Chp 6
1745 Words
Zyra POV
The library is supposed to be quiet. Safe.
But the moment we step inside, with his footsteps echoing behind mine, I know safety doesn’t exist where Dael breathes.
The air is different here, darker, colder, tight around my ribs like strings pulled by an unseen puppeteer. Or maybe that’s just him. Maybe he is the air here. Heavy. Watching. Hand invisible but locked around my throat.
The professor’s voice still rings in my head:
“Dael and Zyra will work together. You will go to the library now.”
A death sentence disguised as an academic assignment.
I walk fast. Too fast. My boots almost squeak against the polished floor as I try to put distance between us. But he doesn’t walk, he stalks. Slow. Purposeful. Like he enjoys watching me try to escape even though he already knows I can’t.
His breath is at my neck before his voice is, “Little wolf, you’re shaking.”
I freeze. I didn’t even hear him move.
His chest brushes my back for a split second, intentional, deliberate before he steps aside, heading toward the deeper shelves.
“Come.” A command, not an invitation.
My knees almost buckle.
But I follow. He leads us into the farthest aisle, where the shelves are tall enough to cage us in and the lights dim enough to hide sins.
I try to breathe.
I fail.
He turns suddenly.
And I walk right into him.
My hands slap his chest. Hard. His warmth shocks through me like a current, and I jump back, but his hand grabs my wrist mid-flee, fingers tight.
His eyes drop to my trembling breath. Then…To my pocket.
My heart stops.
He knows.
“Where is it?” His voice is quiet. Too quiet. That softness before a predator bites.
“I….I didn’t take anything.”
“You’re lying.” He steps closer. I step back. Shelf presses into my spine. I’m trapped.
His hand cages the side of my head, fingers lightly grazing a strand of my grey hair.
“Do you know what you stole, little mouse?” he murmurs, leaning in until his breath ghosts across my cheek. “That ring is the only thing in this academy you should never touch.”
“I didn’t steal it.” My voice cracks. Pathetic.
His eyes lower, scanning my face like he can read guilt off my skin.“Then prove it.”
My stomach drops.
“I….what?” “Arms up.”
“What?, no!! Dael…”
“Now.”
His tone is ice-cold dominance. A command meant to slice obedience out of me.
I swallow hard, throat tight, but my body obeys before my brain can argue. My arms lift slowly, trembling.
He steps closer. Too close. His chest nearly brushes mine, his heat suffocating.
He reaches for the hem of my shirt.
“No…don’t!!” My voice cracks into a rasp. “You can’t!!!”
His fingers pause.
Then he leans in, lips brushing the shell of my ear.
“I can.”
A whisper, a promise, a threat.
He pushes my shirt upward, slow, deliberate, exposing my stomach, ribs, the vulnerable softness of my skin to the freezing air.
I flinch.
He watches.
He likes it.
His fingers trail just under the fabric, skimming my side. Barely touching. Barely not. My lungs seize.
“Nothing here…” he murmurs, voice almost thoughtful, mocking. “But you’re shaking like you’re hiding a crime.”
I try to pull my arms down.
He catches my wrists instantly, pinning them against the shelf above my head.
“Did I say you could move?”
My breath stumbles out of me.
He smells like cold metal and burnt cedar. Like danger. Like everything I should run from, if only he wasn’t holding me here, trapped, pinned.
His forehead touches mine.
A mockery of closeness.
“You think I don’t notice the way you avoid my eyes in class?” His voice is a low snarl. “The way you try to disappear every time I walk past you?”
“Because you scare me,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His hand on my waist stills.
Then he laughs.
A soft, sharp, devastating sound.
It’s not amusement, it’s victory.
“You should be scared.” He tilts his head. “Fear looks beautiful on you.”
My throat tightens. “You’re..twisted.”
The smile that curves across his lips is slow and deadly.
“Maybe. But tell me…”
His fingers slide up, brushing the underside of my raised arms.
“Why would a girl who fears me…”
His breath grazes my jaw.
“…steal something precious to me?”
“I didn’t…”
His fingers grip my waist hard enough to make me gasp.
“Liar.”
His voice is a dark hum against my skin.
“Tell me where my ring is.”
“I don’t have it!”
He tilts his head, watching my panic unravel like thread between his fingers.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to keep searching.” He takes one small step closer.
My stomach hits the hard planes of his abdomen.
My breath collapses.
He leans down, lips brushing mine..not touching, just hovering, taunting.
“Unless…”
His eyes darken, swallowing the light.
“You want me to think you took it on purpose.”
“What—why would I—”
“To get my attention.”
His thumb slides up my ribs, stopping dangerously close to the curve of my breast but not touching.
I shiver.
His smile tells me he noticed.
“You keep trembling whenever I’m near you,” he murmurs. “That’s a call, Zyra. A silent little cry for me.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.”
The words slam into me like a brand. “You called for a wolf,” he whispers, breath brushing my lips.
“And now the wolf wants to play.”
My legs almost give out.
He releases my wrists suddenly.
My arms drop. My shirt falls back into place.
But he doesn’t step away.
His voice is the final blade sliding between my ribs:
“If you didn’t take my ring,” he murmurs, “then someone is framing you.”
I freeze.
His eyes burn into mine.
“And they’re doing it because you’re mine to hunt.”
I exhaled shakily, a tiny breath of relief filling my lungs when his suspicion finally loosened from me.
But before I even had a chance to sit up. Dael shoved me back down.
My spine hit the couch with a soft thud, and he was suddenly towering over me again, caging me beneath his body like a predator reclaiming what he’d pinned.
My wrists were trapped above my head in one of his hands effortlessly, cruelly, his fingers locked like iron around them.
“What? Dael..”
My voice cracked. My heart slammed against my ribs, frantic and terrified.
He lowered himself until his chest brushed mine, until his breath washed over my cheek, hot, slow, deliberate.
“You thought we were done?” he murmured, voice low and poisonous. “Cute.” Panic clawed up my throat.
Before I could twist away, his other hand slid under my shirt in a slow, lethal glide.
“Dael!!stop…”
My words dissolved into a trembling whisper.
His palm spread over my stomach first, warm and uninvited, before inching higher… higher… until the edge of his knuckles grazed the bottom curve of my bra.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
His lips hovered at my ear.
“Searching, sweetheart,” he whispered, voice rough and dark with mockery. “You called for this.”
I didn’t even have time to breathe before his hand slipped fully under my bra, and his palm cupped my breast.
A small broken sound escaped me, half panic, half disbelief.
“S-stop…please!!”
I tried to jerk my wrists free, but his grip tightened. The veins in his forearm flexed, pinning me harder, making my chest rise helplessly into his hand.
He hummed, a low, approving sound of cruel interest.
“So soft,” he murmured, voice husky with something dangerous that knotted my stomach with dread. “Fragile little thing.”
I turned my face away, breath trembling, but he angled my chin back with his thumb.
“Look at me when I touch you.” His command was a growl.
Fear spiked through my veins. I hated him. I feared him. I didn’t understand him.
Why was he doing this? Why me?
He squeezed lightly, testing, almost taunting, and my breath hitched. His eyes were locked on mine, dark, burning, filled with hatred and something twisted beneath it.
Ownership. Hunger. Hostility. Addiction.
When I tried to twist my body away, he pressed his thigh between mine, trapping me. “Leave me!” I cried, desperation cracking my voice.
Dael’s smirk deepened, slow and cruel.
“No.”
His hand moved to my other breast, sliding under the fabric, cupping firmly, deliberately.
“Hmm,” he said softly, lips brushing my cheek as he spoke. “Nothing here, either.”
He withdrew his hand, slowly, almost lazily, dragging his fingers along my ribcage in a way that made my whole body jerk.
Then he braced his palm beside my head, leaning over me, pinning me in place without even touching my wrists anymore because he knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
His eyes were burning, narrowed, victorious.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered. “Good.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, but he leaned so close our noses nearly brushed.
“Open them,” he commanded.
I did.
His gaze devoured my fear. He looked hungry for it. Drunk on it.
“You hide anything from me again,” he murmured, “and I’ll search you properly.”
His voice dipped lower, more dangerous.
“Every. Inch. Of you.”
My breath caught painfully. He tilted his head slightly, gaze dropping to my lips before flicking back up to my eyes.
“Understand me?”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t speak. He smiled. A slow, vicious curl of his lips.
“I said…”
His fingers ghosted over my throat, light, but threatening.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I whispered, the word trembling out of me like a confession.
His smile sharpened. “Good girl.”
- Writer
