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He brought my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles with a smirk. “For you? I’ll try my best, little flower.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“Never said it was.” His expression sobered, though his eyes still burned. “Ask.”

I stepped back, and this time he let me go. No cage of arms, no trapping me against the shelves. Maybe clearing the air about Morrigan had knocked some sense into him. Or maybe he just knew I wasn’t running.

I moved to the open space near the sofas, pacing once, twice, before whirling to face him. I held up a finger.

“First question,” I said. “Are you immortal?”

His lips quirked. “Not exactly.”

“But you’re not mortal.”

“No. You already knew that.”

“Then what are you?”

“That,” he said, tilting his head, “you’ll have to figure out yourself. I can only give yes or no.”

“Because you can’t tell me?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Is it blood magic? A vow? A curse?” I pressed, thinking of the texts I’d skimmed, ancient bindings that choked truths before they could be spoken.

His mouth opened, then his muscles locked, pain rippling across his face. The words died unspoken. I recoiled, suddenly hating myself for pushing. Seeing him in pain felt like a fist tightening around my throat.

But I had my answer. And with it, the cold certainty that I wasn’t paranoid. Somethingwashunting me. The redheads, their deaths, and the way history kept rewriting itself to erase them was all connected.

I might be the last one left in my bloodline.

I swallowed. “So you’re a demigod?”

“No.”

“But you can’t be a god.” I let out a dry laugh. “The gods left this world long ago.”

Even if immortals occasionally dabbled with mortals, the idea of gods and human women was almost laughable. Their power would burn through mortal flesh like kindling.

So I didn’t bother asking if he was actually a god and make a fool of myself. Even mortal men hesitated to pick me, let alone Nero Ravencrux, who could have anyone. Yet he wanted me, a mystery I’d stopped trying to solve.

I shuddered as his arm slid around my waist, pulling me against his hard chest. Every question, every doubt scattered like ash in the wind as his hungry, possessive gaze locked onto mine.

“Now it’s my turn for questions,” he said. “Just one.”

I braced myself. “What?”

His fingers brushed the hollow of my throat. “When did the asthma start?”

Heat rushed to my face, not just at the intimacy of his touch, but at the admission of weakness. Still, I held his gaze. No more running.

“After the drowning nightmares,” I said, my eyes misting.

“I’ve had them for years. Dreams of dying over and over, each death different.

” I sucked in a ragged breath, watching his face for any flicker of judgment.

I’d never felt so exposed, sharing this darkness.

“Except it wasn’t exactly me. It was women who looked like me, down to every atom. Same hair. Same face.”

His face paled. His expression hardened, but not before a flash of raw fury and pain cut through his winter-green eyes. Then, just as suddenly, hope. The shift was so stark, it stole my breath.

Why would my nightmares give him hope?

“Did you see who killed them?” he asked, too carefully.

“No.” I bit my lip. That was the strangest part: the killers’ faces were always just out of reach, a shadow at the edge of every dream.

And the other truth I couldn’t voice: You were there. Every time. Watching me die.

His thumb brushed my cheek, the tenderness of it near unbearable. The air between us hummed with something old as the stars, inevitable. Like we’d stood here before. Like we’d always circle back to this.

“You’re trembling,” he observed, his voice dropping to that rough timbre that always undid me.

“I’m not,” I said just as another shiver wracked me.

“Little liar.” His mouth brushed the frantic pulse at my throat. “Your heart is racing like a captured bird.”

I gasped, my hands flying to his shoulders—whether to push him away or pull him closer, I didn’t know. “We shouldn’t?—”

“Shouldn’t what?” His lips moved against my skin as he spoke, each word a caress. “Shouldn’t give in to what we both want? Shouldn’t acknowledge this thing between us that defies logic and reason?”

“You’re still a professor,” I managed to say, though my resolve was crumbling like sand.

He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes, his gaze fierce and possessive. “Fuck the rules. Even the Fates can’t stop us.”

He’d mentioned the Fates twice, as if he held a personal grudge against the three sisters. But did they even exist?

When his mouth crashed onto mine, I leaned into him.

For the first time, I might just let myself fall.

His lips claimed mine with urgent possessiveness, sending liquid fire along my thighs. I trembled from the sheer intensity of it, the way his breath became my breath, his oxygen my lifeline.

Untamed pleasure unfurled inside me.

His tongue swept against the roof of my mouth, and a shock of sensation arced through me, head to toe. I moaned, and the sound seemed to unleash something in him, a growl rumbling from his chest. His dominance should have infuriated me. Instead, it snapped the last thread of my resistance.

All my anger, hurt, and desperate longing transformed into primal instinct as old as the starlight.

When his tongue danced with mine, I bit down.

The taste of his spiced, rich blood flooded my mouth. Power surged through me, dark and electric, but instead of overwhelming me, itsettled inside me, as if my body had been waiting for it.

A revelation speared through my mind . Every time I touched him, I grew stronger.It was like he was a conduit to me, his darkness feeding my Weaver power.

He broke the kiss, his winter-green eyes flashing, but not with pain. Not surprise.

But pride.

I’d made him bleed, and he looked at me like I’d given him a gift.

A rough groan of pleasure departed his sensual lips before he laughed against my lips.

“There she is.” His voice was a dark caress.“My fierce Bloom. Thorns and all.”

I raked my nails down his chest, tracing the edges of his wound before pressing just hard enough to make him hiss.“You like pain, too, don’t you, Professor?”

“I like everything with you.”He caught my wrists and pinned them above my head. “Your pleasure, your pain, your fury, even your revenge—I’ll take it all.”

I twisted in his grip, not to break free but to feel the unshakable strength of him. When he didn’t relent, I did the only thing left: I sank my teeth into the side of his throat, right where his pulse hammered.

He shuddered, his body locking tight.“Fuck, Bloom.”

“Is that what you want?”I released his throat to purr in his ear.“To fuck me here, against your precious books?”

He exhaled, his eyes bright and dark at the same time. “I want you.”His voice was rough and seductive.“I want to worship you and ruin you. I want to give you pleasure so sharp it cuts and pain so sweet it addicts.”

My body hummed. My skin tingled. Liquid fire surged between my thighs, a primal need blazing through me.

My defenses splintered.

My heartstrings tugged and ached. I’d always felt this way with him, even when I hated him.

I fisted his hair and yanked his head back, crushing my mouth to his. This kiss wasn’t like the others. It was a battle, a claiming, punishment and reward in one. I bit. I sucked. I devoured, pouring every ounce of confusion, pain, hunger, and desire into him.

He matched me, his shadows coiling around us like silk ribbons, caressing and possessive. Every brush of them sent sparks through my nerves, pleasure and pain so intertwined I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

When he finally broke the kiss, hunger seared his eyes.“Still think you hate me, little flower?”

I couldn’t answer, couldn’t think, as attraction coiled tighter between us. His mouth found mine again, deeper this time, his hands sliding down to grip the neckline of my dress.

The rip of fabric tore through the air.

“No! Don’t do this.”I twisted, but it was too late.

Cool air hit my exposed skin, and then his breath stilled.

His fingers traced the lattice of scars beneath my breasts, over a hundred fine lines like cracks in porcelain. Shame flooded me. This was my most guarded secret, one even Mom never knew.

Most of the scars were old. From a time when the pain inside me had become unbearable.

Puberty hadn’t just brought changes to my body; it had awakened this hollow, insistent gnawing pain and untraceable hunger that had no name.

Like my soul remembered wounds this lifetime had never inflicted.

Like I wasn’t just carrying the burden of this life but the echoes of countless others.

Cutting had been the only relief. The sharp, clean pain grounded me, made the weight of that endless yearning survivable.

Nero stared at my scars, his face turning bleak, his eyes shadowed with agony and guilt, as if he blamed himself for my suffering. Then, in a blink, his expression shuttered closed.

Tears glistened in his icy green eyes, but they vanished so fast I wondered if I’d imagined them.

He bent to kiss my scars, gentler than I’d ever thought him capable of.

“One day, you won’t need to cut,” he promised.

His lips traced each mark, not with disgust but reverence.

I was grateful he didn’t ask questions.

He wasn’t meant to see these scars.

No one was meant to see them. Others would call me sick, a mental case.

Mom had said it wasn’t good to feel so much. But how do you turn off emotions? I wasn’t a corpse.

I had always been meticulous and careful. I never left scars where they could be seen. Yet he’d found them. Cherished them.

A riot of emotions stormed through me, my pulse quickening under his touch. My body hummed with every kiss, my scars searing hot.

He lifted his head, his gaze piercing, one hand cradling the back of my skull.