Page 36 of Thane's Demon
“A special school?”
He nodded once.
“It is where I learned most of my languages.”
“Among other things?” I asked, my voice inquisitive as I tilted my head. “Like… fighting?” I tested, referring back to that night in the alleyway. But then I thought I had pushed too far when he abruptly stopped walking. Just stopped, the air tightening between us as he turned slightly toward me.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I saw you in the alley,” I said truthfully, slowing to match his stillness. “The way you moved, the way you reacted… it wasn’t instinct. It was training.”
He studied me for a long, intense moment, the silence palpable. Then his voice dropped lower, quieter.
“Why were you not frightened of me?”
Something inside me fluttered at the gentleness beneath his question.
“Why would I be when you saved me?”
“That is not a reason,” he murmured, stepping closer. His gaze darkened, brushing over my mouth before meeting my eyes again. “Saving you doesn’t mean I’m safe.”
I swallowed hard as he continued to watch me with that devastating intensity.
“I might have wanted to steal you away for myself,” he said, each word slow and deliberate, and my breath faltered. My pulse stumbled. I should have looked away, but I couldn’t, not when his eyes held me like that.
“Maybe I…I would have let you,”I confessed shamefully. He inhaled sharply at this, the sound so soft it felt like it happened inside my own chest.
“Alora,”he said, my name rough on his tongue. It was gentle but also a warning in the same breath, as if I had stepped too close to something he was barely controlling.
The air between us charged instantly, thick with a heat that curled low in my stomach. I could feel every beat of my heart, too fast, too loud, as if it were trying to reach him.
Then I tore my gaze away, grounding myself with a shaky breath as I looked ahead.
“We’re here,”I whispered, breaking the pull between us before it could swallow me whole. “My building,” I clarified for no reason other than to say something more. Anything that would stop him from warning me away from him again.
A warning that, at this point, I knew I would never listen to. Not when I could feel myself falling for him as fast as I was.
So, foolish or not, I was not willing to let him go, no matter how forbidden dating was. Although he had already tried to convince me that this hadn’t been a date, but my mind wasalready made up. Because for the first time in what seemed like forever, he made me feel something other than sadness.
He made me feel…alive.
My apartment building rose ahead of us, tall and familiar yet entirely out of place after everything that had unfolded between us. His jaw tightened slightly as he took it in, and I sensed his desire to walk me the rest of the way to my door. To step into the building, to ensure no one in this world could ever touch me again. But I knew my father, and I knew Thane could not cross that line.
I stopped and reached for him gently, my fingers brushing his arm, surprised by how solid and warm he felt beneath my touch. Even that small moment made my breath catch.
“Wait,” I whispered, stepping in front of him before he could follow me any further toward the building.
“You can’t come any closer. My father wouldn’t react well.”
Thane’s jaw tightened immediately. He looked at me as though the idea offended something deep inside him.
“Why?” he asked, his voice low and steady, yet carrying an undercurrent of irritation I felt rather than heard.
“It’s just easier this way,” I said, trying for casual but hearing the strain in my own voice. “Easier for everyone.”
He didn’t look satisfied. If anything, his eyes darkened further, scanning the length of the street like he expected something to leap out and justify his simmering anger. When he finally turned back to me, he stepped beneath the shade of a nearby tree, folding himself into the shadow like it was second nature.
“I will stay here,” he said firmly. I raised a brow, trying to coax a bit of lightness back into the moment.
