All Chapters of ESSENCE: Desire Without Permission — My Rivals, My Red Flags: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

The heart did not stop. Instead, it hammered against his ribs with a new, frantic velocity. Anji collapsed onto his side, his breath hitching in his chest as the searing heat in his blood began to settle into a cold, hummed frequency. He forced his eyes open. The basement was no longer just a room. Every speck of dust dancing in the air looked like a suspended diamond. Every shadow had depth, a velvet weight that felt heavy enough to touch. He pushed himself up, his muscles feeling coiled, supple, and lethal. He stood, and for the first time in his life, he did not feel small. He felt like a predator wearing a human skin.He stumbled toward the stairwell, his legs moving with a fluid grace that defied his exhaustion. He gripped the metal railing, and the cool steel felt like an extension of his own fingers. By the time he reached the main floor of the office, the sun was already bleeding through the glass panes of the lobby. He caught his reflection in a passing window. His eyes were

The steel doors rattled in their tracks as the elevator descended, but the silence inside the small metal box was deafening. Anji pressed his back against the cool wall, his chest heaving with shallow, jagged breaths. The sensation of Arga’s hand against the door was still vibrating in his mind, a lingering ghost of pressure that made his own skin prickle with an uncomfortable, crawling heat. He looked at his reflection in the mirrored panel. He appeared pale, his eyes wide and glassy, and a sheen of cold sweat coated his forehead. The high of the board meeting was completely gone. In its place was a hollow, aching emptiness that gnawed at his gut, an agonizing hunger that felt like his nervous system was unspooling.The elevator hit the ground floor with a soft chime. Anji stumbled out into the lobby. The building was vast, filled with the hum of climate control and the distant clicking of keyboards. He felt like a fever patient wandering through a blizzard. Every sound was too loud.