Rion’s POV
His eyes twitched with a certain dark amusement that I’ve become familiar with. He took one look at me…blood smeared across my nose, swaying like a drunk…and exhaled like he was exhausted.
“Rion, what the hell? You face-planted like a sack of bricks. Did you trip over your own ego or did the floor finally fight back?”
I blinked. The joke landed flat in my brain. Humor. Was that humor? I didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. But the playfulness in his eyes cut through the fog.
“I… felt something,” I said. The words tore out of my throat, rough and raw, like gravel dragged through skin. I barely recognized them as my own.
‘Feel.’
The word sat there, ugly and impossible…because people like me weren’t supposed to feel anything at all.
William’s eyebrows shot up so high they nearly vanished
