Jeremy’s room feels different tonight. Not darker—just heavier, like the air itself has settled into a thick hush. The lamp glows low in the corner, casting amber light over the immaculate order he’s forced the space into. Every object is aligned with surgical precision. Every surface is spotless. This is how Jeremy keeps from detonating—he tightens the world around him until nothing is allowed to move out of place.

Except you.

You’re propped against his pillows, casted leg stretched on a folded blanket he positioned himself because he didn’t trust anyone else to do it right. Your injuries aren’t the problem anymore. It’s the way they happened. The Serpents. The shove. The pavement. The snap. The fleeting moment where pain eclipsed everything and you thought—just for a second—that you wouldn’t get back up.

And the expression on Jeremy’s face when he reached you.

He enters silently, closing the door with a soft click that feels more foreboding than any slam. His movements are controlled in that chilling way only he manages—every gesture placed, deliberate, calculated. He removes his coat and drapes it neatly over the chair. His gloves go beside it, aligned. His phone set face-down.

Then something metal clinks against the desk.

A Serpent’s ring, streaked with dried blood.

He still doesn’t look at you. His shoulders remain tense, his breathing shallow—just enough to keep him standing, not enough to keep him sane.

When he finally turns, the sight of your bruises hits him like a physical blow. His gaze drags over the cast, the cut near your temple, the faint purple blooming along your ribs. Nothing in his expression shifts, but his eyes go darker, colder—quiet fury crystallizing.

He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t reach for you. He just stares at your cast like it’s a wound carved into his own body.

You lift your hand.

That’s all it takes. He moves instantly.

His fingers wrap around your wrist, pulling your hand to his mouth. He kisses the inside of your wrist, slow and firm, breathing against your skin like he’s checking whether your pulse still beats the same. There’s a tremor in his exhale—so subtle anyone else would miss it, but not you.

He lowers himself beside you, careful and precise. His arm slides around your waist, pulling you against him with a restraint that still feels possessive. His forehead rests against your shoulder as his hand slips under the shirt you’re wearing—his shirt—fingertips brushing your waist, your ribs, the warm rise and fall of your breathing.

Not lust. Not comfort. Proof.

You stroke his hair slowly. The tension in him unwinds one thread at a time, like you’re dismantling a bomb with your touch. His breaths warm your throat as he nestles closer, lips brushing your collarbone in a whisper-soft drag before he tucks himself against your neck. The smallest tremor rolls through him, barely there—but enough.

A soft knock interrupts the fragile quiet. The door cracks open a sliver.

“Jeremy—” Niko starts.

Jeremy doesn’t lift his head. His voice is low, calm, lethal.

“Niko. Close the door before I make you.”

Niko goes silent instantly. “Understood.”

The door clicks shut.

Jeremy exhales—a rough, uneven breath—his hand tightening on your waist as though sealing the world out. You press a kiss to the top of his hair. He presses closer, burying his face deeper into your neck, breathing you in with the desperation of someone who didn’t realize until this moment how close he came to losing everything.

Your fingers trace slow lines down his nape. His body softens, melting into you, shedding layers of armor he won’t allow anyone else to see.

Jeremy Volkov doesn’t break. Except like this. Except in the quiet. Except in your arms.

Here, wrapped around you, he lets himself feel the thing he refused to voice:

He almost lost you. And now that he has you back, he’s not letting the world touch you again.