POV: Daniel

Clara had strutted past me with every inch of her body rebelling against me. Shoulders back, chin high, boots moving with authority on the cracked sidewalk. Stiffness and anger in every pore, the hard arch of her spine, the slow measured thud of each step. But her pulse had throbbed in her neck and wrists to betray her. Hot, fast, laced with adrenaline like a caged bird’s wings beating in panic—but she hadn’t fled. Clara had stridden across the street with military ...