The explosion came like a cough from the concrete.
A blunt, ugly pressure that slapped the air out of Nora's lungs and turned every sound into a wet ringing.
Light fixtures shuddered.
Dust rained down in a gray curtain.
Somewhere up the ramp, people screamed like they'd been waiting for permission.
Nora's tongue tasted like metal.
She blinked hard, and the parking garage swam back into shape—Mercer's staging lights, the ugly banner, the microphones still live.
Kaelen was still on one knee in front of her.
Like the world's deadliest weapon had decided to become furniture.
His head was bowed.
His hands were open.
Obedience, offered.
Her obedience.
Then the world answered her "try harder" with gunfire.
Pop-pop-pop—sharp, flat, close.
Mercer's men moved like a trained animal. Bodies snapping into angles. Rifles up. Voices on comms.
"Contact! South stairwell!"
"Eyes on—three, no, five!"
"Shots fired!"
Nora's heart tried to climb out of her throat.
Rule One, she reminded herself.
Breathe. Think.
The stairwell door blew inward like it had been kicked by a storm.
Men poured out.
Not soldiers.
Not official.
Masks. Cheap plate carriers. Mismatched guns.
And in the center—like the point of a spear—a camera.
Not a phone.
A real shoulder rig, lens trained on her.
On Kaelen.
On the kneel.
A voice shouted through the chaos, rough with adrenaline and something that sounded like worship.
"Get the leash! Get her—"
The word hit Nora like a slap.
Leash.
Her stomach turned.
Kaelen's head snapped up.
And the air changed.
Heat didn't rise—it arrived.
A wave. A wall.
The war inside him surged to the surface so fast Nora felt it in her teeth.
His eyes weren't just bright.
They were empty.
Targeting.
Mercer shouted, "Kaelen—engage! Clear the stairwell!"
Kaelen moved.
Not forward.
Toward Nora.
Toward the threat.
Toward blood.
And Nora saw it—saw the tiny tremor at the corner of his mouth, the split-second where his body chose the old answer.
Kill.
She couldn't let him.
Not here.
Not on camera.
Not with microphones.
Not with the whole city hungry for a story.
Not with her body already paying for the last command.
She lifted her hand.
Not to stop him.
To claim him.
"Kaelen."
His name cut through the ringing in her ears like a blade.
He froze so hard it looked painful.
Every muscle locked mid-stride.
Heat shivered off him in visible waves.
His eyes flicked to her—just for a breath.
Just long enough to remember green.
Nora's voice came out steady anyway.
A lie she told with her spine.
"Don't kill."
A ripple ran through the air. Like something massive shifting its weight.
One of the masked men laughed, sharp and stupid. "You think you can—"
Nora didn't look at him.
She looked at Kaelen.
And tightened the rule.
"No blood," she said. "Only take their mobility."
The garage seemed to inhale.
Kaelen's jaw clenched so hard Nora heard his teeth grind.
"Understood," he said.
And the word tasted like surrender.
He turned.
Mercer's men expected a charge.
A slaughter.
Instead, Kaelen moved like a surgeon.
Fast. Clean. Precise.
He grabbed the first gunman's rifle by the barrel and squeezed.
Metal glowed dull orange under his palm.
The man yelped and let go on instinct.
Kaelen didn't shoot him.
He yanked the rifle away, bent it in a smooth arc, and tossed it aside like scrap.
Then he stepped in and hooked his foot behind the man's knee.
A twist.
A crack that wasn't loud—because Kaelen made sure it wasn't.
The man collapsed, screaming.
Alive.
Mobility gone.
No blood.
The second gunman swung his muzzle toward Nora.
A shadow crossed Nora's peripheral—
Zane.
Not fully there, not fully seen.
A distortion in the dust.
His hand caught Nora's elbow and pulled her behind a concrete pillar so smoothly it felt like she'd decided it herself.
"Stay with me," Zane murmured, close enough that she felt the words rather than heard them.
Nora's fingers tightened around the edge of the pillar.
"I'm here," she whispered back, because she'd learned the difference between a command and an anchor.
A bullet sparked off concrete where her head had been.
Kaelen saw it.
His heat spiked.
For one violent heartbeat, the air smelled like a forge.
He didn't kill.
He punished.
Kaelen crossed the distance in two steps.
He slapped the gun aside—not hard enough to tear flesh, just hard enough to rip tendons.
Then he drove an elbow into the man's shoulder.
The joint dislocated with a soft pop.
The man screamed, dropped his weapon, and clutched his arm like it had turned into glass.
Kaelen leaned close and spoke like a promise.
"Next time, you lose the other one."
The man went pale.
Behind them, Mercer's team hesitated.
They had never seen Kaelen restrained.
They had never seen him choose mercy with that face.
Their eyes kept flicking to Nora like she was the real weapon.
The cameraman swung his lens toward her, hungry.
Rix appeared out of the dust like he'd been born from it.
Tall.
Broad.
Eyes too bright, too gold.
A grin that didn't fit a human mouth.
He sniffed once—sharp and deep—and his gaze snapped to Nora's throat like a chain.
Then his head turned, and the grin sharpened.
"Not yours," he said, voice low. "Not his."
He looked at the camera.
At the men.
At the weapons.
Like they were a buffet.
One of the masked men lifted his gun at Rix.
Rix moved.
No blood.
Just… cruelty with a leash on it.
He hit the man with his shoulder.
Concrete cracked.
The gun skittered away.
Rix planted a boot on the man's wrist and pressed until fingers went numb.
The man sobbed.
Rix leaned down, inhaled at his face, and spoke like a growl disguised as language.
"Run if you can," he whispered. "It's fun when you run."
Nora's stomach clenched.
Rix was on the edge, always.
Her edge.
Her problem.
Her responsibility.
Her power.
Another attacker darted toward the ramp, aiming for Mercer's line—trying to force chaos.
Kaelen caught him by the collar.
Lifted him off the ground.
The man kicked, panicked, trying to free himself.
Kaelen didn't punch him.
He simply held him close enough for the man to feel the heat.
Close enough to smell what it would be like to burn.
Then Kaelen pressed two fingers to the back of the man's neck—right where nerves met bone.
The man's eyes rolled back.
He went limp.
Kaelen lowered him gently to the ground like an apology.
No blood.
All function removed.
Nora's knees threatened to fold.
The air felt thinner.
Like the garage was stealing her oxygen as payment.
Her nose warmed.
She touched it, and her fingers came away red.
Of course.
Of course the rule had a cost.
She pressed her thumb hard under her nostril, trying to stop it.
Trying to look like she wasn't breaking.
Zane's hand slid over hers—gloved, careful.
"May I?" he asked, voice quiet, like the world wasn't exploding around them.
Nora's throat tightened.
Zane didn't ask for permission often.
He was an assassin.
A ghost.
He took.
But when it came to her, he asked.
That mattered.
"Yes," she breathed.
Zane dabbed at the blood with the corner of his sleeve, gentle and precise.
His fingers brushed her cheek.
Warm.
Real.
Anchored.
His relief was a physical thing—his outline steadied, less flicker in the dust.
Kaelen saw.
His gaze snapped to Zane's hand on Nora's face.
Heat surged.
His shoulders tensed.
Every instinct screamed to remove the other male from Nora's orbit.
But the rule held.
Obedience held.
Kaelen looked back at the last two attackers and finished without spilling a drop.
One gun melted at the trigger.
Another man's knee gave out with a clean twist.
Mercer's team finally surged forward, zip ties, boots, shouted commands.
It was over in less than a minute.
It felt like an hour.
When the last weapon clattered to the floor, silence hit like a second blast.
Someone sobbed in the far corner.
A light buzzed overhead, flickering.
Mercer stalked toward Nora, face gray with fury and something else.
Fear.
He glanced at the unconscious attackers, then at Kaelen, then at Nora.
"You did that," he said, voice low.
Not an accusation.
A conclusion.
Nora wiped her lip and tasted copper.
"It was my rule," she said. "He followed it."
Mercer's eyes narrowed.
"Your rule," he repeated, like the phrase was poison.
He looked at Kaelen. "You could've killed them."
Kaelen didn't even blink.
"Yes," he said.
A simple fact.
Mercer's gaze returned to Nora.
"Do you understand what you just showed my entire command staff?"
Nora's laugh came out sharp and humorless.
"I showed you I can keep him from turning this garage into a funeral."
Mercer's mouth tightened.
"And you showed me you can shape him."
Nora didn't answer.
Because the truth was already bleeding out of her nose.
She could shape him.
And shaping a god made her a target.
Mercer turned away, snapping orders into his radio.
"Bag the camera. Get IDs. Track their comms. I want every contact they have."
Then, quieter, to someone in a suit who had been watching from behind a pillar with perfectly dry shoes:
"Write it up."
Nora's phone vibrated in her pocket.
She pulled it out.
No Caller ID.
No message.
Just the screen lighting up like an eye opening.
Watching.
Always watching.
Nora swallowed blood and smiled—small and sharp.
"Try harder," she whispered this time, just for herself.
Somewhere behind her, Kaelen exhaled like a man who'd been held underwater.
And in that breath was a promise:
He would obey.
Even when it hurt.
Even when it burned.
Even when the world begged him to spill blood.