Page 5 of Hunted to Be Mine

“Good.” His smile was sharp and thin. “Forgiveness is overrated. But understanding… understanding is everything. Sweet dreams, Dr. Crawford. Try not to think too much about what I might remember tomorrow.”

Outside, his attention seemed to stick, and the spot where he’d touched my palm felt too warm. Mattie was waiting, medical equipment forgotten, her complexion pale.

“Selina, what just happened in there?”

“I’m not sure. But I think we just declared war.”

“On what?”

“On the walls between who he was and what he’s become.” I touched my temple, feeling the beginning of a tension headache. “The question is whether I’ll survive the collapse.”

Seok emerged from the shadows where he’d been observing. “You can still walk away. No one would blame you.”

“Yes. They would. He would. And worse, I would.”

Because he was right. We always recognize our own. And in those mercury eyes, I’d seen my own reflection staring back: broken, rebuilt, and desperately searching for the missing pieces.

Tomorrow, I would return. Tomorrow, we would begin the careful work of unraveling his mind.

Tonight, I would dream of metal-gray eyes and snow, and wonder which of us was really the patient.

The game had begun.

And I was already losing.

Chapter 2

Selina

I sat alone in the conference room thirty minutes after the world tilted. After Specter’s seizure. After his desperate, too-clear warning: “And neither does SENTINEL.”

The words hadn’t been delirium. Not the ravings of a fracturing psyche, but a truth he’d fought through neurological catastrophe to deliver.

A small red light pulsed from the wall panel. SENTINEL’s perpetual surveillance, recording every micro-expression, every involuntary reaction my body had betrayed.

I forced my spine straight, hands flat on the table, assuming the posture of composure even as containment scenarios spun through my head. The dossier before me might as well have been blank. Just specifications and threat assessments. Nothing about the man who’d looked at me like he was drowning and I was the only thing to grab.

His name kept repeating. A violation of boundaries that had ended with questions I still couldn’t answer. He was something else entirely, broken in ways that invited fire.

The pneumatic hiss gave me a half-second warning before Commander Iain Dawson entered. No security detail. No assistant. Just him, filling the doorway with an authority that had nothing to do with position and everything to do with the predator beneath the tailored suit.

The seal clicked softly. That sound raised every hair on my neck. Being locked in with a threat.

Dawson advanced with careful control, each step calculated to claim territory. His navy suit fit like armor, immaculate. This was a man who understood that presentation was power, and power was everything.

“Dr. Crawford.”

My name carried both greeting and assessment.

In five years with SENTINEL, I’d seen Dawson only in carefully orchestrated meetings, always with layers of hierarchy between us. The intelligence community whispered his name with the kind of respect reserved for natural disasters. Inevitable, devastating, and best observed from a distance. In person, I understood why. He radiated leashed violence that made even the air feel charged.

His gaze, green like broken glass, tracked over my face in a slow, exact sweep, cataloging what I tried to hide. I met it steadily, my clinical mask intact even as my pulse accelerated.

Then he smiled.

The transformation was deliberate, severity melting into warmth that never touched his stare. I recognized the technique because I’d used it myself. Creating false intimacy to lower defenses. But recognition didn’t provide immunity. Even knowing the manipulation, I felt its pull.

“I apologize for keeping you waiting.” He moved toward the table, footsteps sharp on polished concrete, like a countdown.