"Are you feeling jealous?" The words left my mouth before I could catch them, reckless and baiting. "That if I shift into his house, I'd sleep in his bed? In his blanket?"

As soon as the last syllable fell, his hand shot up.

But it didn't go for my wrist. Not my arm. Not my collar.

His fingers wrapped around my throat.

The pressure was precise — not enough to hurt, not enough to bruise, but exactly enough to remind me that he could. That the airway beneath his palm was fragile. That my pulse was hammering against his thumb, wild and traitorous, and he could feel every frantic beat.

He leaned in until his forehead nearly touched mine. Until I could see the flecks of gold in his dark irises burning like embers.

"Jealous?" His lips brushed the shell of my ear, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that turned my bones to liquid. "No, kitten."

His thumb dragged slowly up the column of my throat, feeling the flutter of my pulse, the way my breath stuttered against his palm. He knew. He could feel what his violence was doing to me — the heat pooling low in my stomach, the way my hands had stopped pushing and started gripping his shirt instead.

"I can feel you getting all worked up for me." His teeth grazed my earlobe, barely there, a threat dressed as a kiss. "But mark my words — you will never sleep in his bed. Not his bed, not his blanket, not even his fucking house."

The bell rang.

Shrill. Jarring. Snapping the tension like a rubber band stretched too thin.

I had another class. And of course — so did he. With this same infuriating, impossible, breathtaking monster who still had his hand wrapped around my throat.

He moved back, putting a fraction of space between us. But the air still felt charged, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes.

"Let's go, kitten." He reached for my hand.

I stopped him, planting my feet firmly against the tile, my heart hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it. "Who told you I'm shifting?"

He paused. His eyes narrowed, calculating.

"I saw you packing." He said it like a confession, like an accusation. "And after what I said last night, I knew you'd be moving out. And who would you move with other than that bastard?"

"I have other friends too."

"Oh please, kitten." The corner of his mouth lifted, but it wasn't a smile. It was a predator baring teeth. "You know you aren't close with anyone else."

His words stung because they were true.

I didn't let people in easily. I never had. My father had raised me to be polite, not porous. To be seen, not known. And somehow, Advik — this cruel, controlling, impossible man — was the only person who had ever managed to crawl beneath my skin and make a home there.

But I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

"And if I didn't move in with Sahil?" I tilted my chin up, my throat still burning where his fingers had been. "But with another person then?"

"Still a no." He stepped closer again, erasing the space he'd just created. "You're staying where you are. And don't act smart with me, or else you know what I can do."

"But this isn't right." My voice cracked, and I hated it. I hated that he could do this to me — reduce me to fragments with a handful of words. "You clearly said I'm a burden to you. So why act like this now?"

Something flickered in his eyes.

It was there and gone in half a second — too fast to name, too raw to hide. Guilt? Frustration? Something deeper, something that looked almost like the mirror image of my own hunger?

"It doesn't matter." His jaw tightened, the mask sliding back into place. "You're not moving anywhere. That's final. Even if your dad said you can, I could convince him otherwise."

The certainty in his voice sent a chill through me, cold and sharp.

He meant it. He always meant it. And somehow, my father always listened to him — trusted him more than he trusted his own daughter. I was a responsibility that had been handed over, and Advik had no intention of returning the package.

I stared at him, my chest tight with a mixture of fury and something far more dangerous.

Hope.

Stupid, traitorous hope that maybe — just maybe — he wasn't pushing me away because he wanted me gone.

But because he was terrified of letting me go.