“Elara.”
She did not stop walking.
The corridor felt longer than it should have been, each step echoing too loudly in her ears. Adrian followed her anyway, his footsteps measured, restrained, as if he were afraid that moving too fast would shatter something fragile between them.
“Elara, please,” he said again.
She halted abruptly and turned. “Do not say my name like that.”
His brows knit together. “Like what?”
“Like you still have the right,” she answered.
The words landed harder than she intended. She saw it in his eyes. Pain, sharp and immediate.
“I never stopped having the right to care,” Adrian said quietly.
“That is the problem,” she replied. “You care, but you control. You decide. You hide.”
She crossed her arms, grounding herself. “Victor said he has something that belongs
