She shouldn't be under my skin.
Not like this.
Not this fast.
I'd held her for all of five minutes, and the scent of her was still on my hands.
Lavender and starlight. And something else. Something older.
Like burnt sugar and midnight air.
I stood in my office long after leaving her. The lights were dim. The security wall flickered quietly beside me, scrolling incident reports and biometric logs.
I didn't see any of it.
I only saw her — pale on the couch, lips parted in shock, trembling from something she didn't want me to know.
It wasn't just a fainting spell.
I knew that now.
There was something wrong, something her body carried like a buried faultline, and she'd been trying to hide it just like she hid everything else.
And yet…
She let me touch her.
Not just her skin — her truth.
That kind of weakness… she would never have shown it unless she had no choice.
Unless she trusted me.
That terrified me more than anything else.
There's a moment in every war when you know the battle has turned.
When the balance shifts.
When instinct rises before the mind can stop it.
That moment happened the second I heard her body hit the floor.
I didn't hesitate.
I moved like she was mine.
That wasn't just protective instinct.
That was something primal.
Something I haven't felt since—
No. Don't name it.
Don't go there.
She's human.
She has to be.
There hasn't been a Witchborn in years. They were hunted to extinction. Purged from the bloodlines. Not even black-market sorcerers trade in Witchborn magic anymore — because there isn't any left.
But when she touched that book in the library, her skin shimmered.
When I watched her on the balcony, something inside me ached.
And when she passed me tonight, when she looked me in the eye and I caught that faint flicker of heat in the air…
My wolf shifted beneath the surface.
And I felt it.
The thread.
Thin. Taut. Invisible.
But it was there.
Like someone was trying to tie our hearts together without asking permission.
I went back to the solarium long after she'd fallen asleep.
I didn't touch her.
Didn't even enter the room.
I just watched from the archway.
She lay curled beneath the throw I'd brought, one hand loosely holding the edge of her shirt — like she was gripping the pendant I still hadn't seen clearly.
She looked so small there.
And I hated that.
Hated that she'd looked small in my arms.
Fragile.
Breakable.
I want to protect her.
And I want to know why I want to protect her.
Because that's dangerous.
That's a weakness I don't have room for.
When I finally returned to my own quarters, I stared at the ceiling for a long time.
I couldn't sleep.
I didn't want to.
Because I kept hearing her voice.
"I'm not your experiment."
"I'm not alone."
"I'm fine."
She lies so easily.
But there's no malice in it.
Only survival.
She's hiding something — yes.
But whatever it is, it's not evil.
It's pain.
In the morning, I left something outside her door.
A small vial of liquid — a rare tonic made from ironroot and moon balm. It stabilizes the nervous system, replenishes burned-out magic, even if the user doesn't know they're burning it.
Beside it, a note.
"For the next time you think collapsing alone is a good idea. — K."
I almost didn't sign it.
But I needed her to know I was watching.
That I'd keep watching.
Not like a guard.
Like something else.
Something worse.