Chapter 15 : The Warning in His Touch

The door slammed behind them like a closing vault.

Emily stumbled back a step, her heart hammering. The air inside Adrian's apartment was feverish, heavy with a heat that didn't belong. Shadows clung to the walls. The faint flicker of candles danced like restless ghosts, casting the room in a surreal, otherworldly glow.

She turned to him; eyes wide, breath shallow. "Adrian, I don't understand"

He cut her off with a low growl, raw and torn.

"I warned you," Adrian snarled, his voice guttural less like a man and more like something trying not to become a monster. "I told you to leave."

Emily's breath caught in her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, to plead but she never got the chance.

He moved like a storm breaking loose.

In a flash, the space between them vanished. His hand seized her face, fingers fisting in her damp hair with a grip just shy of painful. The sudden contact made her gasp, but it was stolen the moment his mouth crashed into hers.

There was no lead-in. No hesitation.

Only heat.

Only fury.

Only hunger barely caged behind shaking limbs and clenched teeth.

The kiss wasn't tender it was a warning and a surrender, all at once. A collision of restraint and need, bruising and raw. His lips devoured hers with a ferocity that bordered on violence, and yet beneath it; something cracked. Something aching.

Her world tilted.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Her fingers clutched at his bare shoulders; out of shock, out of instinct, out of the overwhelming pull that made her tremble.

His breath was fire in her lungs.

His body, heat and steel, pressed close but trembling like a fault line about to split wide open.

And then just as suddenly he tore himself away, like her touch had burned him from the inside.

He staggered back a step, chest heaving, eyes wild and glowing like embers flaring in the dark.

Emily stared, lips parted, dazed, stunned, burned.

Adrian's voice came again ragged, broken, like it had been dragged out of him through clenched teeth.

"Don't make me lose control."

"Adrian… what's happening to you?"

Emily's voice trembled, choked with tears; not just from fear, but from knowing. Something inside him wasn't just broken; it was changing. Twisting. Burning away the man she had come to trust. But even now, her heart split wide open with empathy.

His breath came in harsh bursts, fogging the air between them like smoke off a dying fire.

She reached for him; foolishly, stubbornly, like she could reach through the storm; but his hands snapped up, catching her wrists before she could make contact. His grip was solid. Not cruel, but desperate. Desperately controlled.

His fingers trembled against her skin.

"Don't," he ground out. A whisper more dangerous than a scream. His voice; once velvet and low; was now guttural, almost foreign. "You don't know what you're doing to me."

Emily's breath hitched. The scent of him overwhelmed her senses,, metallic, earthy, and burning like ozone before lightning strikes. Underneath, still, that familiar warmth of cedar and worn leather, now darkened; distorted like it had been set on fire and left smoldering.

"I don't care," she sobbed, tears sliding hot and fast down her cheeks. "Let me help you. Please. I don't care what this is, I'm not leaving you like this."

But he wasn't hearing her.

Or he couldn't.

His pupils were blown wide, glowing red in the low light like coals in a furnace. His skin; normally warm, sun-kissed; had turned ghostly pale, veined beneath the surface like fine cracks in porcelain.

He wasn't looking at her. He was looking through her.

Like she was a memory he was trying not to break.

Then, without warning; he moved.

A flash of motion. A low growl vibrating from deep in his chest.

He scooped her up like she weighed nothing; her shout muffled by the thunderous beat of his heart against her body.

"Adrian, stop! Put me down! Listen to me!"

But his arms didn't loosen. His jaw clenched tighter.

He carried her down the hallway, his steps silent despite his size, like a predator moving through shadow. The air around them was thick, crackling, charged. The dim light flickered overhead as if afraid to stay on too long.

Emily struggled, kicking, hands shoving at him, but his grip didn't falter.

She could feel the heat radiating off his skin unnatural, feverish and hear the faint, inhuman rasp in his breathing, like something inside was clawing to get out.

He laid her down not violently, but deliberately, with a terrifying calm that screamed of something barely leashed.

"Adrian…" she gasped, tears catching in her throat. "Please. This isn't you."

He loomed above her, chest rising and falling with a jagged rhythm. His lips curled back slightly, not in a smile, but in conflict. His muscles were taut like steel wires stretched to the brink.

And then his mouth crashed down on hers again.

It was heat and chaos no finesse, just possession. The press of his lips was urgent, bruising. His hands trailed down her waist, fingertips blazing a path through her clothes, the heat from them searing.

But Emily somehow found her voice through the storm.

"Adrian. Look at me."

He paused just barely. His breath heavy on her skin. His hands fisted in the blanket on either side of her body.

She pressed her palm flat against his chest his heartbeat a thunderclap beneath her fingers.

"This isn't who you are."

And in that moment a flicker. A shudder.

Like something inside him recoiled.

His body stilled. The fire didn't leave his eyes, but something else surfaced beneath it recognition. Pain. Guilt.

His mouth parted slightly, breath ragged. He stared down at her like he was waking up from a nightmare he couldn't stop living.

"Emily…" he breathed. Just her name. But it wasn't a word it was a plea. A warning. A prayer.