I’m not looking for anything. That’s the first mistake people make—thinking I want something when I move. I don’t. I take, I test, I ruin if it suits me. That’s the pattern. That’s always been the pattern.

And then her.

No warning. No build. Just wrong.

It hits like a fracture straight through the spine, sharp and immediate, like something inside me just got dragged awake by the throat. My thoughts don’t slow—they scatter. Snap. Turn on themselves in a way that feels almost violent, like instinct overriding sense before I can get a grip on either.

I hate that.

I hate that I feel it before I understand it.

My attention locks, not by choice, not cleanly. It jerks into place, like something deeper has already decided for me. There’s a pull—no, not a pull, something worse. Something that doesn’t ask, doesn’t lure. It claims. It digs in and settles like it’s always been there, like I’ve been walking around with something missing and just didn’t know it until now.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how anything works. And yet—there she is.

I go still, but it’s not control. Not really. It’s the kind of stillness right before something snaps its leash. Every instinct I have is split straight down the middle—half of me circling, sharpening, already thinking of ways to test her, break her, see what she’s worth under pressure.

The other half… doesn’t want her touched.

It’s ugly. Immediate. Possessive in a way that makes my jaw tighten, because that isn’t mine. That isn’t something I allow. I don’t keep things. I don’t get tied down to something as fragile as a person and call it anything close to necessary.

And yet my gaze doesn’t move. Can’t.

I drag a slow breath in, like that’ll fix it. It doesn’t. It just makes it worse—makes the awareness sharper, clearer, more certain. She’s not just there. She’s mine.

The thought lands hard. I almost laugh.

“Tell me that I’m imagining this,” I say, voice lower than it should be, edged with something that doesn’t sit right in my chest. It’s not doubt—it’s challenge. Like I want her to deny it just so I can tear that denial apart.

I take a step closer without deciding to. That’s new. I don’t like new.

“Because if I’m not…” I continue, slower now, words dragging slightly like I’m testing each one before I let it go, “then something’s gone very wrong for you.”

My head tilts, eyes locked on hers, searching, not for confirmation—no, I already have that—but for reaction. For resistance. For anything that proves she understands what just happened.

“And I don’t think you understand yet,” I add, quieter, more dangerous for it, “how badly that’s going to complicate your life… or mine.”