Yesterday, she was a nobody with a coffee-stained spreadsheet.
Today, the only thing between the office and a massacre was her hand.
Her calf throbbed where the chair had clipped her, and her socks were still damp with coffee.
None of it mattered. The heat at her knees mattered.
The first gunshot didn't come.
That was the problem.
The office didn't explode into action the way movies promised. It froze into a kind of collective, stunned paralysis—like everyone's brain was waiting for a manager to tell reality what to do next.
Dave found his voice first, because of course he did.
"Security!" he barked, stepping forward as if anger could make the impossible turn polite. "Get this—this—thing out of here!"
The kneeling man's head tilted.
The temperature around him spiked.
Her stomach dropped the instant his steadiness slipped, the ember inside him flaring hungry.
His arms tightened around her legs.
Her instinct screamed: If he moves, people die.
Nora didn't have a plan.
She had a body pressed against hers, burning and trembling, and a cold that wasn't cold sitting in her bones like a second heartbeat.
She lowered her voice, because shouting felt like throwing sparks.
"Hey," she whispered, fingers still on his cheek. "Look at me."
His eyes snapped up.
Coal-red. Too sharp. Too awake.
He inhaled, and the air shuddered.
Nora swallowed hard. "I need you to… loosen. You're hurting me."
For a second, she thought he wouldn't understand. Thought he would keep clinging until he crushed her just to keep her close.
Then his arms eased.
Not much.
But enough.
It was small.
It was everything.
Nora's breath came out in a shaky exhale.
So he could hear her.
So he could obey.
She shifted her weight carefully, trying to stop her knees from shaking. "Hold my hand," she said, testing the words like they were tools. "Not… that."
The man stared at her hand.
Then—slow, as if the action cost him pride—he slid one burning palm up and took her fingers.
His grip was still hot enough to sting.
But it wasn't a trap.
It was… permission.
Nora swallowed again, throat tight with a feeling she didn't want to name.
Around them, people finally started moving. Chairs scraped. Someone sobbed. Someone ran.
Dave stood there, eyes darting between Nora and the kneeling man, rage turning to fear and back again.
"You—" Dave pointed at Nora, as if she'd done this on purpose. "What did you do?"
Nora didn't answer.
She couldn't.
Because the moment she loosened her contact, the man's breathing hitched again. His shoulders tensed. The air warmed—dangerously.
So that was the rule.
Touch = calm.
Distance = disaster.
Her hand tightened in his.
She pushed more of that strange winter through herself, like breathing out into his skin.
The ember-lines along his wrist dimmed.
His jaw unclenched.
He leaned forward, forehead brushing her thigh like an instinctive bow.
"Cold," he whispered again, softer. Not a demand this time.
A need.
Nora's stomach twisted.
This wasn't romance.
Not yet.
This was survival.
But survival had a way of turning into chains.
"Okay," she whispered, voice thin. "Okay. I'm here."
He shuddered like the words were water.
A heavy thud echoed from the corridor.
Then another.
Boots.
Measured. Trained.
The elevator chimed.
A voice, amplified through a security intercom, sliced through the chaos.
"THIS IS A CONTAINMENT RESPONSE UNIT. STEP AWAY FROM THE ANOMALY. HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM."
Someone screamed again.
Dave practically lunged for the nearest employee badge scanner like it could save him. "Yes! Yes, finally—"
The man at Nora's hand lifted his head.
The calm snapped.
Heat surged.
The lights above Nora flickered.
The air tasted like metal.
Nora felt it—felt the edge of him, the part that didn't belong in offices or elevators or rules. The part that belonged to war.
His fingers tightened around hers.
Possessive. Immediate.
"Mine," he said, voice a low growl that made the coffee in the puddle tremble.
Nora's skin prickled.
Not because the word was sexy.
Because it was dangerous.
"No," she said, before she could think. "Not like that."
His eyes narrowed.
Nora's courage was a stupid, fragile thing, but she held it anyway. "I'm not yours," she said, and the sentence tasted like blood. "If you want me to stay… you listen."
The air went still.
The ember-lines along his neck pulsed.
Then he exhaled through clenched teeth.
A sound like restraint.
He dipped his head a fraction.
The barest acknowledgment.
Nora's heart slammed in her chest.
That wasn't submission.
That was a king deciding—just this once—not to crush the hand reaching toward him.
The intercom voice repeated, closer now, boots thundering down the hall.
"STEP AWAY. NOW."
Dave shoved forward, desperate to be important. "Officer! It's—it's her! She—she caused this! She's—"
The man's gaze flicked to Dave.
The temperature jumped like a heartbeat.
Nora's stomach dropped.
She reacted without thinking.
She stepped forward and cupped his face with both hands.
His skin was too hot—her palms should've burned.
Instead, frost kissed her fingertips.
She forced him to look at her.
"Kaelen," she said.
The name burst out before she could question it—pulled from that crooked label line on the package, KAE—, and finished by the cold humming under her skin.
His eyes widened—just a fraction.
"Stop," Nora whispered. Not shouted. Not begged.
Commanded.
Pain speared behind her eyes. Her ears rang as if someone had struck a tuning fork inside her skull.
Warm wetness touched her upper lip.
The world held its breath.
His raised hand—already curling like it wanted to rip Dave's throat out—froze midair.
The ember-lines dimmed.
The air stopped warping.
He stared at her, red eyes locked on her terrified but determined face.
His throat worked, like stopping hurt.
His fingers twitched—then stilled.
Waiting for her next choice.
Nora's vision flashed white.
Pain spiked behind her skull, sharp as a needle.
She swayed.
But she didn't let go.
Because when she loosened even a little, he leaned closer like a starving thing.
And outside the glass wall of the office—
Below the city skyline—
Black SUVs slid into the building's private driveway like teeth.
Somewhere beyond the glass and the sirens, she had the sudden, skin-prickling certainty of being watched.
Not by the rifles in the hallway—by something patient, higher up, like an amused lens finding focus.
Kaelen's gaze slid past her shoulder toward the window.
He smiled.
Not relief. Recognition.
In the hallway, a voice crackled through a portable speaker—calm, amused, too clean to be rescue.
"Ms. Nora," it said. "Keep your hands where we can see them."
Kaelen leaned closer, breath hot against her ear.
"Mine," he whispered, almost playful.
Nora's stomach dropped.
Because the voice on the speaker… didn't correct him.