Morning came in shades of grey.
I had slept eventually.
Badly.
Restlessly.
Somewhere between three and four in the morning, exhaustion had finally taken pity on me and dragged me under, but it had not been kind to me there. My dreams had moved like smoke—half-formed, dark, never quite peaceful—and when I opened my eyes to soft daylight pressing against the curtains, my first thought was not good morning.
It was him.
Of course it was.
I lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, feeling the slow return of yesterday into my body.
The blood.
The body.
His room.
His voice.
Goodbye, Kiera.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.
"Get up," I whispered. "Just get up."
So I did.
I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, where the cold water against my face was almost enough to convince me I could walk downstairs like a normal person and pretend yesterday hadn't rearranged something inside me.
Almost.
I stared at myself in the mirror as I brushed my teeth.
Tired eyes.
Pale skin.
Mouth slightly swollen from how long I had spent biting the inside of it last night.
This was not the face of a girl who was handling things well.
This was the face of a girl who had spent half the night thinking about a man who had said one word to her that should not have meant anything and somehow meant too much.
I dressed quietly.
Nothing dramatic. Soft fabric, simple, easy to disappear in. I pulled my hair back, then changed my mind and let it down. Then pulled it back again. Then hated myself for caring.
I was going to breakfast.
That was it.
Just breakfast.
It was a perfectly normal thing that perfectly normal people did every day without their pulse trying to climb out of their throat.
I took one long breath.
Then I opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
The house was already awake.
Not loud—the Blackwood manor never seemed to be loud—but alive in that careful, expensive way it always was. Soft sounds of staff moving in distant rooms. The muted clink of porcelain somewhere far ahead. The faint scent of fresh coffee, warm bread, and something with citrus drifting up through the corridor.
Normal sounds.
Normal smells.
A normal morning.
My nerves did not believe it for one second.
The walk to the dining room felt longer than usual. The corridors looked the same as they always did—dark wood, soft lighting, paintings that I could swear watched me—but everything felt sharper today.
More awake.
More observant.
By the time I reached the dining room entrance, my hand was almost trembling against the door frame.
I forced it still.
Then I stepped inside.
And immediately wished I had stayed in bed.
He was already there.
Of course he was.
Malakai sat at the head of the long table, perfectly composed, dressed in black again, sleeves rolled neatly to the forearms in that way that should have been illegal. A cup of coffee in front of him. A folded newspaper to his right. Phone face-down to his left.
He didn't look like a man who had killed anyone yesterday.
He didn't look like a man who had stood half-dressed in front of me last night and said something dangerous in a low voice.
He looked like a businessman. Calm. Untouchable.
Until he lifted his eyes.
That was when the room got smaller.
He looked at me the way he had looked at me last night—steady, unreadable, fully present—and for one fragile second, the whole space between us felt like it was holding its breath.
Then he nodded once, barely.
"Kiera."
His voice was even.
But not casual.
There was nothing casual about how he said my name when other people were in the room.
"Good morning," I managed.
I sounded almost normal.
Almost.
Bridget saved me without realizing it.
She was already seated halfway down the table, dressed in something soft and bright with her hair pulled up messily, scrolling on her phone while sipping juice.
"Finally," she said without looking up. "I was about to send a search party. You usually don't sleep too long. Come, sit, eat. I'm starving and the staff won't bring out the good pastries until you're here. Apparently we have to be civilized."
I almost laughed.
Almost.
"Sorry," I said, walking toward the table. "I didn't sleep well."
"Mm," Bridget said. "That makes two of us. Something about this house last night felt weird, didn't it? Like the air was off."
She had no idea.
I didn't answer.
I just sat down—across from her, not next to Malakai, which was either a small mercy or a small disaster, I couldn't decide. Either way, it meant that every time I looked up, he was directly in my line of sight.
Wonderful.
Just what I needed.
Raphael strolled in a minute later, pulling out the chair beside Bridget with that same effortless arrogance he carried everywhere. Apparently, he spent to night here
"Morning, miscreants," he said.
"Morning, demon," Bridget shot back without missing a beat.
He grinned.
Then his eyes flicked across the table to me.
Then to Malakai.
Then back to me.
Slowly.
His grin didn't fade.
It just changed.
"Sleep well, Kiera?" he asked, voice innocent in a way that was deeply not innocent.
"Fine," I said quickly. "Thank you."
"Mm."
That sound was annoying.
That sound was the kind of sound you made when you suspected something you hadn't confirmed yet.
I refused to look at Malakai.
I reached for the cloth napkin in front of me and unfolded it with more focus than the task deserved, smoothing it across my lap like it was important work.
A staff member came in and began setting out fresh plates—warm pastries, fruit, eggs, bacon, smoked salmon, several things I couldn't name and probably couldn't pronounce. Coffee was poured. Juice was placed.
The room filled with the soft choreography of a meal.
And underneath all of it—
Silence between two people who could not afford to look at each other for too long.
I reached for the small jug of juice at the same moment Malakai did.
Our hands met first.
His fingers brushed mine.
Just barely.
Just enough.
The contact was nothing—
—and yet my entire arm went still.
I felt it everywhere.
I felt it in the back of my neck. In my throat. In the soft skin behind my ear.
He didn't pull back.
Not immediately.
For one long, dangerous breath, his hand stayed exactly where it was, his fingers grazing the back of mine in a way that could have been an accident—
if his eyes hadn't found mine the second it happened.
He looked at me.
Calm.
Steady.
But behind it, low and quiet, something dark moved through his expression that did not belong in a sunlit dining room.
I forgot how to breathe.
"Sorry," he said softly.
That was a lie.
We both knew it.
He moved his hand back, slow and deliberate, and let me take the jug first.
"Thank you," I whispered.
My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
I poured my juice.
It almost spilled.
"God, you two are formal in the morning," Bridget said, biting into a pastry. "It's disturbing. Did something happen yesterday? Why is everyone weird?"
Raphael let out a low, lazy laugh into his coffee.
"Some people," he said, "simply have very interesting nights."
"Raphael," Malakai said quietly.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't angry.
But the room temperature dropped exactly two degrees.
Raphael lifted both hands in surrender, still grinning. "What? I didn't say anything. I was talking about myself."
"Of course you were," Bridget muttered. "You always are."
"Lies and slander."
"Truth and observation."
He smirked.
She smirked back.
Their banter saved me from another five seconds of silence, but it didn't save me from him.
Because Malakai was watching me again.
Not obviously.
Never obviously.
But I could feel it like a hand pressed lightly against the side of my face.
He was looking at the way I held my fork.
At the way I cut a small piece of fruit into smaller pieces because my appetite had vanished sometime between his hand and his voice.
At the way I kept tucking my hair behind my ear even though it didn't need it.
I could feel the weight of him noticing.
I could feel the weight of him knowing he was noticing.
And worse, I could feel the weight of him knowing I noticed him noticing.
It was a quiet kind of torture.
I cleared my throat softly.
"The pastries are good," I said to Bridget, because I needed sound.
"They're always good. We have a witch in the kitchen. I'm convinced." Bridget waved a half-eaten pastry through the air. "She probably enchants them."
"Pastries don't need enchantment if they're made with butter," Raphael said.
"Spoken like a man who has never made a single thing in his life."
"I have a strong moral objection to labor."
"You have a strong moral objection to maturity."
"Same thing, really."
Bridget snorted into her juice.
I smiled.
For one second.
A real one.
And when I looked up automatically without thinking—
Malakai was watching that too.
The smile.
Like he had cataloged it.
Like he had filed it somewhere private.
My face warmed.
I dropped my eyes back to my plate.
"Eat," he said quietly.
To me.
Only to me.
It was one word.
A single word.
But my stomach flipped because of how he said it.
Not a command from a man being polite.
A command from a man who had noticed I hadn't actually been eating.
A man who was paying attention.
A man who was always paying attention.
"I am," I murmured.
"Then eat more."
Bridget paused mid-chew.
Her eyes flicked between us.
Slowly.
Carefully.
I could feel her brain starting to put pieces together.
"Hmm," she said.
Just that.
Just hmm.
That single syllable terrified me more than yesterday's dead body.
I forced myself to take another bite.
I made sure to chew it.
I made sure not to look up.
Raphael, of course, could not let silence remain undisturbed for more than ten seconds.
"So," he said, leaning back in his chair with his coffee, "anything interesting on the schedule today, brother dear?"
"Meetings," Malakai answered.
"Fun."
"Necessary."
"Not fun, then."
Malakai didn't reply.
"And Kiera," Raphael added, eyes sliding to me with mild, dangerous amusement, "what does your day look like?"
"Nothing," I said quickly. "Just—reading, probably. Maybe some studying."
"Such a peaceful life."
"I like peaceful."
"No one truly likes peaceful," Raphael said. "People only like peaceful when the alternative has been very, very loud."
I didn't answer that.
I didn't need to.
He had no idea how close to the truth he was.
I sipped my juice.
Malakai's eyes were on me again.
I felt it.
Always.
Bridget tapped her nails against her glass.
"You know," she said slowly, like she was choosing her words for sport, "there's something different about this morning. Like after sex vibe."
"Don't," I said before I could stop myself.
She blinked.
Then smiled.
A small, slow, dangerous smile.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, that was telling."
"Bridget."
"What? I haven't said anything yet."
"You were going to."
"Maybe. Maybe not. The point is, you responded like I had."
I felt my cheeks heat.
Raphael let out a soft, delighted laugh.
"This is the best breakfast I've had in a month," he muttered into his cup.
Malakai didn't say a word.
He didn't have to.
The room understood him without speech.
There was a calm steadiness in him that always made it clear when he was watching, and when he was no longer just watching but listening.
He was listening now.
Carefully.
The slight tilt of his head.
The patience of his hand around the coffee cup.
The way his eyes lingered on Bridget for half a second, then on me for slightly longer.
She caught it.
I saw the exact moment she caught it.
Her smile faltered—barely. Then returned, sharper.
"Mhm," she said again.
"Stop saying mhm," I muttered.
"Make me."
"Bridget."
"Kiera."
She mimicked my tone perfectly.
I shook my head and reached for my coffee.
I almost burned my tongue on it.
Raphael saw that too.
He almost lost his composure.
Almost.
I exhaled slowly, willing my face to behave, willing my pulse to behave, willing my hands to stop shaking so the cup wouldn't rattle against the saucer.
The conversation drifted—mercifully—back into Bridget complaining about something at school and Raphael saying something inappropriate about whoever she was complaining about. Their voices wove around me, light and familiar and safe.
I let them.
I needed the noise.
Because every time the noise dipped, I could feel him.
Always him.
Watching with that quiet, steady patience.
Like a man who had decided something but was in no rush to say it.
Like a man who had time.
Like a man who already knew.
The plates emptied slowly.
The coffee cups did too.
Bridget eventually pushed back from the table with a dramatic sigh and stretched.
"Right," she said. "I have to go pretend to be productive. Kiera, come find me later. We need to talk."
"About what?" I asked, too quickly.
Her smile turned sweet.
Too sweet.
"Stuff," she said.
Then she walked out.
Raphael followed her after draining his coffee, throwing me one final amused look that I refused to dignify with eye contact.
"Behave, children," he said as he left.
The door closed behind them.
And just like that—
We were alone.
The dining room felt twice as large.
And twice as small.
I kept my eyes on my cup.
The silence between us stretched, soft and dangerous, the way it always seemed to do when the others left the room. It didn't feel like emptiness.
It felt like weight.
Like pressure.
Like something waiting.
I forced myself to look up.
He was already watching me.
Of course he was.
His coffee was still half full. His posture had not changed. His face had not changed.
But the air had.
For a long second, neither of us moved.
Then he spoke.
Low.
Calm.
Final.
"Come see me later."
That was it.
That was the whole sentence.
No explanation. No softness. No question.
A command, wrapped in something quieter than a command had any right to be.
My heart kicked once, hard.
"Okay," I whispered.
He held my eyes for one more heartbeat.
Then he stood, calmly, as though nothing had happened, as though my chest wasn't now pounding hard enough to bruise.
He picked up his phone.
Slid it into his pocket.
Walked past me toward the door.
He did not touch me.
He did not look back.
But as he passed behind my chair, I felt the faint shift of warmth from his body—closer than a man like him needed to walk—and I swore I felt the brush of his fingers against the very back of the wood, near my shoulder, like a thought he had decided not to finish.
Then he was gone.
The door closed softly behind him.
And I sat alone at a long table full of unfinished food, staring at the empty doorway, my hands flat against the linen, my pulse refusing to slow.
Come see me later.
Four words.
Four small, cold, devastating words.
I exhaled slowly through my mouth and pressed my hands harder into the table to stop them from trembling.
This was a problem.
A very real one.
Because somewhere between last night and this morning—between his goodbye and his good morning, between his hand brushing mine and his voice saying my name—
I had stopped being afraid of him in the way I used to be.
And started being afraid of him in a far more dangerous way.
I was afraid of what I would say later.
I was afraid of what I would feel later.
I was afraid of what I would let happen later.
Because for the first time in my life, when a powerful, dangerous man told me to come see him—
A part of me had wanted to follow him out of the room immediately.
And not for safety.
For something else.
I closed my eyes for one long moment.
Then I opened them and stared at the place where he had been sitting.
The chair was empty.
The room was quiet.
But the day had already changed shape around me, and I knew, somewhere deep beneath the still-trembling part of my chest, that whatever happened later in that meeting—
would not leave either of us the same.