The first night outside the Facility felt wrong in a new way.
Not safer.
Just… unobserved.
No alarms.
No crackling speakers.
No red cameras in the corners, waiting to record Kaelen's next breath like a crime.
Just Nora's apartment—small, rented, forgettable—sitting above a street that still pretended it was normal.
A place built for one woman who'd learned to survive by being easy to overlook.
Now it had two kings in it.
And both of them were looking at her like she was the only rule left.
Kaelen filled the doorway like a threat the building hadn't paid rent for.
Zane stood half a step behind Nora, hands in his pockets, like he belonged to shadows and paperwork.
He'd gotten them released with a handful of signatures and a smile that never reached his eyes.
"Civilian quarantine," he'd called it.
Kaelen had called it something else.
"Your leash is longer," Kaelen murmured as Nora unlocked the door. "But I still smell metal on it."
Zane's gaze flicked to Kaelen's wrists—still banded with restraint bruises.
"Try not to tear down the entire block," he said lightly. "It's difficult to file."
Kaelen's lip curled.
Nora pushed the door open and stepped inside before the air could spark.
Her home greeted her with the stale warmth of old carpet and lemon dish soap.
A stack of unopened mail waited on the counter like it had been holding its breath.
Nora set her keys down.
Then she turned.
Both men looked at her.
Kaelen's stare was heat—raw, hungry, possessive.
Zane's was cold—sharp, measuring, curious in a way that made her skin prickle.
They were waiting.
For permission.
For orders.
For the moment she would break and let them decide what she was.
Nora exhaled slowly.
"Shoes," she said.
Kaelen blinked.
Zane's mouth twitched, almost a smile.
"You heard her," Zane said. "House rule number one."
Kaelen looked like he wanted to argue on principle.
Then Nora lifted her chin—just a fraction.
Not defiance.
Ownership.
Kaelen's jaw worked.
Finally, with the exaggerated patience of a predator tolerating a collar, he bent and peeled off his boots.
The floorboards survived.
Nora walked to the kitchen and pulled a marker out of a drawer.
Her hands shook once.
She hated that it still did.
She found the small whiteboard she used for grocery lists, wiped it clean, and wrote in big letters:
HOUSE RULES.
Kaelen's eyes narrowed.
Zane leaned against the wall as if he'd been invited to a show.
Nora wrote:
1) No fighting in my home.
2) No threats in my home.
3) You don't touch me without asking.
4) If I say "Enough," you stop.
She underlined the last line twice.
Then she put the marker down and faced them.
Zane's gaze snagged on the underlines.
"Enough," he repeated softly, tasting the word.
Kaelen's eyes flashed.
Nora didn't look away.
"That word isn't for you," she said. "It's for me."
Zane's mouth curved—half charm, half threat.
"Good," he murmured. "I like rules that bite."
Kaelen's expression darkened first.
"You're telling me—" he began.
Nora raised a hand.
Kaelen stopped.
Not because he wanted to.
Because he'd learned, somewhere between her palm on his chest and the word Stay burning her throat, that her voice could reach places chains couldn't.
His nostrils flared.
"You're telling me," he said slower, "that I must ask to touch what is mine."
Nora didn't flinch.
"What you *want*," she corrected, "is not what you *own*."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Zane watched Kaelen's face the way a man watched a fuse.
Then, softly, he said, "She's right."
Kaelen's head snapped toward him.
Zane lifted his hands, palms out, mock-surrender.
"I'm not saying it to provoke you," he added. "I'm saying it because if you break her in this apartment, there's nowhere else she can go."
That one landed.
Kaelen's gaze cut back to Nora—sharp with something that looked uncomfortably like fear.
Nora hated how it softened her.
So she hardened right back.
"This is my Ark," she said. "You want to be in it, you follow my rules."
Zane's eyes flicked to the word Ark like he liked it.
Kaelen looked like he wanted to bite it.
"You're cold," Kaelen said suddenly, as if noticing it for the first time. His attention snagged on her wrists, on the faint tremor in her fingers. "You're still paying."
Nora swallowed.
The cost pulsed behind her eyes—an ache like she'd swallowed a warning light.
"I'm fine."
Kaelen stepped closer.
He stopped two inches away.
He didn't touch her.
His hands curled at his sides like it took everything in him not to.
"Ask," Nora reminded him, voice steady.
Kaelen's throat bobbed.
"…May I?" he said, like the words were ash.
Nora's heart kicked hard.
Zane's gaze sharpened—interest and irritation in equal measure.
Nora held Kaelen there for one long second—making him feel the line.
Then she nodded once.
"Yes."
Kaelen exhaled like a man drowning who'd just found air.
His hands settled on her shoulders—careful, impossibly careful for someone who could crack concrete.
Heat poured into her skin.
Not desire.
Relief.
Kaelen's pupils blew wide.
He leaned in, forehead almost touching hers, voice rough.
"Say no," he whispered. "Sometimes. So I can learn it."
Nora's breath caught.
Zane's laugh was quiet, almost amused.
"You're learning manners?" Zane said. "I'm taking notes."
Kaelen didn't look away from Nora.
"I'm learning *her*," he said.
Zane's expression went flat.
Nora felt it—like a temperature drop in the room.
Her apartment didn't have space for their war.
So she made space by cutting it clean.
"Zane," she said.
His eyes met hers instantly.
"Yes?"
She hated how fast he answered.
"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Outside the Facility. Outside your glass."
Zane's gaze held hers.
Then, slowly, he slid a thin folder onto the counter.
Inside was a single clear evidence bag.
Her package.
The one that started everything.
The label read: TRANSFERRED TO CIVILIAN CUSTODY — SUBJECT REQUEST.
Nora's chest tightened.
"You kept it," she said.
"I kept it from the lab," Zane corrected. "There's a difference."
Kaelen's lips curled.
"Still sounds like theft."
Zane's eyes didn't move.
"Call it what you like. I call it… leverage."
Nora reached for the bag.
Before her fingers touched plastic, Zane's voice softened—barely.
"May I?" he asked.
Nora paused.
He'd asked.
Not because he had to.
Because he wanted to see if she would let him.
Nora looked at him.
The man in black who spoke in policy.
The man who watched her like data.
The man whose presence made the air taste like rain on cut grass.
"Yes," she said.
Zane's fingers brushed the edge of the evidence bag.
Ice slid up Nora's arm.
Zane flinched.
Not from cold.
From hunger.
He closed his eyes for half a breath—as if he'd almost leaned too far into her warmth.
Kaelen saw it.
A thin line of red welled at one of his knuckles—more insult than injury.
Nora's gaze snagged on it.
"Hold still," she said.
Zane blinked. "It's nothing."
"It's blood," Nora replied. "In my kitchen. That counts."
She tugged open her junk drawer, found the tiny first-aid kit she'd bought years ago and never used, and peeled out the only bandage that wasn't plain beige.
Hello Kitty. Bright. Ridiculous.
Kaelen watched, expression unreadable.
Nora looked at Zane.
"May I?" she asked—because rules went both ways.
Zane's throat bobbed.
"…Yes," he said, quietly.
Nora pressed the bandage over the cut.
For a second, Zane's eyes went distant—as if even that small care felt like a hand on a bruise he'd carried too long.
Then he looked at her again, and something in his gaze softened.
Kaelen's smile turned dangerous.
"Oh," he murmured. "So that's what you are."
Zane opened his eyes again, composure back in place.
"A problem," he said. "For you."
Kaelen's heat rose.
Zane lifted his bandaged finger into Kaelen's line of sight, the little cartoon cat smiling obscenely.
"She gave me this," he said, tone mild as poison. "Do you have one?"
Nora felt it in the walls.
She pointed at the whiteboard.
"Rule one," she said.
Kaelen's jaw clenched.
Nora held his gaze until he did the impossible.
He swallowed it.
The apartment survived.
For now.
A soft motor whirred.
All three of them looked down.
Her little robot vacuum—ancient, cheap, harmless—rolled out from beneath the couch as if it had been waiting.
It drove straight into Kaelen's bare foot.
Thunk.
Kaelen stared at it as if it had challenged him to a duel.
The vacuum bumped again.
Thunk.
Zane's eyebrow lifted.
"…Did you buy that?" he asked.
"No," Nora said.
The vacuum turned.
Bumped Kaelen a third time.
Thunk.
Kaelen's stare went from confusion to offense.
Nora's phone buzzed on the counter.
Unknown number.
One message.
Interesting pheromone data. May I collect a sample?
Nora's stomach dropped.
Zane's gaze slid to the screen.
Kaelen's gaze slid to Zane.
Zane held up his hands.
"Not me," he said.
Kaelen's voice went low.
"Then who is watching my woman?"
Nora's pulse hammered.
She flipped the phone over.
Face down.
Then she lifted her chin and spoke into the quiet like she was speaking to whatever had just reached into her home.
"This is my Ark," she said again. "If you want inside…"
Her throat tightened.
She didn't know the rules yet.
So she made one.
"…you ask."
The vacuum bumped Kaelen once more.
Kaelen, very slowly, reached down and picked it up by its plastic shell.
The motor whined helplessly in his grip.
"Enough," Nora said, because she could see his fingers tightening.
Kaelen froze.
Then, with exaggerated patience, he set the vacuum back down.
It immediately rolled toward Zane.
Thunk.
Zane looked down at it.
Then at Nora.
His eyes gleamed with something like dark amusement.
"Your house has teeth," he murmured.
Nora's smile was small and tired.
"So do I," she said.
And somewhere deep inside her body, the cold flickered again—
rain on cut grass—
closer.
Nora's phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Two messages.
You said: ask.
May I come in, Nora?
A third bubble appeared before she could breathe.
I can wait.
Kaelen's heat spiked.
He took one step toward the door—then stopped, because her fingers closed around his wrist.
Not a command.
Not a plea.
A choice.
Then she did something reckless.
She lifted Kaelen's wrist—still tense, still trembling—and pressed her lips to his knuckles.
Brief.
Deliberate.
A reward for stopping.
Kaelen went perfectly still, like even kings could be stunned by gentleness.
Zane's gaze flicked to the point of contact.
His smile thinned—sharp with interest.
Nora let go before anyone could mistake it for surrender.
Kaelen's eyes cut to hers, furious and bright.
Nora swallowed.
"No," she typed.
Then she didn't send it.
Because the hallway had already answered.
Three soft knocks.
Patient.
Polite.
Like a man who believed the world owed him permission.
Nora lifted her palm to the deadbolt.
The metal felt warm.
Like a hand on the other side.