Page 33

He took another step forward. The moss underfoot muffled the sound, but I felt him—his presence closing in, quiet and coiled like a storm held too long.

My breath caught, half fury… half something I refused to name.

“You think this is a game,” I said, though it didn’t land with the force I wanted.

His gaze flicked to my mouth. Just for a moment. Just long enough to feel it.

“No,” he said softly. “I think this is a war.”

He moved closer still—close enough for the air between us to hum. Close enough that the mist parted around us like it didn’t dare intrude.

“But maybe,” he added, voice darker now, “you’re not the one hunting.”

His eyes found mine. Something flickered in them—real, unnerving.

“Maybe you’re the one being hunted.”

I narrowed my eyes, pulse thundering beneath the weight of his gaze. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Samael didn’t flinch.

Instead, he smiled wider—that maddening, deliberate curl of his lips that sent a tremor up my spine. Something flickered behind his expression. Amusement, maybe. Or a challenge. Or something darker still, something older.

He chuckled under his breath, the sound low and infuriatingly pleased.

“And here I thought you were supposed to be the clever one.”

He moved to the side, slow and circling—like a predator deciding how long it wanted to play with its prey before sinking in the teeth. His cloak whispered along the moss, every step soundless, precise.

“Tell me, Elvana,” he murmured, voice dipping to that velvet-dagger register, “do you always walk straight into danger without looking? Or…”He let the pause stretch, savoring it.

“Am I just special?”

My nails bit into my palms, the pressure grounding me against the chaos in my chest. The air between us crackled like a storm waiting to break.

“I had a feeling I’d find trouble here,” I said, voice low and edged with steel. I lifted my chin, daring him.

“I just didn’t expect it to be you. ”

A low hum emanated from Samael, an infuriating blend of amusement and something else—something that struck deeper.

“Bravery or stupidity?” he murmured, each word curling around the space between us like smoke. “It’s always a fine line, isn’t it?”

His voice wrapped around me, dark and slow, laced with heat as tangible as the closeness of his body. He was closing the distance again—measured, unhurried—until there was nothing left between us but air far too warm for the night.

The cold wind snuck beneath my robes, but it was drowned out by the heat pouring off him—sandalwood and mint, and something darker beneath. Something older, unknowable.

Too close now.

Far, far too close.

I willed my pulse to steady, to not betray the storm raging inside me. But he saw it.

His eyes dropped to my throat—the flutter just beneath the skin—and when his gaze returned to mine, a slow, knowing smirk had carved its way across his lips.

Like he could read every thought I’d never dared speak.

“Why am I here, Sam? ” I asked, teeth tight around his name, forcing the words past the knot tightening in my chest.

I didn’t mean for it to sound like a demand.

Or maybe I did.

Because even as I spoke, my body betrayed me again—a sharp flare of heat rising from somewhere far too deep, too hungry.

Frustration. Fury. Lust.

I couldn’t tell the difference.

And neither could he.

It was impossible to distinguish—where fear ended and want began, where anger blurred into the ache of something I didn’t dare name. The mess of feelings knotted tighter, defying clarity, resisting every desperate effort to shove them back where they belonged.

He watched me— really watched me—eyes dark and unflinching.

Then, with unbearable gentleness, he lifted a hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered, brushing the curve of my jaw. The contact was maddeningly soft, and it sent a ripple through me I couldn’t suppress.

I didn’t even try to understand it.

“You need to stop,” he murmured, the words barely a breath, but they spun through the air between us like a spell—fierce and full of warning.

My brows pulled together. Suspicion, confusion, and a flicker of impossible hope warred behind my ribs.

“Stop what ?” I asked.

His thumb drifted down, brushing the hollow of my throat—right above the Raven’s Echo. The pendant flared warm, a pulse that matched my own.

Something shifted in his expression. The easy arrogance was gone. What replaced it was sharp— raw. The amusement was stripped away, replaced by something brutal and bare.

“Stop looking for the relics.”

The words cut straight through me.

Cold uncoiled at the base of my spine, wrapping tight. I took a step back—not just from him, but from the gravity of everything that hung unspoken between us. I needed space. I needed air.

“You can’t be serious,” I said, though even I could hear the unsteadiness in my voice, the slip in my resolve that gave me away.

“Oh, I’m very serious.”

The teasing edge in his voice was gone, carved away and replaced by something darker—something colder. The intimacy that had hummed between us fractured beneath the blade of his warning.

“You don’t understand what you’re playing with, Elvana. And if you keep searching…”He stepped closer, the space between us collapsing.

“You won’t like what you find.”

My fists clenched at my sides, nails pressing deep into my palms, grounding me against the tide threatening to surge free—fear, anger, longing. His presence overwhelmed, threading into my thoughts, muddying the lines between danger and desire.

“Then help me understand,” I snapped, but the words cracked—betraying more vulnerability than I wanted him to see.

I swallowed hard, struggling to steady the breath he kept knocking loose in my chest. Every inhale brushed the edge of his scent, every exhale tinged with the truth I couldn’t escape: I wanted to understand him, even when I didn’t trust him.

A flicker passed over his lips. Not a smile— a promise. Slow, dangerous.

His hand lifted, fingers brushing my mouth. The heat of him burned through the cold air like a brand, like a tether.

“ Little raven, ” he whispered, eyes locked on mine. “Some knowledge is meant to stay buried. Keep digging…”

His thumb slid down my bottom lip, so light it stole the breath from my throat.

“…and you might find yourself six feet under.”

My breath hitched. I met his gaze, heart hammering, trying— failing —to parse the war behind his eyes.

“Is that a threat?” I breathed.

The air between us shivered, pulsed.

“No,” he said.

His voice was low, final, and quiet as the grave.

“It’s a warning. ”

His voice dipped to a whisper—low, intoxicating—curling around me like smoke, like a spell I couldn’t break free from.

Didn’t want to break free from.

There was something in it that anchored me, even as it threatened to undo every part of who I was.

His hand slid to my waist, fingers curling with intent as he pulled me flush against him. The distance vanished— obliterated —until the rest of the world ceased to exist.

There was only this. Only the crackle of something too wild, too sharp to name.

A shiver ran the length of my spine, and I hated that I couldn’t tell if it came from fear… or something far more dangerous.

Another shiver followed. I closed my eyes, just for a breath, just to find myself again.

“I told you, Sam,” I said, the words catching. “You don’t scare me.”

But it didn’t land. Not fully. My voice carried the weight of doubt—my own.

His hand tightened at the small of my back, heat radiating from his palm. The pressure was subtle, searing —a brand in the dark.

“Then you’re even more foolish than I thought.”

His tongue traced his lower lip, slow and deliberate. The motion was slight.

But it ruined me.

Everything else dropped away. There was only him. Only this.

Silence stretched between us, thick and taut—threaded with too much longing, too much warning.

My hands curled into fists at my sides, trembling. Every part of me torn between the urge to shove him away—

—and the need to—

No.

I tore myself from his grasp, the movement sudden, desperate. Cold air rushed in between us, flooding the space his touch had filled— a relief I didn’t want to need, and a loss I didn’t know how to carry.

My breath came ragged. I tried to steel myself, to rebuild what he'd unraveled.

“If you think I’m going to stop because of a few cryptic words and your…” my voice caught, laced with fury, with everything else I refused to name, “ theatrics —then you don’t know me at all.”

Samael didn’t stop me.

Didn’t reach for me again.

He just stood there, gaze steady, mouth curved in the faintest echo of amusement. Unshaken. Unbothered.

“No,” he said.

One word. Unyielding.

And then, softer—almost intimate.

“I know exactly what you are, little raven.”

I froze.

The quiet certainty in his voice cut deeper than any threat. It wasn’t taunting. It wasn’t even cruel. It was something worse—something true.

His words pierced through the fury, through the heat and deflection and defiance, and left me raw.

Exposed.

Seen.

Then, with desperation edging my movements, I turned sharply, forcing myself to walk away, each step toward the academy more difficult than the last. Even as I created distance, I could feel the ghost of his touch lingering on my skin, the dark promise in his words curling around me like smoke, like a tether I longed to break but feared I never could.

A chill wind whipped through the trees, and I drew my robe tighter, trying to ignore how much I hated the space between us, the way it took all my willpower not to turn back, not to give in.

The academy's lights blinked in the distance, and frustration surged within me, mingling with the uncertainty that Samael stirred, twisting my thoughts into a chaotic tangle.

I willed my legs to carry me faster, away from the woods, from him, from myself.

How could I let him have this power over me, let him pull me into his dark orbit so easily?

Anger flared, bitter and hot, but it did little to diminish the echo of his voice that chased me through the night, an unbidden temptation shadowing my every step.

I needed Lydia, to talk to her, to make sense of this, to anchor myself before I lost hold of everything.

Reaching the gates of the academy, I shoved them open with a force that surprised me, the metal wing a harsh contrast to the quiet torment of my own thoughts.

The path to the dormitory stretched long and unwelcoming, each footfall a reminder of my retreat, a reminder of how Samael saw me—na?ve, predictable, foolish.

Though didn’t I see it too? Didn’t I prove his prediction true by doing exactly what he expected?

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the doubt, the fear, the longing that wound like a vice around my heart.

Lydia would know what to do. She had to. I needed her to help me navigate the storm of emotions Samael had unleashed, to help me see beyond the fog of my own confusion. I needed her to tell me I wasn’t as lost as I felt.

I hesitated as I reached room nine. My knuckles grazing Lydia’s door. I hated that I was going to wake her in the middle of the night over this.

And I hated how badly I yearned to return to him.