Romans de Jayne

LENA“Lena.” His voice cut through the panic like a blade. “Look at me.”I did. His hand came up to cup the side of my face, his thumb pressing just beneath my cheekbone, grounding and warm and horribly steady compared to the chaos ripping through me.“Breathe.”I tried but heat pulsed again and behind us, the silver tray on the bed blackened at the edges. The curtains nearest the fireplace stirred though no windows were open. I could hear the faint, ugly crackle of fabric sizzling somewhere in the room.My nails dug into Kael’s sweater. “Make it stop.”Something in his expression changed, I had seen Kael angry, cold, violent, possessive and annoyed but I had never seen him look afraid.But there it was now, buried deep and hard and quickly masked, gone so fast I might have imagined it if his grip on me hadn’t tightened.“Listen to me,” he said, voice low and absolute. “You’re going to breathe with me.”Another pulse of heat rolled through me, worse this time, and a framed photograph

LENA“How do you feel?”I leaned back against the pillows with exaggerated dignity. “Like I’ve survived a summit, an attempted murder, and a four-hour drive with you interrogating me every ten minutes.”“So not well.”“I’m doing much better now that no one is asking me whether I’m dizzy every thirty seconds.”He looked unimpressed. “Are you dizzy?”I closed my eyes and Mrs. Eliara made a small, betrayed sound. “Kael.”“What?” He asked with

LENAComing back to the pack house should have felt like relief and in some ways, it did because the moment I stepped inside, the cold mountain air of the summit disappeared behind me, replaced by warmth, polished wood, and the familiar scent of cedar and coffee drifting from somewhere deeper in the house. The floors no longer echoed with the footsteps of nervous nobles and armed summit guards. There were no silver trays, no whispering council members, no poisoned desserts waiting under crystal covers.Just the pack house that one felt like home. Home? Coming from me who wanted out days ago.I was getting far too comfortable with that word.Mrs. Eliara, naturally

LENA“I think something is wrong with me.” The words settled heavily into the carriage.Maren’s expression softened immediately. “Lena—”“No.” I laughed once, though there was no humor in it. “Think about it. People don’t just touch dresses and melt carriage doors.”Kael’s voice was very calm. “You didn’t melt the carriage.”I turned to him. “There is literally a mark in the metal.”“A line,” he corrected.“That is not he

LENAApparently the universe hated me and had decided that if I was going to start having mysterious episodes in public, the first person to witness them would be the one man least likely to let me pretend they hadn’t happened.His hand tightened around my arm, not enough to hurt, just enough to keep me steady while his gaze dropped from my face to the carriage door and to the silver mark.My stomach dropped.It wasn’t large and if someone wasn’t looking carefully, they might have missed it entirely, just a thin, bright line etched into the dark metal beneath where my hand had been, as though heat had licked across the surface and left proof behind.

LENA“I…” I swallowed. “Nothing.”His expression darkened. “Lena.”“I touched the dress.”“And?”“And it felt…” I trailed off because I had no idea how to explain it without sounding ridiculous.Kael crouched beside me before I could stop him, his hand closing around my wrist. His touch was warm, grounding, too steady.“What did it feel like?”I stared at our hands for one brief, dang