LOGINChapter 167Stefan’s POVShe screamed.A short sharp sound, more surprise than fear, and then she was against my chest with both arms locked around me before I had even processed the dark.“It’s okay,” I said. Smoothing my hand over her hair. “I have you. It’s just the power.”I held her like that for a second, feeling her heart going fast against my ribs, then pulled my phone out and turned on the flashlight. The beam cut a narrow path across the room. No table lamp anywhere. I swept it around twice to be sure. Whoever decorated this place had gone heavy on tropical wood and woven mats and absolutely nothing electrical that did not depend on the grid that had just failed.“Shh,” I said again, even though she had already stopped making noise. “It’s fine. Come on.”I took her hand and led her down to the small reception desk. The man there had already lit two oil lamps and was completely unbothered by the situation, like power cuts during storms were simply part of doing business out h
Chapter 166Stefan’s POV“So,” I said. “What’s our next adventure.”Amanda looked up from the cushion she had been hugging since the show ended. Her eyes did the thing they had been doing more and more since I picked her up off that pavement. That spark coming back online one piece at a time.“Are you sure,” she said. “This is something you actually want to do. Not just something you are saying.”“I promised,” I said. “I do not break promises to you. We established this.”She studied me for a second like she was checking whether the offer would survive contact with reality.“Safari,” she said. “I want to see all the animals. The giraffes in Kenya. The whole thing. The proper experience.”“Done,” I said. “We will do that. I am already planning the logistics in my head.” I paused. “But can we start with something closer. Something we can all do together while we are still here. Kenya is a whole production.”She thought about it for exactly two seconds.“I want to kiss a dolphin.”I roll
Chapter 164Amanda’s POVI could not hold it anymore.That was the thing about carrying something heavy for too long. At some point your arms just gave out. Not because you decided to let go. Just because the body reached its limit and stopped cooperating.I sat on the edge of the bed and the papers were still pressed against my chest and Stefan was still looking at me with that expression and I just.Broke.Not quietly. Not composed. The kind of crying that had been waiting behind six weeks of smiling and planning and making lists and pretending that everything was fine because everyone around me already had too much to carry and I refused to be another thing.Stefan did not say anything.He sat beside me and put his arms around me and pulled me into his chest and held on.I grabbed his shirt and cried into it and he let me. No shushing. No it will be okay said too fast before he understood what he was dealing with. Just his arms and his warmth and the steady beat of his heart under
Chapter 163Amanda’s POV“I can explain,” I said.Nina looked at me. Then at Stefan. Then at the general situation which was Stefan sitting on the edge of my bed and me standing beside it and both of us looking like we had just been caught doing exactly what we had been doing.“I do not care,” Nina said.She held up one of the coffees. Looked at it. Then kept it. Then kept the second one too. She was now holding both.“Stefan,” she said pleasantly. “Figure yourself out. And I swear on everything I love that if you hurt my friend I will remove your groin from your body personally.”Stefan stood up and saluted. “Yes Captain.”Nina looked at him for one more second. Then she walked out and pulled the door behind her.The room was quiet.I looked at Stefan.He looked at me.I gave him the flattest look I had in my collection.He exhaled. Sat back down on the edge of the bed and ran both hands through his hair. “I am sorry,” he said. “About outside. The girl. I want you to know that I was
Chapter 162Amanda’s POVHe turned around and his eyes landed on me and then on his cheek where my hand had just connected and his expression went from surprised to something else very fast.“What is wrong with you,” he said.I slapped him again.The girl made a sound and came forward and grabbed my arm and I was about to deal with that situation directly when Stefan stepped in front of her with his arm out. Not touching her. Just blocking.“Don’t,” he said to her. Quiet and final.Then he turned back to me.I opened my mouth.He bent down and picked me up and put me over his shoulder before I could process what was happening.“Put me down,” I said.He did not put me down.He walked. Back toward the hotel entrance. The cameras were going absolutely insane around us. Someone was shouting questions in English about whether she was his girlfriend. Someone else was asking something about his father and nuclear weapons and billions of dollars and Stefan walked through all of it like it was
Chapter 161Amanda’s POVI cried on my bed like an idiot.Face down. Into the pillow. Surrounded by every outfit I had tried on last night because I had not had the energy to hang anything up before everything went sideways.The crying was embarrassing. I knew it was embarrassing while I was doing it. I cried anyway.When it ran out I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling and tried to be rational about the situation.Fact one. I had kissed someone at a masquerade party thinking he was a stranger.Fact two. He was not a stranger.Fact three. It was Stefan.I lay there with those three facts and waited to feel horrified.The horror did not arrive.What arrived instead was the memory of his hands in my hair and the way the gentleness lasted exactly four seconds before it became something that was not gentle at all and how I had gripped the front of his shirt and not wanted to stop.I pressed the pillow over my face.The thing was. The actual honest thing that I was not going to s
Chapter NineteenNina’s POVI didn’t leave Dante’s side.Not when Enzo told me to get some rest. Not when Nikolai brought food I didn’t eat. Not when the doctor came back to check vitals and change bandages.I sat in that chair beside his bed for eighteen hours straight, holding his hand like it wa
Chapter FourteenNina’s POVI woke up feeling like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my skull.The sunlight streaming through the curtains felt like knives stabbing directly into my brain. My mouth tasted like something had died in it. My body ached everywhere, especially my ass, which brought ba
Chapter TenNina’s POVI woke to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar curtains and the taste of salt on my lips from dried tears.For a moment, I didn’t remember where I was. Then it all came crashing back.You’re ours now, Nina. Whether you like it or not.Dante’s words echoed in my skull, cold a
Chapter Eleven Nina’s POV I was dying. The ocean just took. My lungs screamed for air that wouldn’t come. I tried to kick, but my legs had turned to dead weight, useless appendages dragging me deeper into the blue-black void. My arms moved in slow motion, pushing weakly against water that felt







