Mag-log inEliana's POV
Somehow, I ended up in the kitchen alone.
They had both gone out to get groceries … together, which I was still processing, because the image of Darius and Rylan standing in a grocery aisle side by side was something my brain was having a hard time constructing — and I had been left in the house by myself for the first time since waking up here.
I had wandered. Not with any real destination in mind, just
Rylan's POV"I mean, there is absolutely zero attraction between Rylan and I. Rylan is…"I heard him starting and I felt the direction it was heading before he'd gotten three words in.I stayed where I was for exactly one second — measuring, listening, deciding whether Darius was actually going to do what I thought he was going to do — and then the second passed and yes, he was absolutely going to do it. The pause he left in the sentence was doing the work of someone who had a destination in mind and was taking the scenic route to it just enough to make the arrival hit harder.I kept my face still. I didn't move yet. Because moving too fast would tell Eliana that something was being managed, and the last thing I needed right now was for her to notice that we were managing her.But I was watching him. Very carefully."He is a fucking vamp&md
Darius POVI got home and went straight to Rylan's room because he had some explaining to do and I was not in the mood to wait until morning for it.I was still carrying the homecoming energy — all of it, the anger and the frustration and that specific feeling of having been outmaneuvered in a way that I could prove but that nobody else in that room had been able to see. That was the part that sat the worst. I knew what he had done. He knew what he had done. And he had done it with the kind of quiet precision that was uniquely Rylan — invisible to everyone except the person it was aimed at.I barged in without knocking because I knew he must have gotten home."What the—" Rylan started, turning from wherever he was in the room. "Get the fuck out." Before he could successfully finish the sentence, I had already crossed the space between us and seized his collar with both hands, drivin
Rylan's POVI had my hand stretched toward her before I'd fully made the conscious decision to extend it.That was the thing about the bond — it moved faster than thought sometimes, pushing you toward her before the deliberate part of your brain had caught up with the instinctive part. Standing in the middle of that room with the crowd still processing what had just happened, looking at Eliana on her feet after everything they'd thrown at her, I had moved before I meant to.And then, naturally, Darius was right there doing the same thing."Eliana." He said her name, hand stretched out just like mine, and the energy behind it was doing what his energy always did — filling more space than was strictly necessary, making sure it was felt. "You should dance with someone who actually gives a damn about you."I looked at him briefly. *Someone who actually gives a damn.* As if that distinction was supposed to separate him from me specifically. As if I was standing here with my hand out becaus
Eliana's POV"…Our special guest has arrived."I told myself it wasn't me. I stood there with my phone in my hand and the closed door behind me and I told myself that the announcement was about something else, someone else, anything other than what my gut was already telling me it was.And then Sara added: "And so, everyone please give a warm welcome to last year's homecoming queen."She let out a chuckle. Not a real one — the performed kind that was designed to signal to everyone in the room that what was coming next was something they were supposed to find funny. A conductor raising the baton before the orchestra came in."…Eliana Cross!"I sent a weak look in her direction — not a full glare, not the energy she deserved, just enough to let her know that I saw exactly what this was. But from the look of things, she gave absolutely
Sara's POVAt the homecoming party, everything was just in place, just like a party was needed to be.The venue had been decorated exactly the way I had envisioned it — fairy lights everywhere, the kind that made everything look expensive and intentional, a DJ set up at the far end working through a playlist that had the right balance of current and crowd-pleasing, tables arranged with actual thought put into them rather than the usual thrown-together effort that passed for event planning at most school functions. The merry, the bubbling and the fun were giving every single vibe that a homecoming party was meant to give.And I was in the middle of all of it, exactly where I was supposed to be.This had been the plan since the moment the homecoming announcement went up. Not just to attend. Not just to show up and be seen. To own it. To make every element of tonight point back to me — the d
Darius POVFrom the corner where Rylan and I were observing, I watched the whole thing unfold.We had come in a few minutes behind Eliana — different entrance, keeping the distance she'd asked for, honoring the whole *I don't want people to know we live together* arrangement she'd made very clear this morning. Which I had respected. I was respecting it.What I was finding harder to respect was standing here with my arms folded watching Sara Owen perform for an audience at Eliana's expense like it was a sport she'd been training for.The laughter from the students around them kept coming in waves. Each one a little louder than the last because crowds did that — fed off each other, built momentum, got bolder the more the other person stayed still and absorbed it. And Eliana was standing there taking it, which I understood, I could see the calculation in it — but every second that pass







