Sleep, when it finally came, was a shallow, fractured thing. Yasmine dreamed of the symbol—the slashed circle—carving itself into endless doors that stretched down a cold corridor. She'd wake with a start, the sea's sigh outside her window sounding like a whisper, and lie there, heart pounding, until the grey light of pre-dawn seeped through the shutters.
On the third morning, the walls of her beautiful room felt like they were pressing in. The polite chatter at breakfast felt like a scripted performance. The silence was no longer empty; it was thick, expectant. Leo tried to engage her in a debate about the best way to eat a mango. Elise discussed the migratory patterns of seabirds. It was all so desperately normal, and it scraped against her raw nerves.
She spent the morning in the library, pretending to read, watching the play of light on the sea. She saw Rafe once, crossing the courtyard with David, pointing to a section of the perimeter wall. He moved with such unthinking authority. This was his world. She was just a temporary ghost passing through it.
By nightfall, the restlessness had become a live wire under her skin. The curfew loomed. The locking of doors. The silent, watchful night. She couldn't face it.
Slipping past the common room where Gareth was reading, she found a side door unlocked—a small oversight, or perhaps a calculated allowance. She stepped out into the violet night.
The air was cooler now, the scent of jasmine even stronger, almost cloying. The crunch of shells under her feet seemed deafening. She followed a path she hadn't taken before, one that wound away from the cliff edge and down a gentler slope through a grove of twisted, wind-sculpted pines. The sound of the sea grew louder, a rhythmic crash and pull.
The path opened onto a small, crescent-shaped cove, hidden from the compound above by a rocky outcrop. The sand was pale and soft, the water black silk under a sky dusted with stars. The moon, a sliver of bone, cast just enough light to see the white froth of waves.
It was perfect. And utterly desolate.
She stood at the water's edge, letting the icy foam kiss her toes. The vast, roaring darkness of the ocean mirrored the chaos inside her. She took a step forward, then another, the water climbing to her ankles, her calves. The cold was a shock, a cleansing burn. She wanted to walk in until it took the noise in her head. She took another step.
"The undercurrent will pull you off your feet in three more steps."
The voice came from directly behind her, so close she felt the warmth of a body at her back. She didn't scream. A jolt went through her, electric and cold, and she whirled around.
Rafe stood there, barefoot, his dark trousers rolled to the knees. He wore no shirt. In the monochrome moonlight, his torso was a landscape of planes and shadows—the broad sweep of his shoulders, the defined cut of his chest and abdomen, the long, lean muscles of his arms. The scars she'd only glimpsed were now stark tales written on his skin: the knuckle scar, a longer, rougher line along his lower ribs, a pucker near his collarbone. This was not the body of a man who did desk work. This was a body built for survival, for impact.
He wasn't even breathing hard, though he must have moved silently down the path after her.
"You're not allowed down here alone," he said, but his voice wasn't angry. It was matter-of-fact.
"I couldn't breathe up there," she whispered, the confession torn from her.
He studied her face for a long moment. The flint in his eyes had softened to something like understanding. "I know."
He looked past her, at the black water. "Do you know how to swim?"
"Not… not like that." She gestured to the ocean.
"Come here."
It wasn't a command. It was an invitation, low and rough. He walked past her into the water, the waves now lapping at his rolled trousers. He turned and held out a hand.
Every instinct screamed caution. This was the keeper of the cage. The man with the rules. The one who watched from doorways. But the restlessness inside her was a greater terror. She placed her hand in his.
His skin was warm, calloused, his grip firm and sure. He drew her gently deeper, until the water swirled around her thighs, soaking the hem of her linen trousers.
"The ocean isn't a enemy," he said, his voice a low rumble beside her ear. He stood slightly behind her, to her left. "It's a force. You don't fight it. You learn its rhythm. You move with it."
He kept hold of her hand, his other coming to rest lightly on her lower back. "Lean back."
"What?"
"Lean back. Into the water. I have you."
The trust required was astronomical. She looked into his eyes, silvered by the moon. There was no mockery there, no cruelty. Just a calm, unwavering certainty.
She let her weight fall back.
The cold water enveloped her shoulders, her hair. For a second, panic flared—the primal fear of sinking, of the deep. But his hands were there. One splayed solidly between her shoulder blades, the other still gripping her hand, holding her suspended at the surface.
"Look up," he said.
She tilted her head back. The sky unveiled itself—a breathtaking sprawl of stars so dense and bright it felt like falling upward. The roar of the ocean became a distant hum, the water cradling her, his hands the only anchors to earth.
"Breathe," he murmured. His thumb moved softly against her knuckles. "Just breathe with the waves."
She did. In. Out. The salt on her lips, the chill on her skin, the immense, starry vault above, and the unshakeable heat of his hands on her. The noise in her head quieted. The walls of the cage dissolved. For the first time since arriving, she felt… present. Not hiding. Just being.
They floated like that for timeless minutes, connected by those two points of contact. She felt the steady rise and fall of his own breathing, the subtle shifts of his muscles as he adjusted their balance against the swell.
"You're safe," he said, so quietly it was almost lost in the sound of water. He wasn't talking about the currents.
Tears, hot and sudden, pricked her eyes, mixing with the salt water. She didn't know why. It was too much. The beauty, the stillness, the shocking, undeserved kindness of this hard man.
Sensing the shift in her, he slowly drew her upright. The water streamed from her clothes. She was shivering, but not from the cold. He was close, so close. Drops of sea glittered on his skin. His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered for a heartbeat that felt like a lifetime. The air between them crackled, charged with something hotter than the sun that had baked these cliffs.
He wanted to kiss her. She saw it, felt it in the tension that coiled through him. The possessive grip on her hand tightened infinitesimally.
But he didn't.
He let go of her hand, his palm sliding from her back. The loss of his touch was a physical ache.
"Come on," he said, his voice back to its usual, controlled gravel. "You're cold."
He led her out of the water. On the sand, he picked up a shirt she hadn't seen—a simple grey henley—and pulled it over his head, hiding the map of his scars. The act felt strangely intimate, as if he was re-donning his armor in front of her.
He walked her back up the path in silence. At the top, where the pines gave way to the compound's gardens, he stopped.
"The door will be locked now," he said. "I'll let you in the side entrance. No one needs to know."
She nodded, words failing her.
They slipped through a small service door into a dark, cool hallway. At the base of the staircase leading to the residential wing, he paused.
"The quiet," he said, looking not at her but down the shadowed hall. "It's not a punishment. It's space. Space to hear yourself think. To remember what you want, without all the other voices telling you." He finally met her eyes. "Even if what you want scares you."
Then he was gone, melting into the darkness of the corridor without a sound.
Yasmine climbed the stairs to her room, her wet clothes clinging to her, the smell of salt and night air on her skin. She didn't turn on the light. She stood on her balcony, looking out at the star-flecked sea.
The cage was still there. The rules were still there. The symbol was still carved on a door.
But something had changed. The keeper of the cage had shown her a glimpse of the man inside the fortress. And she had felt, in the black water under a million stars, held aloft by his scarred hands, something she thought she'd lost forever.
A semblance of peace. And a terrifying, thrilling spark of want.