stage paint half-melted down her cheeks, stim clenched in her teeth. She stops mid-step and squints at me.
“You rob a merc, babe?” she asks, tilting her head. “Or did your mystery stalker finally leave a calling card?”
I don’t flinch. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her smile spreads slow and smug. She steps closer, flicking the stim ash into a cup on the counter. “Uh-huh. That thing screams custom weave. Fire-retardant and all? That’s either a lover’s offering or a guilt gift.”
“It’s neither.” I brush past her toward my locker, pretending the air doesn’t thicken every time she looks at me like that.
“So you’re just, what, accepting anonymous fashion donations now?” she asks, trailing behind me. “Come on, Kels. You wear gloom like a perfume, but even you don’t keep gifts you didn’t want.”
I slide the locker open, pretending to rummage. “It’s useful.”
Ceera leans in, eyes glinting like she’s poking a bruise just to see me wince. “Useful and pretty. Like a certain scaled shadow that keeps orbiting the back row?”
I pause. Just a beat. Enough for her to catch it.
“Ahh,” she sings, triumphant. “Thought so.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” She flops down into the beat-up armchair in the corner like she owns the room. “Look, I’m not judging. Hell, if a man looked at me like that, I’d be on my back before the lights went down.”
My face heats. “Ceera.”
“What? You’re grown. You think I don’t see the way he tracks you? It’s not creepy. Well, okay, it is creepy—but only 'cause you’re trying so damn hard to ignore it.”
“I’m not—” I start, then stop. What’s the point?
She shrugs and takes a long drag. “Just sayin’, babe. Don’t waste your breath denying something your body already clocked. That man stares like he wants to memorize your bone structure. That’s not a casual glance, that’s… an agenda.”
I turn back to the mirror. The scarf sits snug against my throat. Sleek. Dangerous. Mine.
“I’m not getting involved,” I say quietly. “I don’t need the trouble.”
Ceera blows a perfect smoke ring toward the ceiling. “Honey, trouble’s already here. Might as well enjoy the ride.”
I don’t respond.
I just tighten the scarf again, watching my own reflection.
One breath. Two.
Then I kill the light.
His red eyes haunt me the entire time at work.
Even when I leave, my gear in a backpack bouncing on my shoulders, I can’t shake his presence.
The street’s thick with the stink of fried oil and half-burned meat, but I don’t mind it tonight.
The vendor lights glow soft against the dirty awning of the Crimson Coil’s side alley, painting everything in hues of copper and grease-slicked gold.
My boots scuff the curb as I loiter there longer than I need to, half-listening to some human offworlder argue about sauce portions like it’s a life or death negotiation.
And then—I see him.
He’s leaning against a food stall across the street.
Not watching me. Just… there. Arms folded.
Broad frame backlit by a pulsing holo-ad for some overpriced stim-slush.
His eyes are on the ground, maybe the vendor’s grill, maybe nowhere at all.
But I know him. That stillness. That shape. My stomach flips like I missed a stair.
He doesn’t look up.
My mouth goes dry anyway.
I should go. I’ve got no business hanging around. My set ended half an hour ago, and I’m only out here because the dressing room felt too tight and Ceera kept giving me that look like she knew something I didn’t want to say out loud.
But I don’t leave.
I pretend to study the menu at the skewer cart. My fingers twitch against the scarf still looped around my neck. The mesh catches the vendor light and throws tiny glints onto my collarbone like sparks. I swear I can still feel the heat of his gaze, even if he’s not looking.
The air smells like smoke, and my pulse pounds like I’ve been dancing, not standing still. There’s no fear this time. Not really. Just… tension. A pull low in my gut, heavy and slow and winding tighter every second I don’t move.
Then I hear his voice.
Not loud. Just a single word, tossed like a pebble in a still pond.
“Kelsea.”
It’s the first time he’s said my name. Hearing it in that deep, rumbling tone—like gravel being rolled in thunder—it hits me like a sucker punch. I blink and look over.
He’s looking now. Red eyes sharp. Pinning.
I don’t know how he crossed the street so fast, but he’s closer. Not crowding. Not looming. Just standing there, like gravity bent to bring him near.
“I’m Roja. Didn’t mean to spook you,” he says, voice low, almost reluctant.
“You didn’t.” I lie so fast it hurts.
Roja tips his chin toward the scarf. “It fits.”
My hand rises on instinct to touch it. I nod, but words fail me. It fits too well.
“Good pick?” he asks.
“Yeah. It’s… good.” I clear my throat. “Thanks.”
He nods once, like that settles something. “I wasn’t sure if you’d keep it.”
“I almost didn’t.” I don’t know why I admit that.
Roja just watches me, patient. Like he’s used to waiting for answers people don’t want to give.
“I didn’t know what it meant,” I murmur.
He shrugs one massive shoulder. “Didn’t mean anything. Just something useful.”
Another lie.
The silence between us hums. Heavy. Weighted. Like all the air knows how close we are to something real. Something dangerous.
“You been watching me?” I ask, the words sharper than I mean them to be.
“No.”
My brows lift. “No?”
“I’ve been looking,” he corrects. “Different.”
My throat tightens.
He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t. Just shifts his stance like something under his skin itches and he can’t scratch it.
“I don’t—” I start, then stop. I don’t know what I don’t. What I do. I just know standing this close to him has me sweating through the scarf.
“Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”
We don’t talk after that. We just… stand there. Breathing. Sharing space. Until someone bumps into my side and reality breaks the moment like glass.
When I glance back, Roja’s already walking away. No words. No goodbye.
But the fire in my chest doesn’t leave.
That night, I dream.
It’s not the usual flashes of fleeing, the panic-choked ones I always get when my guard drops. No shadows chasing me. No knives behind smiles.
Just him.
Roja.
We’re somewhere dark. Not a place I know. Just shadow and shape and a bed that smells like ash and pine.
He’s above me, skin like heat, hands braced on either side of my head. The red of his eyes glows soft, almost molten, as he leans down and brushes his mouth against mine—not soft, not sweet. Hungry. Possessive. Like he’s tasting something he’s been starved for.
I arch beneath him, the scarf still around my throat, pulled taut between us like a tether. His claws drag down my hips—barely there, a whisper against skin—but it sets every nerve alight like he’s slicing open something buried deep.
“You’re not running this time,” he growls.
I shake my head, breathless. “No.”
His mouth descends again, not kissing, devouring. Teeth graze my neck, and I moan, helpless. It’s raw. It’s messy. It’s real in a way nothing in my life has ever been. His tongue traces fire up my collarbone, and I dig my nails into his shoulders, desperate to anchor myself.
The world tilts.
He pins me harder, both hands at my wrists now, holding me down like he knows I want it. Like he knows the fight in me only burns brighter when I feel trapped.
“I see you,” he murmurs against my skin. “All of you.”
And I believe him.
The room spins. My hips grind up into his, and he lets out a sound that’s part growl, part groan. It vibrates against my chest, sinks into my bones. I think I scream, or maybe it’s his name, but—
I wake up.
Gasping.
The sheets are a tangled mess beneath me. My shirt’s soaked through. My thighs are slick with sweat and something else, and my heart’s trying to punch its way out of my ribcage.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling, throat raw.
The scarf is still around my neck.
And I can’t tell if I’m terrified or turned on.
Maybe both. Waiting for my next performance becomes agonizing. I keep wondering if he’ll be back.
The air changes the second I step out—like static before a lightning strike, like breath caught in a throat just before a scream.
I don’t see him yet, but I know he’s here.
My skin prickles with that uncanny awareness, heat pooling low in my belly before my eyes even find him.
It’s not fear. Not anymore. It’s something worse. Or better. I can’t decide.
The minute my bare feet meet the stage, I feel the shift—not in the music, not in the crowd’s roar—but in me.
In the blood thrumming under my skin. The curtain parts and the heat from the flame pits wraps around my ankles like a dare.
I step forward into the light, and my eyes lift—drawn like a compass needle.
He’s a silhouette at first—broad-shouldered, coiled like a warship at idle. He leans just under the cracked holo-ad blinking every few seconds, bathing him in sickly neon, then shadow. Arms folded across his chest like a gate that won’t open for anyone. Except maybe me. Maybe.
His eyes catch the firelight and throw it back in twin glints of coal and hunger.
The stage feels slippery beneath my soles. Not because of the polish or the flame residue—because my lungs misfire. I catch a breath halfway through a transition, and the fire spinner nearly slips from my grip. I recover before anyone sees. Before he sees. But inside? I’m molten.
I flow into the rhythm like I always do, but tonight it isn’t for show. The sway of my hips, the arc of fire across my arms, the slow burn of the routine—it’s not for them. It’s not for the crowd, or the pit boss, or even Ceera.
It’s for him.
Every flick of my wrist, every slide of my heel across the floor whispers the shape of him against my back.
I feel his imagined breath at my nape when I arch, the phantom heat of his claws along the curve of my spine.
My body pulses with a choreography I didn’t rehearse. Something deeper. Older. Primal.
My thighs brush and cling, and my breath catches in my throat again—this time on purpose. I spin. I dip. I let the scarf coil around my neck like a leash and pretend it’s his grip that keeps me tethered to the ground.
His face never changes. Still. Set. Like he’s carved from stone. But I see the tension in his stance. The slow tightening in his jaw. The way his eyes refuse to blink, like if he closes them, he might miss something important.
Gods, I want to make him break.
The final beat drops like thunder. My body lifts, spins, lands low in a crouch. The fire roars around me, curling like a serpent ready to strike, then dies in a hiss of steam and silence. I rise slow. Deliberate. Eyes still locked on his.
He doesn't move.
But something in me does. Something big. Something unspoken and inevitable.
Backstage haze clings to me as I vanish behind the curtain, the hush of cooling metal and sweat-slick skin replacing the roar of the crowd.
But it’s not the applause that buzzes in my ears—it’s the way he looked at me.
Like I was both predator and prey. Like he was waiting for me to decide which one I wanted to be.
I press a palm to my sternum, trying to will my heart back into rhythm. My fingers tremble, and when I reach up to unwind the scarf, I stop halfway. I don’t want to take it off. Not yet. It feels like a link—like if I let it go, I’ll lose whatever passed between us out there on the floor.
Not a word exchanged. Not a touch traded.
But I’ve never been touched more in my life.
When I exhale, it shudders. I blink at my reflection in the metal mirror, sweat slicking my temples, smoke curling in my hair.
“Still alive?” Ceera’s voice cuts through the thick silence.
I flinch. She’s standing in the doorway, her expression unreadable. She’s holding out a towel, but I know what she saw. Who she saw.
“Better than ever,” I say, and my voice—gods help me—shakes.
I take the towel. I don’t take my eyes off the door.