It had been almost a week. Five long days since that night in the library when Varion’s lips had brushed against mine and set a wildfire sparking through my veins. And yet, in the nights that followed, there had been nothing more.
No stolen kisses.
No whispered promise in the shadows.
Instead, he had been… thoughtful.
Maddeningly so.
A bouquet of wild flowers appeared at my door one morning, their scent clinging to my fingers long after I set them in a vase. Then came the books—titles chosen too carefully to be random. Enduring Bonds. The Language of Fire. The Moon Between Us. Each gift felt like a riddle, as though he was speaking to me in a code I didn’t yet know how to decipher. And yet, not once did he cross that invisible line again. Not once did he let the sparks between us
