(Kaelan's POV)

Rain covered the city like a curtain, hiding Elaria’s face behind mist and faded neon. The sound of water striking asphalt blended into one tangled rhythm, like a heart forced to run. Under that black umbrella, I stood too close to the only thing that still kept me sane—and the most dangerous thing I could ever touch—Rhea.

“I can’t,” I said back then, when she asked me to let go of her arm. Not a poetic line, not a threat; just a shy truth, bitter, stuck on my ...