Despair clawed at my throat, threatening to drag a howl from my chest, and a tight, agonizing pain seized my heart. I couldn’t even pinpoint the exact moment my life had turned into absolute ash.
I had no idea how long I sat there frozen in misery, but my legs were completely numb and the chill had seeped straight into my bones.
I was snapped out of my stupor when a pair of hands grabbed me by the shoulders—sharply, almost brutally—and hauled me up onto my feet.
Blinking back tears, I found myself staring into Magnus’s face. It was so hideously twisted with rage that flashes of sheer, unadulterated madness seemed to dance in his dark eyes.
"Fuck... why the hell aren’t you picking up your phone?!" he roared, shaking me hard enough to make my teeth clack together. "I’ve been calling you twenty fucking times!"
"M-my room... someone just called me and..."
A knot tightened in my throat, cutting off my words. I was terrified I would break down into humiliating, loud sobs right in front of him. Sniffling, I hung my head and clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth would shatter.
Magnus swore violently under his breath. The next second, a heavy, warm coat dropped over my trembling shoulders. His coat. He slid his fingers under my chin, tilting my face up, and dragged his thumb across my cheek to brush away a stray tear.
His touch sent a violent shiver cascading down my spine. The moment my eyes met his, the rest of the world simply ceased to exist.
"Look at me, Jane. Don’t cry."
He looked beyond furious, his suffocating Alpha pressure practically shattering the surrounding air into razor-sharp fragments—yet not a single drop of that crushed weight was allowed to touch me.
Magnus briefly shifted his lethal gaze over my shoulder, offering a sharp nod to someone standing in the shadows behind us. In that moment, overwhelmed by his absolute presence, I couldn’t even sense anyone else around.
"Drive her to my apartment. You answer for her safety with your life. Got it?"
***
I wiped the remaining tears from my face with the back of my hand, smearing them across my flushed cheeks, and pulled Magnus’s heavy coat tighter around my shoulders. It was steeped in his signature dark, spicy cologne, making it feel as if he were sitting right beside me in the passenger seat.
My nerves were stretched to an absolute breaking point, sending icy needles dancing across my skin at the mere thought of where they were taking me. Eventually, I was going to be left entirely alone with Magnus in his own sanctuary.
The fact that he was currently taking care of the arson situation didn’t bring me an ounce of relief. If anything, the cold reality of stepping into a dominant Alpha’s personal territory made me physically ill with anxiety.
What had happened to my room was horrifying, and I couldn’t fathom what I could have possibly done to deserve it. I didn’t have enemies—or at least, I had spent my whole life believing I didn’t.
For as long as I could remember, I had gone out of my way to avoid conflict, keeping my head down, staying quiet, and flying beneath everyone’s radar. Yet somehow, I had crossed the wrong person. Someone had taken something vital from me in the most vicious way imaginable, reducing the tiny piece of safety I owned to ash.
"Are you cold? I can turn up the heat," Sayan said, casting a quick glance at me through the rearview mirror. A flicker of genuine concern softened his usually sharp eyes.
I hadn’t wanted to go to Magnus’s apartment. I had fought against it until the very last second, digging my heels in and desperately clinging to whatever scraps of independence I had left. I had insisted that the dorm supervisor would give me a temporary room in another wing, and when the cab Rolan ordered finally pulled up, I had been ready to dive into it and escape this entire nightmare.
But Magnus had simply dismissed the driver. He walked up to the cab, leaned down to the open window, and threw such a lethal, terrifying look at the driver that the man turned his car around and tore away so fast the tires screeched, leaving behind a thick cloud of grey smoke and the pungent smell of burnt rubber.
Yet that wasn’t even what triggered my sudden wave of panic.
It was the way Magnus turned back to me and scooped me up into his arms. He lifted me effortlessly, as if I were a child, completely ignoring my frantic attempts to squirm free. Without uttering a single word, he deposited me into Sayan’s car. All the while, he radiated an aura so oppressive and pitch-black that if it had been aimed directly at me, I was certain I would have been crushed to dust beneath its heavy weight.
I thought he would just slam the door and leave me alone with Sayan, but my resistance had clearly pushed him over the edge. My defiance had been the final trigger—the last push that snapped whatever thin thread of patience he had left.
He reached into the backseat and grabbed the back of my neck. His fingers were searing hot against my skin, digging in with absolute control as he hauled me forward until our faces were inches apart.
"Keep your mouth shut, Lang," he growled low, staring straight into my eyes. "While I still have a shred of control left."
His gaze was terrifyingly absolute, filled with a dark, destructive fury that made every survival instinct in my body scream at me to submit. I would have agreed to anything in that moment—anything to avoid stoking his rage further, anything to keep him from losing that fragile grip on his inner beast.
In response to Sayan’s question, I simply shook my head, unable to squeeze out a single word. I wrapped Magnus’s coat even tighter around myself and stared out the passenger window.
We drove through the rest of the city in heavy silence, and every now and then, I caught Sayan tracking me in the mirror with a sharp, watchful eye.
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