CASSIAN
I watched him from inches away, my lungs burning with more than just the physical trauma of the fall. Noah's face was flushed a deep, frantic rose, his lips parted as he struggled to pull air into a chest that was rising and falling in jagged hitches.
His pupils were blown so wide they nearly swallowed the hazel of his irises. He wanted this. The realization hummed through me, more potent than the painkillers dulling the ache in my ribs.
He was pretending to hate it, clinging to that righteous, indignant fire he liked to wrap around himself like a shield, but he was leaning into my space, his body humming with a frequency that matched the device still nestled inside him.
