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My knees buckled under me, and I went down hard enough that the cold stone bit into my skin. For a second, I didn’t try to get up. I just sat there between the roses and the glass, wrapped in his shirt, shaking in air too cold for bare legs and panic.

This was too much. All of it. The tower, the locked door, the jammed signal, the mugs, the library, the roses. The way he touched me like he already knew the shape of every broken part I had spent years hiding under quiet smiles. And the fact that he was out there right now, probably getting hurt again . . . The image of blood filled my vision. Too much blood, him unconscious.

Why me?

The question cracked through me so hard I pressed both hands over my face.

Why me?

All my life, I had been invisible. Two steps away from becoming a cat lady with a concerning paperback collection and a coffee order that revealed too much about my emotional state. Lonely. Mateless. Powerless. The girl people forgot was in the room until they needed someone to cover a shift, make a latte, or smile politely while they explained how sad it was that no one had claimed me yet.

No one had ever wanted me like that. No one had prepared me for being wanted like this. So deeply and obsessively that it was hard to even comprehend. That was the part that broke me. The effort, the fact that he saw every dumb little part of me and went, “Yes, I’ll pick that one.”

The stupid, thoughtful, terrifying effort. And now what? He maybe doesn’t come back tonight?

The roses grew in the cold above the city because of him. The mugs waited in a cabinet because of him. The library stood full of books I would have loved but denied myself because rent came before sprayed edges. And apparently, sanity came after masked men with thigh holsters.

Tears streaked down my face. I wiped them with the back of my hand. I hated crying. It made my nose run, my eyes swell, and my brain produce thoughts no sane woman should have while barefoot in a demon lord’s shirt.

Thoughts such as I’m falling in love with a man I assumed was Lux Draven’s assassin.

Or worse.

I was falling for Lux Draven.

If it was him, every strange thing clicked into place. And if it was him, none of it made sense at all. Because why would he want me?

Me. Of all people?

Olivia Heart. Professional latte slinger. Flower courier. Emotional disaster. Owner of one reliable pair of boots and a romance reading history capable of condemning me in at least six religions.

Lux Draven had a city. An empire. Enemies with bloodlines older than my apartment building. He had power crawling under his skin and shadows willing to kneel for him.

I had rent anxiety and a cat mug with one chipped ear.

People didn’t pick me out of a room. They asked me to cover shifts. They forgot my name after I handed them coffee. They noticed me when they needed something made, delivered, cleaned, carried, fixed, swallowed down, or smiled through. Magicless. Mateless. Useful.

But never chosen.

With him, everything felt easy. Twisted, yes. Terrifying, absolutely. Yet still, down in the deepest parts inside me it felt right.

Would normal have worked? If some polite, soft-spoken man had shown up with flowers, would I have felt anything close to this? Or would I have smiled, nodded, and kept waiting for something more?

The thought made me cry harder. The wind moved through the roses, brushing my bare legs. I pulled his shirt down over my knees and hugged myself.

I didn’t know how long I sat there. The city changed while I stayed still. Neon softened. The black glass towers lost their brutal edges. Somewhere below, the night thinned, and the horizon turned gray, muddled and quiet.

I watched dawn arrive through tears that dried on my face, then started again every time my brain found a fresh bruise to press.

Then the glass door slid open.

I froze.

“Liv?”

His voice hit me first. Rough. Tired. Wrong in a way that made every part of me go still.

“What are you doing out here?”