DAPHNE
After that night, we become strangers under the same roof. We move around each other like two magnets flipped the wrong way, always repelling, never connecting. Sometimes our paths cross in the hallway or the dining room, but Ezekiel doesn't so much as glance in my direction. He just keeps walking, his shoulders squared, his expression cold like it's carved from stone.
He's giving me space. Distance. Exactly what I demanded. But why does it feel like every step he takes away from me leaves a hollow ache in my chest?
The ache increases when the whispers reach me, not from him, but from Caelum. He tells me the elders have been pressing Ezekiel for months to marry Harvey, to "strengthen his bloodline." Ezekiel has refused them every single time.
Until the day we fought.
Now, he i
