GRAYSON'S "COME INSIDE" wasn't a request.
It rolled over Mailah like a velvet command, deep and promising, almost too warm after the Council's frostbite. For one dizzying second, she forgot how to breathe.
He opened the terrace door, and the golden light from the villa spilled over him—broad shoulders, sharp lines softened only by the way his gaze lingered on her.
Not hungry. But close enough that her pulse tripped.
She stepped in, the cool marble kissing her bare feet. The villa felt different—quiet, yes, but charged. The kind of quiet that hummed with possibility…and danger.
Grayson didn't immediately follow. He paused at the threshold, chest rising slowly, as if grounding himself before stepping back into a world where the Council's eyes no longer bore into them.
When he finally entered, the atmosphere shifted—warmer, heavier, intimate.
"Mailah," he said softly, closing the terrace door behind him. "You need rest."
