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As if she doesn’t know me at all.

I should be calm. Rational. But the thought of her walking away rips through me like a blade to the gut.

"You’re not going anywhere,” I snap, the force of it surprising even me.

Her head jerks up, disbelief flashing across her face before it hardens into something sharp.

“You don’t own me,” she snaps back, voice shaky but unwavering. “And I’m not about to drag you further into my clan’s hunt.”

I exhale through clenched teeth, forcing down the growl rising in my throat. “I’m already in the hunt, Aria.You think I haven’t been since the moment I found you bleeding in those ruins?”

Her lips part, stunned—but I don’t stop.

“You can’t make me leave it. You can’t make me leaveyou.”

Silence crashes between us, thick and searing.

Tears brim at the edges of her lashes, a mirror to the roiling storm in my own chest. I swallow hard. My pulse pounds in my ears, drowning out everything but her.

I’m losing her, a panicked voice screams in my head.If I don’t do something, she’ll vanish for good.

All the emotions I’ve been wrestling with—the worry, the anger, the bone-deep fear of losing her—collide in a single, reckless moment. My pulse is a war drum, drowning out reason, drowning out anything that isn’ther.

Before I can think it through, before she can slip away, I grab her wrist, my fingers wrapping tight around hers, and yank her toward me.

She lets out a sharp breath, eyes going wide, lips parting in shock.

“Roan—”

I cut her off the only way I know how.

My mouth crashes into hers, hard and desperate, a collision of breath and heat and all the unspoken words I can’t seem to shape. It isn’t soft, isn’t careful. It’s a demand, a plea, a warning.

Don’t go. Don’t leave me behind.

For a heartbeat, she’s rigid against me, frozen in place, as though she might push me away. But then she exhales—a small, trembling sound against my lips—and something in her melts.

The pack she was holding slips from her grip, hitting the wooden floor with a dull thud.

Her hands, hesitant at first, slide up, fingers ghosting over my arms, then gripping my shoulders. I take the invitation, my free hand moving to her waist, pressing against the curve of her hip, drawing her impossibly closer.

My fingers flex at her waist, a quiet war waging in my head—closer, hold her closer, don’t let her slip away.

Her lips are soft but urgent, and when she tilts her head just slightly, pressing back into me with a need that sends fire racing through my veins, I let out a low, shuddering breath. The kiss deepens, the space between us vanishing, lost to something too big, too raw to contain.

I don’t know where she ends and I begin.

I don’t care.

Her fingers thread into my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp, and I groan into her mouth, fingers tightening at her waist. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.Shewill never be enough, and yet she’s already everything.

A sharp gasp breaks between us, her lips parting just enough for me to feel the way she’s struggling to catch her breath. I ease back an inch, my forehead resting against hers, both of us breathing hard, caught in the tangle of heat and need and the terrifying realization of what just happened.

She doesn’t pull away.

She doesn’t run.

And neither do I.