Elowen’s POV
The air in the Academy’s combat hall, a vast chamber usually echoing with the clang of steel and the grunts of exertion, crackled with a palpable, almost electric tension even before Professor Lyra’s crisp voice sliced through the anticipatory silence.
I sat wedged between Alaric and Theron on the long, polished wooden bench that lined the edge of the expansive sparring floor. Ranon, ever the sentinel, hadn’t allowed me more than a few feet of breathing room since the charged intimacy of the rooftop. His calloused fingers, possessive and reassuring, grazed the back of my hand every few heartbeats, a silent, tactile reminder to both himself and anyone watching that I was still within his orbit—still his.
But the moment Caelum stepped onto the gleaming sparring floor, a ripple of altered energy spread through the room, a subtle shift in the students’ collective focus. He moved with a predatory grace, his tall, muscular frame encased in black training leathers that seemed
