I wasn’t letting go of his hand.
Not this time.
His fingers tightened instinctively around mine, like he felt the same desperate tether I did—like we were both seconds from unraveling, and this touch was the only thing holding us together.
The room around us was still dim, the remnants of the ambush long gone, the walls stained with the echoes of secrets we hadn’t yet had time to grieve. Dimitri’s knuckles were scraped, blood dried along his temple, but his eyes—God, those eyes—held something that hadn’t been there before.
Fear.
Not for himself. For me.
“Elara…” he began softly.
“Alessia,” I said. “Call me Alessia.”
His lips parted, and something shifted in his gaze. Something warm. Something haunted.
"Alessia," he repeated, like tasting it on his tongue for the first time. “I did
