EMMA
The room still smelled like heat and iron and something wild I didn’t have a name for.
I stood exactly where I’d frozen moments ago, my boots rooted to the concrete floor as if it might open and swallow me whole if I moved. My heart was beating so hard it felt like it was trying to escape my ribs. Every breath scraped my lungs raw.
Gabriel stood several feet away from me.
Human again.
Naked save for a pair of dark pants someone must have thrown at him while my brain was breaking apart. His skin was flushed, his chest rising and falling too fast, damp curls clinging to his forehead like he’d run through fire and come back scorched. He didn’t step closer. He didn’t reach for me.
He waited.
That was somehow worse.
“I know what you saw,” he said quietly.
His voice was different n
