Page 25 of Roar Me Like You Mean It
The flames throw weak light across the space, catching on dust motes that float like tiny ghosts. Outside the window, Prague is beginning to stir, its skyline of spires and domes painted in the first pale wash of dawn. The sound of the city is faint here, muffled by distance and stone, but I hear it anyway: the call of a tram bell echoing through the streets, the shuffleof early footsteps on cobblestone, a dog barking somewhere far away.
Behind me, the bed creaks with the slightest shift. She moves in her sleep, murmurs something unintelligible, and then settles again, tangled in sheets that I pulled around her when her body finally gave in to exhaustion.
Jennifer Callahan. The woman who should be nothing more than an enemy. The woman I should have left in Syndicate hands to be used and discarded. Instead she is here, in my bed, her breath steady, her skin marked by my touch, her body still humming with the memory of what we did.
I should not have touched her.
The memory burns through me, unbidden and relentless: the press of her mouth on mine, the fire of her kiss, the way she met me with fury instead of fear, stubborn and unyielding even when I had her pinned beneath me.
No woman has ever met me like that. They yielded, or they broke, or they played their games of seduction, thinking they could tame what cannot be tamed. Jennifer gave me none of that. She fought me with her nails, her teeth, her words, and still she came apart in my hands, still she dragged me down into the inferno with her.
The lion prowls, pleased, too pleased. It circles slow inside my chest, satisfied because it knows what I refuse to admit: the bond is forming. The threads that tie our kind to theirs, ancient and irreversible, are weaving through me with every breath I take of her scent. Mates are not chosen. They are written into bone, into blood, into fate itself, and once written they do not unravel.
I grip the windowsill so tightly the wood cracks under my hand. I cannot let this happen. I swore it would never happen. Darius made it clear centuries ago, when we first spilled blood together under the Pact, that love would be our undoing.
He was right. Mates tether us. They make us vulnerable. They expose us to enemies who only need to cut once to destroy everything. The oath we took was designed to prevent exactly this. To keep the lion from chaining itself to someone fragile, to keep us separate from their world.
And yet here she is, asleep in my bed, and here I am, shaking from the weight of wanting to crawl back under the sheets and touch her again.
I force myself to turn away from her. The fire is burning low, the wood collapsing into embers, sparks flickering weakly before winking out. I kneel and stir it with the poker, feeding in another log, and the flames flare again, orange light spilling across the room. It catches on her face, softening her stubborn features, and for a second I am caught off guard by the sight of her looking almost peaceful. She looks younger like this, without the hard edge she wears in daylight, without the fire she aims like a weapon. She looks human.
I bare my teeth at the thought, the growl rising before I can stop it. If I let this continue, if I give in to what the lion already knows, she will be marked. She will belong to me in a way that cannot be hidden, cannot be undone. And once marked, she will be hunted. Roman will smell it. Darius will know it. Cassian, if he still breathes, will see it in her eyes. She will not stand a chance.
The city outside brightens, the bells of St. Nicholas ringing out across the district, and the sound drags me back into myself. I cannot stay here. I cannot let her wake and look at me as if nothing has changed, because everything has.
I stalk across the room to the desk, pull a slip of paper from the drawer, and scrawl a message in sharp, deliberate strokes.You are safe. Leave now.No more. Anything more would be a weakness, an admission of something I refuse to speak.
I fold it once, set it on the nightstand where her hand will find it when she stirs.
Then I pull on my clothes, each movement harsh, final, the buttons fastened too quickly, the coat heavier than usual on my shoulders. My knives slide back into their sheaths, familiar and grounding, steel and leather wrapping around me like armor. The lion paces restlessly, snarling against the distance I am forcing between us, but I grind it down, burying it beneath duty, beneath ambition, beneath the oath I swore long ago.
At the door, I pause.
One last glance.
Her hair is tangled against the pillow, one arm stretched above her head, the sheet barely covering her shoulder. She breathes steady, her lips parted slightly, her brow relaxed in a way I have never seen when her eyes are open. She looks untouched by the storm I dragged her into. But I know better. We are both marked now, whether she realizes it or not.
I open the door. Michaelis is waiting in the hall, as I knew he would be, his posture sharp, his expression unreadable. He sees too much, always has, but he is smart enough not to speak unless I let him.
“Escort her out when she wakes,” I say. My voice is iron, leaving no room for question. “No one touches her. No one speaks to her. She leaves alive, unharmed, and unshadowed. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he answers immediately.
“Good.”
I move past him, down the stairwell, my steps heavy but unbroken. Outside, the morning has settled cold and gray over the city. The sky is low and thick, the air sharp with damp, and the streets are already filling with the first rush of day. The clatter of hooves on stone, the rattle of carriage wheels, the chatter of vendors setting up stalls—all of it presses in as I walk into it, forcing myself to breathe air that doesn’t smell of her.
The lion snarls, pacing, unsatisfied, demanding that I turn back, that I claim what is mine. But I do not give in. I cannot.
She is not my mate.
She cannot be.
I will not let her be.
Ambition and duty come first. They always have, and they always will.
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