His silver eyes locked on mine, sharp and unreadable. My breath caught. For a second, I couldn't move. The tingling in my wrist intensified, like the mark knew he was near.
Then, just like that, his gaze broke. Sylas looked away, casually sliding a book from the shelf beside me.
"Didn't expect to see you here," he said, his voice low but smooth.
"I—uh… me neither," I managed, still frozen in place.
He glanced at me again, expression unreadable. "Library's got the only decent copy of this," he said, holding up a book I didn't bother to read the title of. "Figured I'd get some quiet."
"Right," I said, even though my heartbeat was anything but calm. "Quiet."
There was a beat of silence between us. The air around him seemed to hum, subtle but electric. My skin prickled.
"I didn't see you in class," I blurted.
His lips quirked, almost into a smile. "I don't always show up to things that aren't mandatory."
Of course he doesn't.
He turned to leave, then paused and looked over his shoulder. "Take care of that burn," he said, eyes flicking briefly to where my sleeve covered the mark.
I froze. My throat went dry. How does he know about it?
But before I could ask, he was already gone—vanishing down the aisle like a ghost.
I stood there for a while, staring at the empty space Sylas had just occupied, heart still racing. Take care of that burn. The words echoed in my head like a warning, quiet but impossible to ignore.
He hadn't even seen it… or had he?
Shaking off the chill that crept down my spine, I sank back into my seat and stared blankly at my open book. The words blurred. Concentration? Gone. All I could think about was him—and this thing on my wrist that refused to be ignored.
The tingling had faded, but now it felt warm. Not painful, but almost like it pulsed with my heartbeat.
By the time I gave up pretending to read, the sky outside was already dimming. I packed up my things and left the library, Sylas nowhere in sight. The encounter had been brief, almost normal on the surface—but something about it had left me unsettled, like I was standing on the edge of something I couldn't quite see yet.
Back in the dorm, I peeled off my sweater the moment the door shut behind me. The mark stared back at me—vivid, red, and almost glowing faintly under the dorm lights.
I snapped a quick picture on my phone, fingers trembling slightly, and pulled up a search bar.
Red burn-like mark on wrist. Itchy. Doesn't fade.
The results were… disappointing. Skin irritation, chemical burns, rare allergies. None of them looked like this.
I scrolled further. Paranormal forums. Symbols. Magic marks. Fae bonds.
I rolled my eyes, but my thumb paused.
"Unexplained marks after contact with a fae."
Okay. That was weirdly specific.
Curiosity got the best of me. I clicked.
The post was old, buried deep on a forum that looked like it hadn't been active in years. But the description—reddish mark, sudden appearance after skin contact, recurring warmth or pain, and most disturbing of all… an inexplicable connection to the person involved.
I stared at the screen, pulse ticking up again.
This was crazy. Stupid. Sylas wasn't some creature from a storybook. He was just… mysterious and infuriatingly attractive and apparently really into reading in libraries. That's it.
But then why did the mark seem to burn when he was near?
And why couldn't I stop thinking about the way he looked at me?