Berkley
What the hell am I doing?
I shouldn’t be here. Not like this. My cover’s already in pieces, shattered the moment Ronan looked at me and didn’t justseeme—butrecognizedme. And still… I haven’t run.
My weakness is what’s keeping me here. The part of me that never really stopped aching for him, that never stopped replaying his voice in my head when the nights got too long and the silence too loud. Being near him again—his voice, his presence, the way he looks at me like I never left—it’s unraveling all the walls I’ve spent years building.
But maybe this weakness gives me something else too.
An opportunity.
Because now I’m inside the house.Theirhouse. The one they’ve lived in since before everything fell apart. And being here, being close to Ronan, might give me access to the answers I came back for. Specifically, Reign.
I need to know where she is—ifshe’s safe. But I can’t just ask. Not yet. Not when there’s a real chance Dean’s watching, listening, monitoring every trace of communication like he always did. Asking the wrong question too soon could cost me everything. Could costhereverything.
So, I wait.
And Ronan… he’s waiting too. I can see it in the way he holds himself, that same hesitation coiled tight inside my chest. He isn’t calling his brothers. He isn’t tearing this open and forcing answers. He’s just here—suspended in the moment, barely keeping everything together by a thread. Maybe he wants a few quiet hours before the storm finally hits. Maybe he doesn’t trust what comes after either.
We circle each other like two wounded animals who remember what it felt like to be whole.
And for now, that’s enough.
For now, I’ll play my role.
Because my heart may still beat for him… but my mission has always been for her.
Ronan takes my hand again—gentler than I expect from someone who burns so hot—and guides me down the hall like muscle memory’s pulling him. I know this hallway. My feet remember it even if my eyes don’t have time to take in the changes. It’s familiar in that haunting, aching way, like walking through a dream that’s one breath from turning into a nightmare.
He stops at a door near the end of the hall and opens it without a word. He doesn’t need to tell me this is his room—the same one he had back then. I know the second I step inside. The space feels familiar, but changed. The air is heavier, lived-in, shaped by years that kept moving without me. It isn’t a boy’sroom anymore, but it isn’t erased either. It’s grown up with him… just like I did once, only apart.
I don’t get the chance to study anything—not the walls, not the furniture, not the fragments of his life that might explain the man standing in front of me now.
The second we cross the threshold, the door shuts behind us, and he steps in close, his body boxing me in, leaving no space to breathe.
He plants an arm on either side of my head and leans in, his gaze never leaving mine. Without breaking eye contact, he reaches back and flips the lock. The click echoes in the room, sounding less like a simple latch and more like a promise… or a warning.
His gaze sharpens, scanning my face as if he’s cataloging every detail. “Your eyes,” he murmurs, voice low, almost thoughtful. “They’re not the same.”
I tense, barely resisting the urge to look away. Of course they’re not. Colored contacts—a necessity for keeping my cover.
He studies them a second longer before he adds, “They used to be blue. Bright. Like the sky right before it turns into a storm.”
His words land in my chest like a strike, sharp and unguarded.
“I liked your eyes the way they were.”
It’s not a complaint. More like a confession. Quiet, nostalgic. Honest in a way that scrapes something raw in me.
“But the hair…” he grins now, a lopsided smirk tugging at his mouth as his eyes flick up to the mess of purple strands framing my face. “It suits you. All wild and chaotic. Like the little pixie you are.”
I grunt in mock annoyance, crossing my arms. “Still calling mesmall,huh?”
He chuckles, and it’s that deep, rough sound I remember from the late nights we used to spend tangled in blankets and whispering secrets.
“Youaresmall,” he says, leaning in just enough for his breath to tickle my cheek. “But we didn’t coddle you just because of your size.”
I freeze, caught by the meaning behind his words.