MALACHAI
I should have pushed him away sooner.
The moment Ezra's arms wrapped around me, I knew I had made a mistake. I let him get too close. I let myself feel something I had no right to feel. For those few seconds, standing in the dim hallway, his warmth pressed against me, I froze.
I wanted it.
I fucking wanted it.
His touch, his scent, his breath against my skin….it was too much. My fingers twitched at my sides, torn between shoving him off and pulling him closer. His body fit against mine too perfectly, like he belonged there, like I belonged there. It was a dangerous thought.
So I did what I had to do. I pulled back, gently, but firmly.
The look in his eyes when I rejected him… it burned. Shock. Confusion. A flicker of something else, something fragile, something that had no place between us. And for the first time, I saw him, not as Lucius's possession, not as a prisoner looking for an escape, not as the boy who shouldn't even be speaking to me….but as Ezra.
That was the moment I knew I was in trouble.
I turned and walked away without a word. I had to. If I'd stayed even a second longer, I would have done something reckless. Something neither of us could afford.
Back in my room, I tried to push it from my mind. I needed to forget.
Ezra wasn't mine. He never could be.
I stripped off my jacket and tossed it onto the chair, running a hand through my hair. My pulse was still erratic, my skin still burning where he had touched me. It made me sick. Not because it disgusted me, but because I wanted it again. Because I wanted more. And that was a weakness I couldn't afford.
Lucius owned me. Just like he owned Ezra.
I sat on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, trying to convince myself that this was nothing. That Ezra was just another desperate soul clinging to whatever kindness he could find. That he would have held onto anyone if it meant a taste of freedom.
That I was nothing special to him.
But that wasn't true, was it? I saw the way he looked at me. Felt the way he trembled when I pulled away. The way his lips had parted slightly, like he was waiting for me to take what he was offering.
I clenched my fists.
This was dangerous.
I had spent years hardening myself, making sure no one could touch me, physically or otherwise. Lucius had beaten that lesson into me, carved it into my skin with every scar he left behind. I wasn't supposed to want. I wasn't supposed to feel.
And yet, here I was, reliving the way Ezra's body had pressed against mine, the way his fingers clung to me like I was something more than just a weapon under Lucius's control.
I needed to stay away. I needed to kill whatever was growing inside me before it became something I couldn't control.
Ezra was a caged bird, desperate for an escape.
And I couldn't be his way out.