After that day beneath the willow, everything changed—and nothing did.
Cassian didn't touch me again, but the space between us felt charged, alive. Every conversation carried something unspoken. Every glance lingered too long.
He began walking me back to my chambers at night.
Not as a guard.
Not as a lover.
As a man who refused to leave a woman alone with her thoughts.
"You don't have to do this," I told him once.
"I know," he said. "I want to."
That sentence haunted me.
I wanted him too.
And that was the most dangerous thing of all.