Page 40 of Wings of Shadow
My heels click softly on the marble floor. Every step seems both reckless and inevitable. What am I doing? The clans will talk. Someone is surely watching. But their eyes are distant, irrelevant—ghosts in the periphery.
The only thing I feel is the pulse of magic, thick in the air.
And the fire that draws me to him.
A tremor runs through me as I move through the opera house’s gilded corridors, each step bringing me closer to him. The plush carpet hushes my footsteps, but the blood pounding in my ears is deafening. My hands tremble. I curl them into fists, willing my composure to hold.
Rounding the final corner, I spot Kaisner’s men, stationed like statues outside a private balcony. Sharp-eyed. Expressionless. Watchful.
For a breathless second, I brace for resistance. But then, with the smallest nod, they step aside. The gesture is subtle, but the anticipation it sparks inside me is not.
One of them catches my eye. Marcus—tall, with dark eyes and a scar along his jaw. I’ve seen him before, always near Kaisner. Always silent. Always armed.
“Enjoy your evening, Miss Draken,” he says, his voice cold and precise—smooth on the surface but chilling beneath.
I give a polite nod, but his words linger in my mind. Something in his gaze holds too long, like he’s committing details to memory that he shouldn’t need to remember.
The ghost of Marcus’ stare lingers, sending a shiver down my spine as I approach the tall doors. I stop at the threshold, my breath catching. Beyond waits Kaisner, and with him, a precipice. Power, danger, seduction.
The unknown.
The doors swing open without a sound.
A breeze rushes past, cool and fragrant, carrying the scent of damp stone, night flowers, and something unmistakably him. Aria’s voice drifts through the night air, fainter now but still hauntingly beautiful.
I step outside.
Tall marble columns frame the balcony, lit in gold by the city’s glow. Below, Paris shimmers—rooftops and bridges spun in light, the Seine a ribbon of dark silk threading it all together. But I hardly notice the view.
Because he’s here.
Kaisner stands at the edge of the balcony, facing the night. His silhouette is carved from shadow and starlight, broad shoulders squared, jacket cut to fit him like it was born on his skin.
I stop, breath shallow. Just watching him is like standing too close to a flame.
He speaks into his phone, his voice low, deadly. “Hast du wirklich geglaubt, du könntest mich hintergehen und damit davonkommen?”
The German rolls off his tongue like velvet hiding a blade. I don’t need a translation. The threat is unmistakable.
He ends the call. Slips the device into his pocket. Then—slowly—he turns.
That single movement stops time.
His eyes meet mine. And everything inside me goes quiet.
Maroon, rimmed with shadow, his gaze cuts straight through me. There’s hunger there. And something rawer, darker—grief? Yearning? I don’t know. But I feel it. Like it’s mine too.
“Clarissa,” he says.
My name in his voice is a sin. A vow. A warning.
It ripples through me, turning my spine to ice and my blood to fire. I try to speak, but the words vanish before reaching my lips.
We stand suspended in that charged silence—between choices, between danger and desire, between everything we were and everything we’re about to become.
And then I step forward.
One step closer to the fire.
