Alexander didn’t move, that alone told Mila how serious this was.
The elders waited, sensing blood in the water. Caelan stood calm, too calm, like a man who had already mapped every outcome and liked all of them.
“You don’t get terms,” Alexander said at last. “You don’t get proximity to her, you especially don’t get control.”
Caelan’s gaze flicked to Mila, lingering. “i already have proximity, you feel it, don’t you?”
she hated that he was right.
There was a pull in her chest, low and constant, not desire, not affection, something deeper, like gravity, like a missing bone trying to snap back into place.
Alexander felt it too, she saw it in the way his jaw tightened, the way his hand curled slowly into a fist, “explain,” Alexander said. “now.”
Caelan exhaled, as if indulging them, “
