Page 57

Or it used to be.

It smells like them,of warm spice and crushed pine, fire smoke, ink and steel and something unnamably Riven that clings to the linens like a promise. The curtains are open, rain streaking down the tall, arched windows, casting fractured light across the stone floors. There’s a low burn in the hearth, banked but not dead,Orin always keeps it lit. He says I sleep better with the warmth, even when I pretend I don’t notice.

The bed is too big for one person,Lucien insisted. Carved obsidian posts that anchor it to the floor, heavy dark blankets tangled from where Silas “accidentally” did a backflip into them last week. There’s a book on the nightstand, spine cracked and a note from Ambrose stuck between the pages:You stopped here. You’ll want to keep going,it gets bloody.Caspian’s shirt is draped over the armchair, silk and soaked with scent, and Elias’s stupid stuffed raven is perched on my dresser like it belongs here.

And maybe it did.Theydid.

But now I step inside and there’s another presence behind me. Tethered.

Theo’s boot scuffs the stone just inside the threshold. The chain between us tightens slightly, not painful, but enough to remind me it’s there. Thathe’shere. In my sanctuary.

“Nice digs,” he says, eyes skating lazily over the chaos, the personal things, the parts of me that were never meant forhim.

“You’re not staying,” I snap, turning so fast the cuff on my wrist glints with the firelight. “Don’t even think about touching anything.”

He doesn’t flinch. Of course he doesn’t. He leans on the doorframe like he was born there. Like this room already knows him. “You’re going to have to sleep eventually.”

“And you’re going to have to keep your distance.”

“That’s gonna be hard, considering.” He lifts his arm, the chain between us catching the lamplight, casting gold across the shadowed room. “But hey, I’ll try not to hog the blankets.”

“You’re not touching the fucking bed.”

His eyes flick to it, then back to me. That grin,lazy and electric,curls. “No promises.”

I stride past him, jaw clenched so tight it aches. I yank Caspian’s shirt from the chair and toss it at the back of the wardrobe. Slam the drawer shut on Elias’s stash of enchanted playing cards. It feels petty. Itispetty. I don’t care. I want him gone. Out of the space that smells like love, looks like intimacy, feels like home.

“You don’t belong here,” I mutter, more to the room than to him.

But he hears it. “That’s not up to you.”

I whirl, my finger in his face. “Itwas.It should be. No one consulted me. No one gave me a choice. Now I’ve got a walking ego problem handcuffed to my soul and no one seems to think that’s a problem.”

Theo steps in. Just one step. It’s too close. And it’s not far enough.

“Maybe,” he murmurs, voice dipping like honey over blades, “you need to ask yourselfwhythe cuff chose you.”

“I didn’tchoosethis.”

“Didn’t you?”

He smiles again, and it’s wrong. Not because it’s smug,but because somewhere, under the defiance and flirtation and charm designed to drive me out of my mind... it’s sad.

He flops onto the bed like he belongs there. Like the weight of thirty years means nothing. The cuffs don’t even clink; they drag. A low metallic whine that grates on my bones as I spin to face him, watching him stretch out across the blankets that still carry the heat ofthem, Lucien’s quiet devotion, Orin’s patience, Riven’s open rage, Caspian’s tempting sin, Silas’s chaotic love, Elias’s awkward gifts, Ambrose’s smirk in the dark.

And now this...stranger.

Theo laces his hands behind his head, propped on my pillows like this is some joke only he’s in on. One boot hanging off the side, the other planted like he’s making himself comfortable. His shirt rides up just slightly, revealing the shadowed cut of his hips,and gods help me, even thewayhe moves is arrogant. Like even the mattress is lucky to have him.

“Why do you hate me, anyway?” he asks, eyes on the ceiling like I’m a thought he doesn’t need to look at to dissect. “What did I do to you?”

The laugh that rips from my chest is hollow and sharp. “Seriously?You mean besides showing up uninvited, being chained to me without consent, making every conversation a thinly veiled pick-up line, and trying to mark your territory in front of seven men who would bury you under the roots of this academy if I said the word?”

He hums.Hums. “That’s not hate. That’s aggravation. There’s a difference.”

“You don’t get to define what I feel.”

“I didn’t. I asked.”