When I got to the training dome, the night was quiet—the kind of thick silence that feels like it's pressing against your ears and your heartbeat is resonating from deep within your chest.
The corridors were dimly lit, sterile, yet intimate in a way that left every shadow feeling alive.
And I knew Adrian was already here waiting for me.
I could feel him. Not just the residual echo from the training earlier, but a quiet whirr beneath the surface, steady, almost like the rhythmic pulse of a sleeping predator.
And it drew me in, though I wasn't sure if I wanted to be drawn.
"Late night," I murmured, letting the words float more to myself than to him.
"You always notice," came his voice, soft, a shadow of a smirk hidden in the quiet.
He stepped out from the doorway to the practice chamber, the low light catching his profile, sharp, predatory, magnetic.
