Page 16 of Her Soul to Own

But I feel him. Watching. Like heat pressed between my shoulder blades.

I walk past the hedge, past the gate, and down the empty street. The night has settled in, quiet, sharp, and unforgiving. I hate how winter swallows the day so quickly. It was morning a minute ago, and now the world’s gone dark, like someone flipped a switch.

When I turn the corner, he’s there. Leaning against a lamppost like he’s been carved from the night itself. Hands in pockets. Still and silent.

“You scared my friend off,” I say, folding my arms.

His mouth twitches. “Good.”

“You had no right.”

“You gave it to me,” he says. “The moment you walked into that bookstore.”

I step forward with my fists clenched. “You don’t get to decide who I talk to, who touches me, who makes me laugh, who I spend my time with…”

He tilts his head. “Then don’t make it so easy to intervene.”

I want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or scream until I unravel. “You’re not my shadow, Creed.”

“No,” he agrees. “I’m your reckoning.”

I roll my eyes and turn away.Who talks like that?My heart is hammering, and my throat is tight.

And for the first time since I left New York, since the last time I felt anything that wasn’t rage or fear or numb routine, I don’t feel angry.

Instead, I feelalive. And that’s the most dangerous thing of all.

Chapter 4 – Silas – Trigger Games

The dead of night isn’t quiet. Not when you’re the only living ghost inside a fortress designed to look like home.

I sit alone in the surveillance hub beneath the Vane estate, my eyes locked on the glow of monitors that paint my face in artificial light. The digital blueprint of the property stretches across three screens like a pulse—each flicker, each motion, a heartbeat I control.

Most men would call this an obsession. But most men aren’t like me.

One screen shows Lyra’s bedroom, her private kingdom of velvet and shadows. She’s pacing. Again. Her movements are sharp and restless. Her lips are moving, but there’s no audio. She’s muttering something, maybe a poem. Who am I kidding?She’s probably muttering curses. At me.

She’s wearing that expression again. The one that saysfuck youandcome closerall at once.

Finally, after a few minutes, she stops pacing, and the camera captures her undressing.

It’s slow. Almost seductive.

Every motion is like a blade drawn, unsheathed with theatrical malice.

She tosses her clothes to the floor like declarations of war, one by one, a silent rebellion against decency or restraint. And when she’s down to her underwear, when the last slip of modesty becomes something holy, I look away.

Because even if she knows the camera is there, even if she’s doing this for me,becauseof me, I don’t want to see her like that. Not when she doesn’t know if I’m really looking.

She wants to punish me with beauty. But tonight, I won’t let her turn herself into a weapon.

But fuck me, it’s working.

When I look back at the camera, she’s in a crimson lace.What is this woman up to now?That kind of lace is meant for soft gasps and dirty thoughts and bruises hidden under collarbones.

My fingers tighten around the edge of the desk with my jaw locked, back straight, and eyes unblinking.

I don’t allow myself to feel. But I am burning from the inside.