***BLAKE/BEAST***

“You’re not leaving.”

Blake’s voice cut through the dark inside me, sharp despite how thin it sounded. He was pressed somewhere deep in my chest, braced like a man holding a door that was already cracking at the hinges.

“I am,” I answered, not aloud, not with lips, but with certainty. “You’re the one stepping back.”

“No,” he said immediately. “You don’t get to do whatever you want. This is still my body.”

The word “my” trembled. He heard it ...