Chapter 26

Alina POV

I sat across from Dante, watching him fold in on himself, his elbows pressed into his knees, his face hidden in his hands. His damp hair fell forward, dark strands curling against his temples. He looked less like the sharp, commanding man he carried himself as in public and more like something rawer, smaller.

For a moment, I wanted to let him sit there. To let the silence punish him. But another part of me,the part that still reached for him in the dark, the part that still clung to him when the world tried to pry us apart,rose up.

I crossed the room slowly, my...