Chapter 8 #2
My mother on the kitchen floor. Not unconscious—worse.
Aware. Eyes open, body slack, still caught in the aftereffects of magic that rewired pleasure into paralysis.
I was eight. I didn't understand what had happened.
I understood that she couldn't move. I understood that the door was open and someone had been there and I was too small—too nothing—to have stopped it.
I was there. For one lurching second, I was there—not in Tess's office, not in control, not charming, not anything. Just a kid standing in a doorway with his hands shaking.
Amrion shifted.
No sarcasm. No dry observation. Just a quiet pressure in my mind that didn't demand anything. Didn't try to fix it. Just there.
An anchor.
I surfaced slowly. The office reassembled in pieces—warm light first, then the smell of food, then the weight of my body in the chair. My jaw was locked. My hands were steady only because I was forcing them to be.
I unclenched. Breathed. Let my expression smooth into control.
But I was exposed. And I knew it.
Tess hadn't moved. Hadn't looked away. But her eyes had gone softer. Like she'd seen the crack and wasn't afraid of what was behind it.
"Draven." Just my name. Quiet. No question attached.
The way she said it made my throat tighten.
I couldn't answer. Didn't trust my voice.
The silence stretched.
She didn't fill it. Didn't reach for me. Just sat there, present, waiting.
The mask wanted to settle back into place. The charm. The deflection. The easy smile that held everyone at arm's length.
Instead, I reached for the container of fruit.
Found a strawberry. Held it up between my fingers.
The movement felt less smooth than I wanted.
"Open up, love."
My voice came out rougher than intended.
She held my gaze.
Didn't look away. Didn't laugh it off. Didn't deflect.
She leaned forward and bit into the strawberry while I was still holding it.
Her lips brushed my fingers. Soft. Warm. The faintest pressure of her mouth against my skin, there and gone.
The hunger hit. Not the diffuse pull I was used to managing, not the ambient hum of desire I could redirect into adrenaline or discipline. This was her. Only her. Every nerve ending in my hand lit up and the sensation traveled straight through me, bypassing every wall I'd built.
But beneath the hunger—recognition. Want that had nothing to do with feeding and everything to do with the way she'd waited for my answer. The way she'd seen the crack and hadn't pried. The way she'd said my name like it mattered.
I didn't have a name for it. Didn't want one.
The playfulness evaporated. Her eyes were still on mine, and she knew. I could see it in the slight parting of her lips, the way her breath had changed. She knew she'd rattled me.
My jaw tightened. I pulled my hand back.
"Dangerous," I murmured.
She didn't ask what I meant.
The tension ratcheted up between us. Neither of us named it. Neither of us moved.
The silence held. Stretched.
Finally, Tess cleared her throat. Looked down at her hands. "So. Monday."
The shift was deliberate. A retreat to safer ground that we both needed.
I let her have it. Let us both have it.
"Well. That was illuminating. Should I catalog this under 'denial' or 'inevitability'?"
I almost choked.
Amrion.
"For the record, what you're refusing to name is fairly obvious to anyone paying attention. Which, unfortunately for you, includes me. Constantly."
"That's not—you can't just—"
"I absolutely can. Bonded, remember? Your emotional filing system is my emotional filing system. And right now it's on fire."
My expression must have shifted, because Tess paused mid-reach for her water bottle and studied me. "What's funny?"
"Nothing." A beat. "My dragon has no boundaries."
"Ah." Her mouth curved. "What did he say?"
"Absolutely nothing I'm going to repeat."
She laughed and the tightness in my chest eased just enough to breathe. The moment shifted. Not gone, but banked. Manageable.
"Team assignments start tomorrow," she said, and I could hear the effort it took to sound casual.
"Nervous?"
"Terrified." She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You?"
"I've run black ops missions with less intel and worse odds." I leaned back, let my voice drop into something steadier. "This should be easy."
"Liar."
"Completely."
Her smile turned real.
We talked through it—what Monday would look like, what the training tracks might mean, how the teams would form. Shared anticipation with an undercurrent of unease that neither of us tried to smooth over. The conversation found its rhythm again, safer but still aware. Still charged.
Then it was time to go.
I stood. She walked me to the door of her office, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed loosely. The hallway beyond was dim, the Library quiet around us.
I turned to face her.
She looked up at me without pretense.
Just standing there, real and present and looking at me the way she always did—like she saw Draven. Not the incubus. Not the charm. Not the hunger.
Just me.
And I wanted—
I killed that thought.
"Eat breakfast tomorrow," I said.
"Bossy."
"Observant."
A pause. Her lips parted like she was going to say something else. She didn't. I didn't either.
The silence held for one beat too long—full of everything we weren't saying, everything that had passed between us over strawberries and brushed fingers and a memory I hadn't meant to surface.
"Goodnight, Draven."
"Goodnight, love."
I walked away. Down the corridor, through the Library's quiet halls, out into the cool evening air.
She'd gotten under my skin. Past the charm. Past the control. Past the careful architecture I'd spent twenty years building to keep people at exactly the right distance.
And I'd let her.
Worse—I wanted to do it again.