SERAPHINA

    If someone had asked me what fire was, I would have said it burns and destroys. But his lips on mine were a fire disguised in devastating tenderness, slow, consuming, undoing me piece by piece. They brushed against mine as though afraid I’d vanish if he pressed too hard, igniting me with every delicate touch.

    A shudder rippled through me when his thumb traced the curve of my jaw, tilting my face, deepening the kiss. His lips coaxed mine apart, patient yet relentless, exploring as though he sought to memorize every sigh, every tremble, every hesitation. The kiss wasn’t merely lips meeting lips, it was a confession, an apology, a desperate plea woven into every breath.

    It was soft, unhurried, and it broke me. I hadn’t even realized my lips were following him, answering him. My surrender made his heartbeat thunder against my chest, no longer steady but frantic, wild.

    Then his kiss changed. It grew bolder, hungrier. A low groan rumbled in his throat, vibrating against my mouth, as his grip on my waist tightened and dragged me closer, too close. His tongue slid against mine, dominating, deepening, iming, his hunger intensifying with every second. Heat poured into me as his taste, dark, intoxicating, achingly familiar, flooded my senses.

    Every brush of his mouth sent jolts racing down my spine. He kissed me like I was his salvation, like he had been starving for years and I was the only thing that could satisfy him. It was demanding and feral, yet somehow calming, a paradox that devoured me whole.

    My pulse stumbled. I felt him slipping deeper, pulling me into a current too strong to fight. Until, rity struck like a p.

    My eyes flew open. My breath stuttered, chest heaving as if I’d surfaced from drowning. His face was still inches from mine, his heat scorching my skin, his kiss seared into my lips.

    T–I kissed Ronan.

    The thought tore through the haze, slicing me clean. Gasping, I broke the kiss and stumbled back. His arms felt empty, and he just looked at me, unblinking, unreadable.

    Ice flooded my veins. My hands trembled, my feet faltered.

    I kissed him back…

    Chapter 144 Burned And Undone

    “Come here,” he rasped, voice deep and dangerously enticing.

    My heart thundered, my wolf swayed toward him, seduced. Instead I turned and ran.

    Come here? I’d be insane to obey. Branchesshed at my arms as I tore through the forest, horrified at my own audacity.

    “What the hell did I just do?” The words ripped out of me between ragged breaths, but nothing could erase what had just happened.

    The trees thinned. The looming shape of the Academy rose ahead like a fortress. By the time I shoved open the heavy doors, my throat was raw, my palms scraped from catching myself on roots and rocks during the sprint. I didn’t stop to look around. I didn’t dare.

    The hallways were empty, yet I ran like a ghost chased me, until I reached my dorm. I mmed the door, twisting the bolt until it clicked, a frail line between me and the chaos wing at my chest.

    Leaning against the door, I slid down, knees pulled tight to my chest. My lips still tingled, swollen, alive, branded by him.

    “What the fuck did I do?” My cold fingers brushed over them, trembling as my heart threatened to burst.

    How could I be reckless enough to kiss a man where anyone could have seen? Worse, Ronan. What had I been thinking? How could I let emotions rule me, betray my own disguise? And my wolf…Goddess, my wolf. She wasn’t ashamed. She was flushed, dazed, utterly undone by his wolf’s touch. She was a virgin and untouched just like me. His lips had marked us in a way neither of us could deny.

    “Shit,” I groaned, burying my face in my knees. It was already hard to keep my distance after his confession. There was something pulling me to him, like an invisible thread binding us together. Now, after kissing him back, how wild was he going to get?

    Moonlight spilled through the curtains, silvering the room. His words echoed in me, his apology, his admission of jealousy.

    I grew up among men who would never apologize. Men whose fragile egos were so easily threatened that they smothered women’s growth, strangled their independence, and cloaked their cruelty in tradition. I’d seen it all my life, twenty years of disdain and arrogance. I never allowed myself to be drawn to

    Chapter 144 Burned And Undone

    any man, no matter how strong. I never thought of love, never wanted it, never nned for it.

    So why–why did this kiss shake me so deeply?

    I curled tighter on the cold floor, something sharp and sweet tugging inside my chest the more I thought of him, of us.

    If not any man…then why him? Why Ronan?

    Phina stirred inside me, but was oddly silent, “Phina, what’s wrong?” I could not help but ask her.

    “I don’t know, but something doesn’t feel right,i” /ishe murmured, yet I could clearly see her thoughts–thoughts that were actually my own.

    The same horror I had lived with since childhood. Everyone who ever loved me…left me. They either got ruined or they died. My favorite parrot–found with its neck snapped. My best friend–who fell into the dam and never came back. My nanny–who hung herself in my room. And then…my mother.

    Nausea pooled inside me, and I struggled to even breathe as those memories wed back to life. Every single person who had shown me affection, who had loved me, had died, leaving me to live in a world carved out of despair. From that moment on, I had shut my heart to such feelings–to love itself.

    But now…now there was Ronan.

    And he….loved me.

    My hand clutched my racing heart as I forced my eyes shut. “I have to forget this. I can’t be loved. I could not love. I have to fix this. I have to.” I opened my eyes and lifted them to the moon’s pale glow. “I have to stop myself…before it’s toote.”

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