VALERIE.
Dorian stood at the threshold of the shrine, shoulders stiff, breathing ragged.
His armor glinted in the soft sunrise, but his eyes—his eyes blazed with something far darker than fury. They flicked from my glowing body to Jason’s hand on my waist, then to Jasper’s protective stance behind me.
“You left me,” he said, low and sharp, like thunder before a storm.
“I had to,” I whispered, heart pounding. “I needed to know who I was.”
“You could’ve died.”
“I almost did.”
Silence crackled between us like a taut bowstring. His eyes dropped to my belly, and something shifted in his expression—not anger, not jealousy, but pain.
“I thought we were building something,” he said. “I opened my home, my realm, my heart—and I find you between them. Glowing with power… that we should have u
