IRIS

The room is dim when he walks in, but it feels like the shadows shift around him. Darian stands in the doorway, motionless, the faint golden glow from the hallway catching on the side of his face. He’s still holding a glass in one hand.

His gaze finds mine instantly.

Something inside me tightens.

He looks… wrecked. Not outwardly. Not in the way anyone else would notice. His shoulders are squared, his jaw sharp, his posture powerful. But I see it. I feel it. In the faint tremor of his fingers, the stiffness of his breath, the flicker in his eyes that looks like a man standing at the...