Chapter 3

The next morning, heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway, pulling me from the deepest sleep I'd had in years.

I shifted my aching shoulders, my cheek brushing against an impossibly hard, blisteringly hot chest.

[LMAO. Snuggling up to an apex predator like he's a body pillow? Lysandra, did your survival instincts pack up and leave?]

Then came Dorian's voice. "Kaelen? You in there? I can't find Lysandra anywhere."

My eyes snapped open. I hadn't locked the door last night.

Kaelen beside me snapped awake.

He shoved my head down, yanking the blanket over my hair and shoulders, burying me completely.

The lingering siren moisture in the room was instantly swallowed by the dark, suffocating burst of his shadow magic.

The door creaked open.

Dorian's voice hitched, pitching up into an awkward, entirely too excited tone. "My bad, man. Didn't know you had company."

The room reeked of shattered high-tier wards and the heavy, musky scent of an incubus in rut.

Worse, Kaelen's pale neck and elegant collarbones were completely paved with the bite marks I'd left on him last night.

"Thought you were celibate," Dorian scoffed. "Kinky."

"Yeah." Kaelen was deadpan. "She's shy. Get out."

Dorian let out a dry laugh and grabbed the doorknob, dropping a sickeningly suggestive comment before shutting it. "Pace yourself, man. Don't make her cry. Women's tears are a headache."

The door clicked shut.

Kaelen ripped the blanket off me and hauled me tight against his chest. His large hands clamped over my shoulders, forcefully turning me around so my back faced him.

He stared at the whip marks littering my spine.

Siren physiology granted rapid healing. The torn flesh had already knitted back into raised, pink welts.

Kaelen's fingers hovered just above the damaged skin, his hand trembling slightly with a restraint so violent he didn't even dare make contact.

"It doesn't hurt anymore. I'm healing." I turned back around, lifting my hands to cup his rigidly clenched jaw.

When he finally spoke, his voice was raw, like he'd swallowed crushed glass. "I shouldn't have held back last night. I should have walked right next door and pulverized his bones, inch by inch."

I just looked at him.

Last night, I had literally straddled his hips, blatantly taunting him, asking if he couldn't get it up.

Yet the most terrifying incubus hybrid had clung to his iron-clad boundaries.

Sweat had dripped from his jaw onto my collarbones as he chanted the same broken phrase over and over: "I can't. I'll lose control. I'll hurt you."

A soft laugh escaped my lips.

"What are you smiling at?"

"Just thinking about... how dexterous your fingers are." I leaned in, my lips brushing the shell of his ear, dropping my voice to a whisper. "And your mouth isn't too bad either."

The text instantly flooded my vision:

[Christ. Dial back the smut, will you?!]

[Friendly warning: A vampire-incubus hybrid? The longer he suppresses his urges, the more lethal the fallout. Hit him up for a good life insurance policy, ASAP.]

I smiled, thoroughly satisfied as the untouchable, legendary Kaelen went completely rigid. Even the tips of his ears flushed a scandalous, impossible red.

Kaelen had morning classes. He'd tried to coax me back into bed to sleep, but I stubbornly tagged along.

"Don't wander off. There's too many people," he'd finally surrendered.

He intentionally slowed his long strides to match mine.

Walking through the crowded campus, his arm hovered perpetually behind my waist, shielding me from the crush of students. Every tiny movement I made, every look I gave him—he responded to it all.

Watching his sharp profile, unbidden memories of Dorian flashed through my mind.

"Stop annoying me, I'm networking."

"Walk faster. Are you good for anything besides crying?"

I took a deep breath of the crisp morning air. I wasn't a nuisance. I wasn't too sensitive. I had just handed my beating heart to a parasitic bastard who only cared about bleeding me dry and beating me down.

The courtyard around us suddenly dropped into an eerie, dead silence, quickly followed by a tidal wave of hushed, frantic whispers.

Several students stopped dead in their tracks, their thumbs furiously flying across their phone screens as they shot us wide-eyed, terrified glances.

"Why is everyone staring?" I murmured.

"Does it bother you?" Kaelen swept a frigid glare over the yard, making several students flinch.

"No," I replied.

I noticed his slightly chapped lips. He rarely consumed human food during daylight hours, running entirely on black coffee or specialized blood bags.

I broke off a piece of a warm croissant from my paper bag and held it right to his lips. "Open."

Kaelen just stared at me, utterly paralyzed.

He shifted his gaze from the pastry to my eyes. A beat passed. Then, he leaned forward, obediently parting his lips and taking a bite.

[Ding! The 'Hopeless Simp' achievement has been officially unlocked. I swear to God, if you fed him a clove of raw garlic right now, he'd still chew it with a smile.]

"So, as compensation for your little display of 'restraint' last night," I hummed, idly tracing the joints of his long fingers. "How about a date tonight?"

The muscles across Kaelen's chest and shoulders instantly locked tight under his shirt.

"No." His voice snapped back to its usual glacial temperature, layered with forced distance. "I have business to take care of."

"What kind of business?"

"Go back to your dorm. Lock the door. And do not leave tonight, no matter what."

He didn't offer a single word of explanation before spinning on his heel and walking away.

I figured out he was actually heading to the underground mixer. So, naturally, I decided to sneak in and give him a little surprise.

Only, when I slipped through the crowd, I didn't find Kaelen.

Instead, lounging in a leather corner booth, was Dorian—doing drinks with a pack of rich wizards.