Ahhh, perfect! Thank you for clarifying, Maryann šāØ Now I fully see the vampire angle and Kael's abil
Lyra didn't mean to check her notebook in the quiet of her dorm room, but the impulse was stronger than reason.She had to know,had to see if the line of words she'd written yesterday hadā¦ changed....Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened the frayed cover and there it was...A reply.
Not in her handwriting,not her words.Her heart skipped and ahe froze.
She had suspected it for weeks that someone was reading the letters she wrote, no matter where she was.She had felt the pull,yhe strange awareness that her thoughts weren't entirely her own and nowā¦ it was confirmed.
"Kael"she whispered the name like a prayer and a warning at once,she didn't need to see him to know he was near.The air shifted, subtle and controlled but charged.Her pulse thudded in response,not just from fear,but from the tension that always came when Kael Draven was anywhere in her world.
"Iā¦ youā¦" she started aloud, but no words could capture the mix of awe, anger, and fear swirling inside her.
The notebook trembled in her hands, as if reacting to his presence.
Did he mean to reply? Or is this justā¦ instinct? she wondered.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a faint movement across the courtyard outside her window. Dark eyes, sharp and predatory, met hers. He didn't knock. He didn't call. He simply was.
Kael.
She could feel the centuries of control, the predator and protector coiled in him. His gaze softened briefly, just enough that she felt both terrified and inexplicably drawn.
"You writeā¦ every night," he said. Voice low, smooth, carrying the same weight it always did. "And you think I don't see. You think I don't know."
Lyra swallowed hard. "Youā¦ you reply."
"Sometimes," he admitted, careful, controlled. "To test you. To protect you. To make sure you survive."
The words should have comforted her, but instead they sent a spike of panic through her chest. The danger wasn't gone. Elias, Alessia ā the threat hovered just beyond, always calculating, always waiting.
"And youā¦" she whispered, hugging the notebook to her chest. "Do you always know everything?"
Kael's lips quirked into the faintest smile, almost predatory. "Not everything. But I notice what matters."
Her cheeks burned. Anger, embarrassment, something else she didn't name. "Then leave me my secrets," she demanded, though her voice was unsteady.
He stepped closer, every movement deliberate, graceful, almost impossibly silent. "I don't take what isn't offered. But I will not let anyone hurt youā¦ Lyra Vale. Not Elias. Not Alessia. Not anyone."
Her hand shook as she touched the notebook. "Then let me decide what's worth protecting," she said, meeting his eyes for the first time in days without fear.
For a heartbeat, the centuries-old predator inside Kael battled the centuries-old restraint. His fangs barely visible under the moonlight spilling through her window. His aura pressed against her chest, intoxicating and terrifying all at once.
"You're reckless," he murmured.
"And you'reā¦ dangerous," she whispered back.
A laugh echoed faintly from somewhere beyond the dorm walls. Alessia.
Kael stiffened. "She's here," he said, voice low, deadly. "And Eliasā¦"
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
Lyra understood.
Letters, threats, avoidance ā none of it mattered anymore. Survival was no longer her only concern. Kael Draven ā controlled, powerful, and relentless ā was now part of her life, in ways she didn't fully understandā¦ and could no longer ignore.
The notebook pulsed lightly in her hands, and for the first time, she wondered if her secrets would ever truly be her own again.