DAMIEN

For a moment, the world went still. The sound of the wind, the pulse of magic from the portal, the chaos of everything else—it all faded. There was only her.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but the warmth that surged through me, the pull I felt toward her, was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t pity. It was something deeper, something terrifyingly real.

Keilah froze against me, her body stiff and unyielding, as if she were trying to process what had just happened. For a split second, I wondered if I’d made a mistake—if I’d crossed a line I couldn’t uncross.

But then,...