Chapter 20 Calling on a Promise
CALLING ON A PROMISE
ALORA
Imust have read the message a dozen times by now, maybe more. My thumb brushing over the screen as if the words might somehow change if I stared at them long enough.
Something came up. I cannot meet you today.
It was simple, almost painfully so, and yet it carried this strange heaviness to it, so I kept reading it anyway.
Even though it made my stomach twist each time, even though I should have just put my phone away and focused on anything else.
But I couldn’t, because the more I looked at it, the more I felt that faint echo of yesterday.
The version of Thane who had seemed… different.
Different the moment he’d spoken to me through our phones.
It was strange how, in his messages, he felt almost lighter, freer somehow. As if the distance allowed him to say things he would never say face to face. He was teasing, even playful in his own dark, strange way, matching my witty sense of humor. I hadn’t expected him to reciprocate.
He had called me little fluff, little dreamer, little prey, names that should have sounded ridiculous or offensive, but instead they warmed something deep in me.
And then there was the message he’d sent at the very end of the night.
‘Good night and sweet dreams.’ Tender words from someone who didn’t do tender.
Not easily. Not openly. Not without looking like it hurt him to say it.
All of this was easy to read from him, making me feel as if I knew him on some deeper level despite only just meeting him.
It made me wonder if maybe I wasn’t imagining the shift I’d felt in him. That small softening. That hint of something underneath all the hardness. Something he didn’t want me to see but kept slipping out regardless.
But now… after he cancelled… I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I had read too much into it. Perhaps the warmth I felt wasn’t warmth at all but something my heart created because it wanted so desperately to believe that someone like him could be gentle with someone like me.
I pulled my knees up on the bench outside the campus courtyard, the morning air cool against my skin as I tried to ground myself.
Students rushed past me in scattered clumps, their laughter rising as if it belonged to another world entirely.
A world where people didn’t have to justify wanting to be happy.
I glanced around out of habit, expecting to feel it.
That faint sensation of being watched, not in a frightening way but in that strange protective way.
One I had started to grow accustomed to ever since the alleyway.
I could sense him, even when I couldn’t see him.
A prickle of awareness low in my spine, a shift in the air.
That feeling that someone powerful was close enough to reach me if anything went wrong.
I had never admitted it out loud, but part of me had already come to rely on that feeling. It made me feel… safe.
But today there was nothing.
No whisper of presence.
No shadow lingering at the edge of vision.
No invisible tether between us humming in my mind.
Just emptiness.
The realization settled over me like a weight, and I hated how much it bothered me.
How much he bothered me. I shouldn’t depend on someone I barely knew.
Someone who was so clearly hiding parts of himself from me, who moved like a threat and spoke like a warning, carrying danger around him like a second skin.
Someone I should run far away from. Yet here I was, sitting with my phone in my hands, wishing he was somewhere close, even if he refused to admit it.
I sighed, pressing the heel of my palm to my forehead.
I was getting attached. Far too attached.
And it was stupid, because nothing about him made sense.
Every instinct in me should have screamed to stay away.
He wasn’t safe, not in any traditional sense.
He looked at me sometimes like he was afraid he might break me, and other times like he was afraid he might break the world for my sake.
And I knew that wasn’t normal. I knew it was dangerous.
But I also knew what my life looked like without him in it.
A home that didn’t feel like one.
A father who only saw me when he needed something to criticize.
A future built on a path chosen for me, not by me.
A place in a university I could never have afforded without him tightening every chain around my life.
I was doing everything I could to carve out something better for myself.
To reach for something that felt like my own, something my mother would be proud of and would want for me.
But every day I felt myself bending under the pressure of expectations that weren’t mine.
I was at a crossroads. Between what I wanted and what I needed. Between desire and survival. Between a future built on obedience and a future built on risk.
And then there was Thane.
The impossible third option. The one who made danger feel like safety and darkness feel like warmth. The one who confused every line I had ever drawn in my heart. The one I knew I was starting to fall for.
The one I should not fall for.
I lowered my phone slowly, staring at the campus buildings ahead, knowing I had to make choices soon.
Real ones, not the ones made for me. And maybe those choices would hurt.
Maybe they would cost me. But for the first time in a long time, the idea of choosing something for myself didn’t feel impossible.
Even if that something was the very thing I shouldn’t want.
I released a sigh and stood, trying my best to leave my confusing thoughts there on the bench. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking of him. Couldn’t switch my mind off and concentrate on the reason I was here.
At the very least, by the time my first class ended, I had convinced myself to stop checking my phone.
Even though the instinct remained like an itch beneath my skin.
I slipped it deeper into my bag and tried to breathe normally.
Reminding myself that a single cancelled meeting meant nothing more than what it was.
People got busy.
People had lives.
People did not revolve around my afternoon schedule just because I had foolishly let myself imagine otherwise. Still, the hollow ache of disappointment lingered in the quiet places of my chest, the same way a bruise lingered long after the impact.
The campus courtyard had begun to fill after class.
Students spilled across the walkways in clusters, chatting loudly about assignments and weekend plans, laughter rising above the rustle of leaves.
For a moment, I allowed myself to drift with the crowd, letting their chatter carry me forward like a river current I could hide inside.
But the sensation didn’t last long.
Something prickled at the back of my neck, subtle yet unmistakable, like invisible fingers brushing the hairs at my nape.
It wasn’t the same as when Thane watched me.
That presence had always felt heavy but safe.
This was nothing like that. This sensation crawled over my skin slowly, as if something bad was watching.
I slowed my steps and turned slightly, pretending to adjust my bag strap while letting my eyes sweep through the courtyard. People moved everywhere. Dozens of bodies. Dozens of conversations. Nothing out of place at first glance.
But then I saw him.
A man leaning against a lamppost near the far path, too still in a place where everything else moved.
He wore a black jacket that didn’t match the warm weather; his posture was straight, but his face was angled down as if he were scrolling through his phone.
Except he wasn’t scrolling. He wasn’t typing.
He wasn’t even pretending. His thumb rested motionless against the screen, his body too controlled, too deliberate, too focused.
His eyes were not on his phone at all.
They were on me.
I tried to tell myself I was imagining it, that he could have been looking past me, watching someone behind me, waiting for a friend, a ride, or anything normal. But the moment my gaze landed on him, his eyes flicked away. Too fast, as if practiced.
The prickling at the back of my neck worsened.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to move again, joining a group of students headed toward the library, slipping into their orbit like an extra planet hoping no one noticed.
I kept my steps measured, resisting the urge to look back every two seconds, but I couldn’t stop myself entirely.
When I finally risked another glance, I saw him pushing off the lamppost and beginning to move.
Slowly, and in the same direction I was going.
I quickened my pace, weaving deeper into campus, letting the buildings block the sight lines between us. My pulse hammered in my throat, the echo of that night in the alleyway rising up like smoke. For days now, I had felt watched, but that watcher had always been him.
Thane.
And that knowledge had given me comfort, even when I told myself it shouldn’t. But this man was different. Nothing was comforting about his presence. Nothing protective or familiar. Only the sharp, unsettling sense that he had a purpose for being here, and that purpose was tied to me.
My mind raced through explanations, wondering if he worked for my father.
I wouldn’t have put it past him, not after what he said last night.
I was desperate for something rational, something that didn’t involve danger or threats creeping into my life.
Maybe he was a private security guard for the campus. Maybe he was lost. Maybe he was… No.
He was definitely following me.
The library loomed ahead, the tall glass doors reflecting the midday light.
I darted inside, my breath catching as the warm quiet swallowed me, the familiar scent of old books greeting me like a friend I didn’t deserve.
I stepped between the first row of tall shelves, my fingers grazing the spines of books as I moved, trying to steady my breathing.
You’re overreacting, I told myself. Stop panicking. Stop imagining things.
But then a faint shape darkened the glass outside, the silhouette of a man pausing just beyond the door before shifting to the side.
He hadn’t gone away.
He was waiting.
A shiver raced down my spine, and then, without meaning to, without even fully realizing I was doing it, I whispered under my breath,
“Thane…”
His name slipped out of me like a plea, like muscle memory, as if I knew instinctively where safety lived even when my mind told me I shouldn’t.
But he wasn’t here.
He wasn’t watching today.
He had messaged me that he couldn’t meet.
And for the first time since the night he saved me, I felt what it was like to face fear alone.
I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting the sudden urge to cry from the pressure squeezing around my heart. I needed to be rational. I needed to be strong. I needed to stop falling apart over a man who barely said more than a handful of words to me at a time.
But I couldn’t silence the terrifying truth rising through me like a tide.
I wanted him here.
I wanted him so badly that it scared me.
I went deeper into the library, seeking the safety of crowded spaces, hoping that daylight, walls, and other people would be enough.
Because right now I couldn’t depend on Thane, not when he had his own life, not when he chose not to come today, not when my father’s words still echoed in my mind, reminding me of everything I had to lose.
And yet… as I walked further in, heart still racing, one thought looped through me with painful clarity.
I missed him.
I missed him more than I should.
And the worst part was…
I didn’t feel safe without him anymore. So, without talking myself out of it, I fished out my phone and in shaky hands, I decided to do what I promised to do. That if I ever I needed him, I would call…
Call for my hero to save me once more.