ora's life had a rhythm.
Swipe in. Smile on cue. Carry coffee like it was holy water. Pretend the fluorescent lights didn't make her skin look gray.
On the thirty-second floor, everyone moved like they were afraid of taking up space.
Nora moved like she was afraid of being noticed at all.
Being invisible had kept her employed.
It had never kept her safe.
Which—unfortunately—made her the safest target.
"Hey. Nora."
Manager Dave didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. His tone alone made heads turn, like a dog whistle for office parasites.
Nora stood up fast enough her chair clipped the back of her calf. Pain flashed. She swallowed it.
"Yes, Dave?"
His eyes dropped to the spreadsheet on her monitor, then to the cup in her hands.
He smiled in the way men smiled when they were about to prove something to an audience.
"You know what your problem is?" he said, loud enough for the surrounding desks to hear. "You take up space, and you think that's enough."
Nora's fingers tightened around the cup. "I'm sorry. I can redo—"
"I didn't ask for a redo." Dave leaned closer, lowering his voice into something syrupy and cruel. "I asked for competence."
Then he did it.
He reached out and tipped her cup over—casually, like he was correcting a crooked picture frame.
Coffee poured across her desk, over her keyboard, into the stack of documents she'd spent all morning organizing. Hot liquid ran like dark blood down the edge and splashed onto her shoes.
A few people gasped. Most looked away, suddenly fascinated by their screens.
One woman pretended to type while filming with her phone under the desk, the glow reflected in her glasses.
Dave watched it happen with satisfaction.
"Like you," he said, as if delivering a verdict, "are a waste of air."
Nora's throat tightened. Don't cry. Not here. Not in front of—
A sharp knock echoed from the office entrance.
"Delivery."
Everyone turned, grateful for a new spectacle.
A courier stepped in, cap pulled low, a package tucked under one arm. He wore a thin jacket that looked like it had been through too many rainstorms and not enough washing machines.
He walked straight toward Nora's desk like he'd been there before.
Dave frowned. "This is a restricted floor."
The courier didn't even glance at him. His gaze stayed on Nora—calm, assessing, almost… amused.
He stopped at the edge of the coffee puddle and extended the package.
"For Nora," he said.
She took it out of reflex. The cardboard was cool against her wet palms.
A shipping label was slapped crooked across the top—RECIPIENT: NORA—and beneath it, a second line half-obscured by black tape.
Only four letters showed cleanly: KAE—
Nora frowned. "That's me."
Close up, she noticed his eyes weren't brown—more like black glass with gold flecks that caught the light like a predator's.
"Sign here."
He offered a digital pad. Nora reached for it, fingers shaking. The stylus slipped on the slick surface.
Dave clicked his tongue, loud. "Careful, Nora. Wouldn't want you to ruin that too."
The courier leaned in, just a fraction, and murmured—quiet enough that only she could hear.
"Don't take it personal."
Nora froze mid-signature.
The courier's mouth curved. "People who get treated like furniture," he said softly, "are usually the ones who make it to the end."
Before she could ask what that meant, he straightened and stepped back like the moment had never happened.
He glanced at Dave, then at the ring of coworkers pretending not to watch.
"Bad timing," he said, and left.
Nora stared after him, unsettled by the certainty in his voice.
Then—
A sound like glass under pressure.
Not breaking. Not yet. Just… complaining.
Every phone screen in the office flickered. The air-conditioning died with a long, choking cough. The lights dimmed, buzzed, and snapped into a harsh, strobing pulse.
Someone laughed nervously. "Power surge?"
The smell hit next.
Sulfur.
Burnt metal.
And underneath it—something like blood cooked on a battlefield.
Nora's stomach turned. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
Across the room, the wall behind the conference table began to change.
At first it looked like the paint was cracking—hairline fractures spiderwebbing outward. Then the cracks glowed.
Orange-red.
Like a furnace breathing.
People backed away in a wave.
"What the hell—" someone whispered.
The wall didn't crumble.
It split.
As if reality had been scored by a blade.
And behind it—
Not another room.
Not a corridor.
A place that shouldn't exist inside an office building.
Heat poured out. A distant roar—too big, too old—rolled through the crack like thunder trapped in a throat.
Someone screamed.
Dave's face went white, then furious. "This is a hazard! Call security—"
Something fell through the split in the wall.
It hit the carpet with the weight of a car crash.
A man.
No—not a man.
He looked like one until you saw the molten seams running through his skin like magma under cracked stone. Until you saw how the air warped around him, the way it did above asphalt in summer.
He dragged himself forward, one hand at a time, leaving faint scorched marks where his palms touched.
Each breath he took sounded like a forge struggling to stay lit.
The office didn't move anymore.
A hundred people held their breath like it might keep them alive.
The thing—he—lifted his head.
Eyes like coals.
A face carved too sharp to be real, beautiful in the way a blade was beautiful.
And he crawled—
Not toward the crowd.
Toward Nora.
Nora couldn't move. Her feet felt glued to the coffee-soaked carpet. Her brain kept insisting this was a nightmare or a corporate training simulation gone too far.
He reached her desk.
A hand shot up—
And closed around her ankle.
His grip was burning-hot through fabric, a brand on her skin.
Nora gasped, the sound thin and helpless.
His fingers tightened like she was the only thing anchoring him to existence.
And then he spoke, voice raw and broken, like a king choking on ash.
"Cold…"
Nora stared down at the hand on her leg. The molten cracks along his knuckles flared, then dimmed, as if starving.
Her package slipped from her grasp and thudded onto the desk.
She snatched it back up on instinct and hugged it to her chest, like a clipboard might keep the world logical.
Behind her, someone whispered, "Is… is he real?"
The man's gaze locked onto her.
Not begging.
Not asking.
Claiming.
He shifted—like his body decided the ankle wasn't enough.
He released her just long enough to wrap both arms around her calves, dragging her closer with desperate strength.
His burning cheek pressed against her thighs.
Nora froze, heart hammering. Every instinct screamed to shove him away, to run, to get space—
But he trembled like a dying animal.
"So cool…" he rasped, voice cracking. "Give me… more… don't take it away…"
His heat radiated through her skirt like a fever.
Nora's hands hovered over him, shaking.
She didn't know him.
She didn't owe him.
But something inside her—something that had been numb for years of swallowing humiliation—twisted sharp and alive.
He was on his knees.
A monster. A war-god. Whatever he was.
Collapsed at her feet.
Needing.
Nora swallowed, then placed her palm against the side of his face.
The instant her skin touched his—
Heat ripped into her like a tidal wave.
Her vision flashed white. Her teeth clenched on a scream.
And then—impossible—she felt the heat move.
Not into her.
Through her.
Like her body was a conduit for winter.
Frost crawled across her fingertips.
The burning seams along his neck dulled, the glow fading from furnace-orange to ember-red.
His breath hitched.
Then steadied.
The office went dead silent.
The air changed. It wasn't just cooler—it was… calmer. As if panic itself had been muffled.
He exhaled, long and shaking, and tightened his hold like he was afraid she'd disappear if he blinked.
Nora's knees threatened to buckle. Cold pooled under her skin, heavy and strange.
Somewhere down the hall, an alarm began to wail.
Elevator bells rang.
Boots thundered.
But all Nora could hear was the man at her legs, whispering like a vow.
"Don't… leave."
Nora lifted her head.
Through the office glass, black SUVs eased into the private driveway—silent, deliberate, like they'd been waiting for permission.
A man in a helmet stepped out and looked up at her floor.
Pointed.
The doorknob on the office suite turned.
And Nora realized, with a cold certainty that had nothing to do with Kaelen's heat—
they weren't coming for him.
They were coming for her.