(Cassian’s POV)
The session room door shut behind me, but my heartbeat didn’t slow.
Her words had triggered something raw, something buried so deep I hadn’t expected it to rise.
It wasn’t coincidence. It couldn’t be.
I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing the hallway like a man trying to walk off a storm. What was she hiding? Why did her eyes tremble when I said those words? Why did it feel like her past was tangled with mine, as though fate had shoved us into the same place not by chance, but by design?
The thought terrified me.
But worse—it tempted me.
Something about Lyra pulled me. Something I couldn’t name, something dangerous.
I stopped pacing and leaned my head back against the wall, exhaling hard. My chest was too tight, my thoughts too loud.
I pushed away from the wall
