Noah did not know when fondness had become love. For all he knew, it might have been there from the beginning, waiting for him to catch up to it.
Watching Natalie now, as the office doors finally hissed open, he felt that familiar pull in his chest - a mix of exasperation, dread, and devotion so deep it made his teeth ache. He had spent the last ten minutes pacing the corridor with the frantic energy of a caged predator, while Gregoris stood a few steps away like something carved from ice, presumably counting down the seconds until either the room or Noah stopped being unstable.
Natalie stepped out first.
She looked slightly ruffled, her ash-blonde hair no longer perfectly in place, her eyes still bright with the remnants of fury. But the storm had changed. The cold anger that had gone into that office with her was gone. What remained was sharper, steadier, and far more familiar.
She stopped directly in front of Noah.
