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Anya didn’t move either, keeping her distance, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “What the hell wasthat?”

He didn’t look at her. “Anger,” he said hoarsely. “Amplified. Unrelenting.”

She swallowed hard. “You looked like you wanted to kill something.”

“Ido.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, edging backward toward the corner of the chamber, breath shaking. “Idon’t know what these bracelets do,” she said, voice tight with defiance, “but I saw the way you looked at me. Whatever this is, whatever it’s making you feel—I’m not going to let you hurt me. Or attack me. Or fuck me. I’ll fight you to the death if I haveto.”

Chapter2

ANYA DIDN’T MOVE. Couldn’t. Not with the way Tor’Vek was staring ather.

His chest heaved like he’d just run a marathon, his jaw clenched so tight she could see the cords in his neck twitch. The violet light in his eyes, faint at first, had grown into something eerie, something mesmerizing. Something alive.

She backed herself into a corner instinctively. Her entire body braced, heart pounding against her ribs like it was trying to flee first. She didn’t think—she just moved, retreating until cold metal kissed her spine. Her brain was still trying to rationalize, to make sense of what she’d seen, but her body had already decided.

Getaway.

He wasn’t just unpredictable. He wasn’t just angry.

He was dangerous.

Not in a maybe-he’ll-snap kind of way. In a primal, teeth-bared, alpha-predator way. Like something ancient and violent had surfaced, slashing through layers of training and logic with terrifying clarity. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t stop it. Some part of him didn’t want to. Whatever had broken free inside him wasn’t entirely foreign. It had roots. Aplace. Aname he might’ve once whispered to himself before burying it deep. And now it was here—unchained, unfiltered, unafraid.

“Stay back,” she said, holding up a hand. Useless. He didn’t even glance atit.

He took one slow step forward. Then another.

“If I want to kill you,” he said, voice low and full of gravel, “I will.”

Her breath caught.

His eyes glinted with something savage, aflicker of heat and warning that made the tiny hairs on her neckrise.

“And if I want to fuck you,” he growled, “I definitely will.”

Her stomach flipped. Not from desire, but from pure adrenaline. The kind that turned muscles to stone and instincts to knives. Her entire body screamed at her to run, to escape, to survive. She didn’t know what the bracelet did to him—or what it had awakened—but whatever now stood in front of her wasn’t just Tor’Vek.

It was a weapon barely sheathed in flesh.

And it sawher.

Then everything exploded.

He didn’t just pace the room—he obliterated it. Tor’Vek moved like a storm unleashed from centuries of discipline. One massive hand ripped a section of the control panel from the wall, wires sparking like veins torn open. He hurled the twisted hunk of metal across the chamber with a roar that seemed too raw, terrifyingly inhuman. The lights flickered violently, casting strobe-like flashes across his face, warping his features into something feral.

He tore a bulkhead covering from the ceiling, flinging it aside like paper. Another console shattered under his boot. Metal shrieked, groaned, surrendered.

There was no pattern to his destruction—only power, wild and unchecked, flaring from him like a solar eruption. It wasn’t calculated. It wasn’t methodical. It was pure instinct wrapped in muscle and rage, and it filled the room like smoke, choking everything elseout.

“This emotion is illogical,” he snapped, throwing a chair so hard it embedded into the wall. “It is chemical. It is nothing but fire in the blood. Iwillmaster it!”

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

The mattress tore under his grip. The frame followed. Ametal panel clanged to the floor, dented and useless. Anya flinched at every crash, packed tight into the furthest corner of the chamber, heart racing, arms wrapped around herself.

He spun on her. Fast. Eyes still glowing, breath ragged.

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