Chapter Thirty-Three
Marius
I had already left the study. Staying in it another minute had been impossible.
The room still held too much of her. The door.
The kiss. The exact place where I had stopped and the exact point where I had wanted not to.
I had gone downstairs because movement felt more useful than stillness, because if I kept walking long enough I might be able to force what was left of the night back into something shaped like control.
It hadn’t worked.
By the time I turned back toward the upper floor, nothing had settled. The house was quiet in the way it always was at this hour, every sound placed exactly where it belonged. The old wood gave when it should. The air moved through the halls in familiar drafts. The structure held.
Then something in it shifted.
Not a sound. Not movement I could name. Only a break in the rhythm, subtle but wrong in a way that didn’t belong to the rest of the house.
I stopped halfway down the corridor and listened harder.
Nothing.
That meant nothing.
Silence is rarely neutral.
My focus narrowed at once, the wrongness sharpening as I crossed the hall toward her door. There was still no noise from inside. No crash. No voice. No obvious sign of disruption.
That didn’t ease anything.
My jaw tightened before I reached her door.
By the time I stopped outside it, something cold had already settled under my skin.
Not fear. Something harder. More immediate.
She had been too wound tight when I left her.
Too shaken and too steady at the same time.
I knew the shape of a body holding itself together by force.
I knew what happened when the force gave.
I knocked once. Controlled. Not loud.
“Leona.”
No answer.
Something in me went still.
I didn’t wait longer than that. I opened the door and stepped inside.
She was on the bed. Sitting upright, but only barely.
Not settled. Not steady. Her posture was held together by effort alone, the kind that starts in the spine and ends in the jaw.
Her breathing was wrong, too measured in the particular way that meant it had been dragged there by force.
Her eyes came to me slower than they should have, like the room was still taking shape around her instead of holding.
The sight of her like that stripped everything else down to one hard line.
I closed the door behind me without looking away from her.
“You didn’t answer.”
It wasn’t a reprimand. It was the nearest thing to one I could trust myself with.
Her gaze caught on me, then steadied.
“I didn’t hear it,” she said.
Too even.
I stepped farther into the room, not all at once, not with the abruptness that would give her another thing to brace against, but not holding distance either.
“You’re lying.”
The words came quiet.
That made them worse.
She exhaled once, something thin and frayed leaving her.
“I didn’t answer,” she corrected.
Closer.
Still not true.
I stopped a few feet from the bed, my attention fixed, precise, reading what she wasn’t saying just as clearly as what she was.
Her hands were wrong. Too stiff. Her shoulders still held that half-braced tension of someone waiting for another wave.
Her breathing had the shape of something wrestled back from the edge.
“What happened?”
She didn’t answer right away. One hand shifted slightly against the bed, fingers flexing once, grounding, before going still again.
“Nothing.”
No.
I didn’t move. I didn’t accept it. I didn’t push harder yet either. I just stood there and let the lie sit in the room until it turned ugly.
She exhaled more slowly this time, shoulders lowering by an inch.
“I’m fine.”
“No. You’re not.”
The certainty in it didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.
Her jaw tightened. Her gaze slipped away for a second before coming back.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Something changed in her face. Not softness. Something more brittle than that. Something like disbelief that I answered too fast.
A pause stretched.
Then she said,
“I ran into your friend.”
My attention narrowed instantly.
“Which one.”
“The one who thinks I don’t belong here.”
I went very still.
“What did he do.”
She hesitated. Just enough.
“Nothing.”
I didn’t react.
“He didn’t touch me,” she added.
That didn’t ease anything. It made it worse.
Because now I knew enough.
Daan.
The name moved through my head like a blade being turned.
My whole body went quiet in the way it does when the violence gets too close to the surface and I have to hold it there by force.
“What did he do,” I said again.
Her breath shifted.
“He closed the space. And didn’t give it back.”
For one second, the room narrowed to almost nothing.
I could see Daan doing it. Too easily. The slow advance. The pressure. The appetite he mistakes for confidence. He had found the seam and leaned on it because that is what men like him do when they think they can get away with it.
Something in me turned cold enough to burn.
“That won’t happen again.”
“That’s not something you can control.”
“Yes. It is.”
I heard the threat in my own voice and did nothing to smooth it.
Her eyes stayed on mine.
“You really think everything falls under that.”
“No. Just the things that matter.”
The words left me before I examined them properly.
A pause.
Then—
“And I fall under that?”
I didn’t hesitate this time.
“Yes.”
The word sat between us, clean and absolute.
Something in her gave. Not all at once. Not in any easy way. Just a slight catch in her breath. Then another. Her shoulders tightened instead of settling. Her fingers pressed harder into the bed like she was bracing against something that had already started.
I saw it the second it turned.
“Leona.”
Lower now.
She shook her head once, like she could push it back down before it took full hold.
“I’m fine,” she said again.
But her breathing hitched. Sharper this time. Her chest tightened visibly, the control she had been dragging around herself slipping enough to show the strain beneath it.
I moved. Slowly. Deliberately. Not closing the space all at once, not dropping my hands on her like action alone would fix this, but stepping in because someone had to take command of the moment before it ran over her completely.
She didn’t tell me not to.
That mattered too much.
Her breathing broke further, uneven now, too fast, too shallow, her fingers curling tighter into the bed as whatever she had been holding together started to tear.
“Breathe.”
Quieter. Darker.
She shook her head again, sharper this time.
“I am—”
She wasn’t.
Her chest constricted. The inhale cut off halfway. Her body turned against itself faster than her thoughts could keep up.
I stepped in closer. One more pace.
Then I reached for her.
Careful.
My hand went to her shoulder first, light, not restraining, only anchoring.
She jerked like I burned her.
The recoil was instant. Reflexive. Real.
My entire body locked around it.
For one ugly second I knew exactly what her body had just done. It had put me in the same place as the threat. I understood why. That did not make it easier to take.
It made the anger cleaner. Colder.
I adjusted immediately, easing the pressure back, changing the angle, giving her more room without withdrawing entirely.
“I’m not him.”
Low. Steady. Not asking her to believe it. Telling her what was true.
Her breath fractured further, her body twisting slightly away, her hand coming up against me in a hard, instinctive shove.
“No—”
The word came out raw. Reflex.
I didn’t let go completely. But I didn’t hold her the same way either. I shifted, one arm moving around her just enough to keep her from folding in on herself, not pinning, not trapping, only giving her something solid to hit instead of letting her spiral farther into air and memory.
“I’m not him,” I said again.
Her breathing broke harder. Panic moved through her fast now, her body fighting the contact even as part of her knew the difference. Her hands pushed against me again, harder this time, trying to create space, trying to break the hold.
“Don’t—” she gasped.
“I know.”
The words came rougher than I intended. Because I did know. That was the whole problem.
I loosened again, enough that she could move if movement was what she needed, but not enough to leave her alone with nothing to brace against. Her body was already going too far under. If I let her tip fully into that now, she would disappear from the room entirely.
“You’re here. Stay here.”
She shook her head sharply, her breath uneven, her chest tightening harder as the panic surged.
“Let go—”
“I will. When you can breathe.”
A sob tore out of her before she could stop it, sharp and sudden, the control she had been holding collapsing all at once.
Something in me nearly broke with it.
Not toward her.
Toward Daan. Toward the fact that he had done enough in a corridor to leave her like this.
I tightened my hold just enough to keep her from pitching forward, enough to keep her from losing the room completely, and forced every other instinct down beneath the one that mattered.
“I’ve got you.”
She shook her head again, her hands still pushing, still trying to break free, but the strength behind it was already faltering, her body caught between reflex and exhaustion.
“I can’t—” she gasped.
“You can. Again.”
Her breath hitched, broke, caught wrong.
I shifted one hand to the back of her shoulder, firm but not restrictive, my arm still braced around her just enough to hold her in place without closing her in.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t. Not at first. Her body was too far gone into the panic for that.
“Leona.”
Darker now. Sharper. Command instead of comfort.
Her gaze found mine for half a second, wild and unfixed, then slipped.
Good enough.
“In.”
Her breath stuttered.
Then caught.
Then dragged in, uneven and too fast, but deeper than the last one.