Page 8 of Stalked & Bred by the BRATVA (Bred by the BRATVA #6)

I stop outside her door and let the silence swallow us both.

I know she’s awake. She always tenses when she hears me coming, not in the way people tense before a fight, but in the way prey goes still when it knows the predator is close. Her breathing changes, just enough that if I pressed my ear to the wood, I could hear it.

I don’t. Not tonight.

I just stand there. Close enough that if she pressed her palm to the other side of the door, it would almost be touching mine. Close enough that she can feel me without seeing me.

I want her to listen. To wonder. To replay every second in her mind, trying to decide if it was real or something she imagined. I want her to lie there, knowing I could have opened the door. That I could have stepped inside.

But I didn’t.

Because control isn’t in the taking. It’s in the knowing you could, and choosing to wait.

The scent of her room seeps into the hallway, lavender and vanilla, faint but unmistakable. The perfume she brought with her, sad and sweet, still clings to the air. I moved it once, just enough for her to notice. She did. She always notices.

She has no idea how closely I’ve studied her habits.

How many hours I’ve spent watching her through the cameras, through open doorways, from corners of the hall.

I know the exact sound of her footsteps.

I know which floorboards outside her room creak when she walks over them.

I know she brushes her hair twenty-seven times before she ties it back in those low braids.

I know she hides the things I give her, the gown, the flower, the photograph, but she keeps them. That’s all that matters.

She thinks about me when she touches them.

I stay there until I feel the tension inside has reached its breaking point. Not hers. Mine. Every second I spend outside this door, I’m tempted to turn the handle and see her in that bed, curled under the blanket, looking at me with those wide, uncertain eyes.

I imagine the way she’d draw the covers tighter around herself. The way her voice would catch if she tried to speak. The way I’d sit on the edge of her bed and tell her she doesn’t need to be afraid of me, only of what I’ll do to anyone who touches her.

But not tonight. Tonight, I give her the gift of my retreat.

My steps are slow as I walk away, knowing she’s still listening.

She’ll count them without meaning to. She’ll remember exactly how far I got before the sound faded.

Tomorrow, when she sees me in the hall or catches sight of me from across the room, she’ll wonder if I’m the one who stood outside her door.

And she’ll be right.

At the end of the corridor, I pause and look back at the door. In this whole building, this is the only one that matters. The rest could burn, and as long as she was behind that wood, breathing, untouched, I would call it a victory.

Still, I don’t like the thought of her being in there alone. I know this wing is locked at night, the staff quarters secured from the rest of the house, but locks can be broken.

And there’s still her brother.

I’ve seen his file. I know the kind of man he is. I know what he’s done to her. If he tried to reach her here, it would be the last thing he ever did.

But she doesn’t know that yet. She’s still looking for him in every shadow. Still wondering if the fear that keeps her awake is wearing his face.

That’s fine.

Let her think it’s him. Let her cling to the idea that she knows her hunter. It will make the moment she realises the truth even sharper.