I felt him before I saw him.
The way you feel a predator watching, just beyond the treeline. That low buzz in your bones. A flicker of survival instinct leftover from a more primitive age.
Malek.
Diana was still laughing into her starlight drink beside me, her posture easy, her guard completely down. But I felt it the moment he crossed the threshold. Like the magic in the room hiccuped and reconfigured itself to make space.
I didn't look. Not right away.
Instead, I turned slightly in my seat and casually adjusted the ring on my middle finger—the one etched with warning glyphs and flame runes. The one that could, if pressed hard enough, drop a warding circle capable of frying a lesser immortal.
Then I looked.
He was standing on the mezzanine.
Tall. Sharply cut. Dressed in midnight formalwear that looked more like war regalia than gala fashion—broad-shouldered, black tunic embroidered with the same crimson thread that marked his bloodline. The Warborn. The House of Iron Flame.
His hair was dark, pulled back with little effort, and his mouth was set in that trademark expression of restrained disdain. He wasn't the kind of handsome you put on magazine covers. He was the kind you put in history books—often with a bloodstain behind him.
Malek was death in formalwear.
And his eyes were locked on Diana.
No.
On me.
I met his gaze evenly. Let him read what he wanted: boredom, hostility, a pinch of interest if he was smart enough to catch it. His aura was humming like a blade warming up.
Diana followed my stare. "Do you know him?"
"Unfortunately."
"That's Malek, right? From the eastern border wars? The Warborn?"
"Mmhmm."
"He's staring at us."
"Yes. And if we're lucky, it's because he's planning my assassination."
"Gray!"
"I'm kidding," I said. "Mostly."
He descended slowly, each step deliberate. The crowd parted for him without realizing it. Like he carried a gravity field. Like they remembered.
Diana straightened beside me. "He's coming over here."
"No sudden movements. Don't offer him blood or your name. And do not flirt."
"I never flirt," she said.
"You exist. It's the same thing."
Malek reached the edge of the bar and stopped. For a moment, he just stood there, looking at us like we were two strange pieces on a chessboard. Then he inclined his head toward Diana.
"Lady Diana Armini Yoit."
His voice was lower than I remembered. Smooth. Controlled. Deeper than it had any right to be.
"Malek of the Iron Flame," she said, smiling. "It's an honor to meet you."
I bit the inside of my cheek.
He didn't reach for her hand. Didn't ask for a dance. Instead, he turned toward me.
"You're Gray."
It wasn't a question.
I arched a brow. "And you're the storm with good posture. Small world."
His lips twitched. Almost a smile. Almost.
"You've been interfering."
"Please," I said dryly. "If I were interfering, you'd know it. There'd be fires. Possibly locusts."
His head tilted slightly, studying me. "You're warded."
"You're observant."
"That ring shouldn't exist in this timeline."
"Neither should I," I said lightly, lifting my glass. "Cheers."
Diana blinked between us. "Do you two… know each other?"
"In a past life," I murmured. "Literally."
Malek's eyes narrowed just a little. "I remember... flashes. The end of something. Fire. You."
"Well," I said, voice a touch colder, "you did try to kill me."
"That doesn't narrow it down."
I gave him a tight smile. "Fair."
He shifted his attention back to Diana, but it was careful. Restrained. There was a flicker of something in his aura—recognition, maybe. An echo. But it hadn't taken root yet. No spark. No bond.
Not yet.
He turned back to me. "You're standing in the way."
"I'm reorganizing the furniture."
Malek didn't respond immediately. But something in his expression told me he'd already seen further down the path than I wanted. Not everything—but enough. Enough to know he'd met me before. That we'd stood on opposite sides of something bigger than both of us.
"I don't like variables," he said.
"Neither does fate," I replied, "and yet here we are."
He leaned in slightly. Not threatening—just close enough to speak without others hearing.
"You can delay the storm, witch," Malek said, his voice low and sharp as a knife's whisper. "But you cannot stop the sea."
"Then I'll build a better dam," I replied calmly, matching his tone.
And then—
"Are you two flirting?" Diana asked, popping her head between us with a grin so blinding it could deflect hexes.
We both turned and stared at her.
"I mean, it's okay if you are," she added brightly. "Enemies-to-lovers is super hot. And the tension is, like, palpable. You could serve drinks on it. Do you want me to give you some space?"
Malek blinked slowly, as if someone had just hit him with a very polite frying pan.
"Diana," I said through my teeth, "I swear on the bones of my ancestors, if you say one more thing—"
"Oh! Sorry, sorry," she said, backing up half a step but not shutting up. "I just thought maybe you had a thing? Or maybe had a thing in the past? Because I could totally see that."
Malek's lip twitched. I wasn't sure if it was amusement or the early signs of an aneurysm.
"There is no thing," I said. "There never was a thing. If there had been a thing, I would've hexed the memory of it out of my own head."
Malek tilted his head toward Diana. "She's very... enthusiastic."
"She's very annoying," I corrected.
"Present!" Diana chimed, raising her sparkly drink.
"I'm trying to do damage control," I hissed. "You are not helping."
"I'm providing levity."
"You're providing aneurysms."
Malek's gaze had drifted back to Diana now, and that soft recognition glimmered again behind his eyes. A thread, tugging. No spark yet, but I could feel the air tightening, the timeline holding its breath.
No. Not yet.
I shifted, blocking his line of sight with my shoulder. "You were saying something about storms and seas?"
He studied me for a long moment. "I'll be watching you, Gray."
"Get in line," I said.
Malek held my gaze a beat longer, the weight of his scrutiny sliding just beneath my skin—searching, tugging, testing for fault lines.
But he said nothing more.
He turned, his coat sweeping like a curtain between acts, and disappeared back into the glittering press of immortals and power-chasers.
I stood still for a moment, letting the noise of the gala rush back in like a tide.
The magic around me pulsed once—softly. I could feel it.
The spell I'd hidden in my own bones had held.
Buried deep, old and ugly, woven into the fracture lines of my soul. A temporal anchor laced with preservation runes and an echo trigger—a contingency cast in the final hours of the last timeline. A spell so costly it had splintered me. Literally.
It was working.
Malek didn't remember the whole truth. Just flashes. Hints. Weightless fragments without shape or name.
Good.
That meant I still had time.
A slow exhale left my lungs, shaky and quiet. I reached up and pressed two fingers lightly against my sternum, just over the old scar. No physical wound—no evidence of the night I cracked my soul into three parts to plant the spell there—but the ache remained. Always. Like glass under skin.
It had been worth it.
Even if it left me broken.
Even if the Council called it madness.
Even if my own aunts hadn't dared ask what I'd done to survive the end of the world.
This—this right here—was why. This one moment.
The misfire of fate. The delay. The pause.
He hadn't bonded to Diana.
Not yet.
Not this time.
And I was going to make damn sure he never did.