I can’t be this close. Not yet. Not without losing something I’m not ready to give.
I leave her standing there, still as a torch in windless air, and duck behind one of the velvet partitions near the wall. Alone for a breath. Alone for a lie.
But I can still feel her.
Like a wire running under my skin. Buzzing. Burning.
I’ve seen a thousand beautiful women across a thousand planets. Most of them didn’t make it past the edge of my notice.
But her?
She’s carved into me now.
Everything about her is a contradiction—delicate and defiant, poised like a weapon dressed up as a gift. That silver dress clings like fog, and I hate that I noticed how the light hit her collarbone. Hate that I’m still seeing her lips. Still hearing that voice. That voice with no right being that calm.
I was fine before she walked in. Cold. Controlled.
Now?
Now I’m unraveling.
And I don’t even know her name.
I grip the edge of the curtain until the frame creaks under my hand.
I shouldn’t go back.
I have to go back.
I return.
She hasn’t moved.
And that’s when it hits me.
The shift.
Like gravity doubling in my chest. Like a wave cresting, rising, crashing down. I feel the pull—deep, magnetic, ancient.
Jalshagar.
My heart thunders. My breath stutters.
No. No, not her. Not now.
But the truth digs in, brutal and final. I feel it in my skin. In the air between us. This woman—the one Petru handed to me like a bottle of cheap wine—is my mate.
Fated.
Chosen by whatever cruel gods still play dice in the void.
She notices the change. Her smile falters.
“What?” she says.
I shake my head and down my drink in a single swallow.
“Nothing.”
