Chapter 21: His Eyes Changed

RORY

The air between us felt too tight to breathe.

Jace’s gaze flicked from my face to the shelf where I’d stashed the phone. For a moment, I thought I could hear the faint echo of Eli’s voice still ringing in my ear.

But Jace didn’t reach for the shelf. Not yet. He just stood there, looking at me like he was trying to peel back my skin and see the truth underneath.

“You’ve been busy,” he murmured.

“I told you,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though my throat felt like sandpaper. “I got lost.”

He tilted his head. “Lost? In a house you’ve been in for weeks?”

That was the problem with lying to someone like Jace—you could feel him mapping out every weak point in your story before you’d even finished speaking.

His eyes narrowed, and that’s when it happened.

Something shifted.

It wasn’t just suspicion anymore. There was curiosity now… interest. The kind of interest that made my skin heat for all the wrong reasons.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t.

He took another step toward me, slow and deliberate, and I realized his eyes weren’t just their usual cold amber—they were darker, sharper, locked entirely on me.

“You know what I hate, Rory?” he asked softly.

“What?”

“When people think they can play me.”

I wanted to snap back, say something cutting, but the way he was looking at me made my voice catch. Like he was stripping every layer of defiance away just to see what I looked like underneath it.

“I’m not playing you,” I said finally.

His jaw tightened. He leaned one hand against the shelf beside my head, boxing me in without touching me. His other hand slid into his pocket, casual but somehow dangerous.

I could smell his cologne, sharp and clean, mixed with something warmer—like cedar and smoke. It made my chest feel heavier.

“You’ve got secrets,” he said.

“So do you,” I shot back.

That made him pause. Then, slowly, he smiled. But it wasn’t the playful, mocking smile I’d seen before. This one was different. More like he’d just realized something about me… and liked it.

The change in his expression was subtle, but it was there—his eyes softening, then hardening again, like he wasn’t sure which way to lean.

“You’re not afraid of me,” he said.

I almost laughed, but it came out more like a shaky breath. “You think that’s true?”

He studied me for a long moment, and I could almost feel him deciding what box to put me in—victim, threat, toy. I just didn’t know which one I wanted to be less.

“You’re different,” he said finally.

I didn’t ask what he meant.

Because that was when his hand moved from the shelf to my chin, tilting my face up just slightly. My pulse hammered so loud I was sure he could hear it.

For a second, I thought he might kiss me. And that terrified me more than the thought of him finding the phone.

But then his eyes flicked past me, to the shelf again, and the moment snapped like a wire pulled too tight.

His fingers left my skin.

Without looking away from me, he reached over, plucked the phone from under the box, and held it up.

“Well,” he said, his voice low and edged with something I couldn’t quite name, “looks like you’ve been making friends.”

I didn’t have time to answer before the door opened again.

Nikolai stood there, his gaze sweeping the scene—me cornered, Jace holding the phone—and his eyes darkened.

“What,” he asked slowly, “is going on here?”