The Blackwood Security offices smell like fresh coffee and possibility when Marcus walks in Monday morning, which is my first clue that the universe is about to fuck with me.

I'm already at my desk—have been since five a.m., if I'm being honest—because sleeping next to Ezra Thorne is like trying to rest on top of a live wire. Every nerve ending stays alert. Every breath feels significant. I've spent the last seventy-two hours oscillating between wanting to climb him like a tree and wanting to run screaming into the Canadian wilderness.

The memories are getting worse. Better. I don't have a word for it yet.

Flashes of another life keep ambushing me: a candlelit room, silk sheets, Ezra's hands on my face like I'm something precious. A library with books bound in leather, his voice reading poetry in a language that's been dead for centuries. A battlefield—no, that doesn't feel like mine. That feels like his. But I can taste the blood and ash anyway.

It's maddening.

"You look like hell," Marcus observes, setting down two cups of coffee. One for him, one for me. He knows my order better than I do at this point. "What happened to you?"

I don't look up from the contract I've been pretending to review for the last hour. "Nothing. Working late."

"Iris." His tone shifts, becomes the voice he uses when he's about to say something I won't like. "What's going on? And don't give me the security consulting bullshit. I know you."

He does. That's the problem.

Marcus Webb has been my anchor to normalcy for five years—ever since I hired him to help me build this firm from nothing. He's seen me at my worst: shaking with nightmares, scarred and bleeding, sarcastic to the point of cruelty. He's never pushed. Never demanded explanations. He just... stayed.

And now I'm about to lie to his face.

"Didn't sleep well," I say, which is technically true. "Had a client meeting that ran late."

"We don't have any—"

The office door chimes.

Both of us look up, and I feel Marcus tense beside me before I even process why. There's a man in our waiting area, and he's the kind of beautiful that makes you question your own judgment. Platinum blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, a suit that probably costs more than my car. He's smiling like he owns the place.

Like he owns me.

The air smells like jasmine and electricity.

"Iris Blackwood?" His voice is smooth as honey and twice as dangerous. "I was hoping we could talk about a business opportunity."

I'm already standing, my hand instinctively moving to the knife I keep in my desk drawer. Some habits die hard. "We're not taking new clients."

"That's not what I heard." He steps further into the office, and every survival instinct I've honed over twenty years starts screaming. "I heard you're the best in the city. Discrete. Thorough. Willing to do what others won't."

"Heard from who?"

"Does it matter?" He extends a hand, and I notice his fingernails are manicured. "Adrian Crane. And I have a job that requires someone with your... particular skill set."

I don't take his hand. Marcus does, because he's polite and doesn't recognize danger when it's wearing Armani. I watch Adrian's smile widen as he shakes my business partner's hand, and something cold slides down my spine.

Recognition.

Not of his face. Of something deeper. Something that tastes like old blood and older promises.

"What kind of job?" I ask, keeping my voice level.

"The kind we should discuss privately." Adrian's eyes flick to Marcus, a dismissal wrapped in courtesy. "No offense to your partner, but some conversations require discretion."

Marcus looks at me, waiting for my cue. I could send Adrian out. Should send him out. Every cell in my body is vibrating with a warning I can't quite articulate.

Instead, I hear myself say: "Marcus, can you grab those files from the back office?"

"Iris—"

"Please."

He leaves, reluctant and confused, and the moment the door closes, Adrian's smile becomes something else entirely. Something predatory.

"You feel it," he says. Not a question. "The recognition. The pull."

I move around my desk, putting the solid wood between us like it matters. Like anything could stop what's about to happen. "I don't know you."

"Not in this lifetime." He sits without being invited, crosses his legs with liquid grace. "But you knew me before. You loved me before. And you'll remember me before this is over."

The room tilts.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I told you. Adrian Crane." He examines his fingernails with studied disinterest. "Though I've had many names across many centuries. As have you, my love. Iris is just the latest iteration."

My hand finds the knife. I don't draw it, but I make sure he sees the movement. "I'm going to need you to leave."

"Not until we've discussed what I came here for." He finally looks at me, and his eyes are ancient. Hungry. "I want to hire your firm to do a security assessment on my properties. The contract is substantial—half a million for preliminary work alone. Enough to make your little business very comfortable."

"I don't want your money."

"Everyone wants money, Iris. Or power. Or love." He stands, and suddenly he's closer than he should be, moving with that liquid grace that makes my skin crawl. "I'm offering all three. All you have to do is remember."

"Remember what?"

"What we were. What we could be again." His voice drops, becomes almost hypnotic. "I've been waiting for you for three hundred and forty-seven years. Watching you die. Watching you come back. Watching you forget me every single time."

The air in the room feels thin.

"That's..." I search for words. Find only inadequate ones. "That's insane."

"Is it?" He tilts his head, and for a moment I see something inhuman flicker across his features. "You know it's not. You can feel the truth of it in your bones. The same way you felt Ezra when he found you. The same way you're starting to remember a life that shouldn't be possible."

I open my mouth to deny it.

Don't.

Because he's right. I can feel it—that bone-deep recognition, the way my body knows him even if my mind refuses to. It's different from what I feel with Ezra, though. Darker. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling the pull of gravity.

"You're with him now," Adrian continues, moving closer. "Ezra Thorne. How very... predictable. He's always been the romantic. Always believed in redemption and second chances." His smile turns cruel. "But you and I were never about redemption, love. We were about power. About taking what we wanted and burning the world down if anyone tried to stop us."

"You're wrong."

"Am I?" He reaches out, and I let him—some part of me too curious, too desperate to understand—and he traces a finger down my cheekbone. His touch is ice-cold. "You don't feel that? The electricity? The rightness? That's not new. That's memory."

I jerk away, and the spell breaks.

"Don't touch me."

"You'll come to me eventually." He steps back, adjusts his suit jacket with infuriating calm. "Ezra can't give you what you really want. He's too busy worrying about your feelings, your autonomy, your precious consent. He's weak with love for you." Adrian's eyes glitter with something that might be pity. "I remember when you despised weakness."

"Get out of my office."

"The contract is on your desk. Consider it." He moves toward the door with that liquid grace, pauses at the threshold. "And Iris? When you realize that Ezra's version of love is a cage, no matter how prettily he decorates it... I'll be waiting. I'm always waiting."

He leaves, and the jasmine scent lingers like a threat.

Marcus reappears seconds later, carrying files he didn't need to carry. "What the hell was that?"

I can't answer. My hands are shaking, and I don't know if it's rage or fear or something worse—the terrible, seductive pull of recognition. Adrian was right about one thing: I do feel it. That dark familiarity. That sense of being known by something ancient and hungry.

"Iris?" Marcus sets down the files, moves around the desk to check on me. "Are you okay? You're pale."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. Your pupils are dilated, your pulse is elevated, and you're gripping that knife like you're about to commit murder." He takes the knife from my hand gently. "Talk to me."

I can't tell him the truth. How do I explain that a man I've never met just claimed to have loved me for three centuries? That I felt the truth of it in my bones, even as every rational part of my mind rejected it?

"He was weird," I settle for. "Creepy. I don't like him."

"Then we don't take the contract."

"It's half a million dollars, Marcus."

"I don't care if it's half a billion. If he makes you uncomfortable—"

The office door opens again, and Ezra walks in like he owns the place. There's something different about him today. Dangerous. His obsidian eyes are dark with rage, and the air around him feels charged with electricity.

He smells like smoke and sandalwood and fury.

"We need to talk," he says to me, his voice low and lethal. "Now."

"I'm in the middle of—"

"Now, Iris."

Marcus steps between us, which is either very brave or very stupid. "Whatever this is, you need to take it down a notch. She's had a rough morning."

Ezra's gaze flicks to him, and I see Marcus actually flinch at whatever he finds there. "This doesn't concern you, Marcus."

"She's my friend. That makes it my concern."

For a moment, I think Ezra might actually hurt him. The tension in the room becomes almost unbearable, a taut wire stretched to breaking. Then Ezra steps back, takes a breath, and the worst of the rage drains from his expression.

"You're right. I apologize." He looks at Marcus with something like genuine remorse. "I'm sorry. That was unfair."

Marcus nods slowly, still uncertain. "I'm going to grab lunch. Iris, text me if you need anything."

He leaves, and I know he's not actually getting lunch. He's giving us space while staying close enough to intervene if needed. I love him for it, even as I hate the complication.

"Adrian Crane," Ezra says the moment we're alone. "Tell me everything."

"How did you—"

"I felt him. The moment he walked into this building, I felt him like a knife sliding between my ribs." Ezra moves closer, and I can see the effort it takes him to keep his hands to himself. "What did he want?"

I tell him about the contract. The money. The strange, hypnotic things Adrian said about centuries and reincarnation and love that tastes like possession.

Ezra's jaw clenches with each word.

"He's one of them," he says when I finish. "Another ancient being. One who's been obsessed with you for longer than either of us have been alive."

"He claims to have loved me. In a past life."

"He claims to own you." Ezra's voice drops to something dangerous. "There's a difference. Adrian Crane doesn't love—he collects. He's been collecting souls for centuries, and he's never let one go."

"Why would he care about me?"

"Because you were his once." Ezra runs a hand through his hair, and I watch the muscle in his jaw work. "Before I found you. Before I remembered you. Adrian had you, and he's spent the last few centuries trying to get you back."

The room spins.

"How do you know this?"

"Because I've spent three hundred and forty-seven years watching him try." Ezra's eyes meet mine, and there's so much pain in them it makes my chest ache. "Every lifetime you've had, Adrian's been there on the periphery. Waiting. Watching. And every time you've chosen me—or someone else, or solitude—he's waited for the next cycle."

"This is insane."

"Yes." He steps closer, and suddenly I'm hyperaware of every inch of space between us. Of the way his scent wraps around me like smoke. "But it's also true. And now that your memories are returning, Adrian thinks he has a chance to finally claim you."

"I don't belong to anyone."

"I know." His hand reaches out, hovers near my face without touching. "But Adrian doesn't understand that concept. To him, you're a prize. A possession. Something to be won."

"Then what do I do?"

"You stay away from him." There's no negotiation in his voice. No room for argument. "You don't take his contract. You don't see him again. You don't even acknowledge his existence."

"And if he doesn't accept that?"

Ezra's expression becomes something I've never seen before. Something ancient and terrible and utterly committed. "Then I'll remind him that some things aren't his to take."

The possessiveness in his voice should scare me.

Instead, it makes my pulse race for entirely different reasons.

"That sounds like a threat," I say softly.

"It's a promise." He finally touches me, his hand finding my cheek, and the contact is electric. Consuming. "I've lost you too many times, Iris. I won't lose you again. Not to Adrian. Not to anyone."

I should pull away. Should remind him that I'm not his to protect, that I've spent my entire adult life being fiercely, defiantly independent. That the very idea of someone claiming ownership over me—even with the best intentions—triggers every survival instinct I have.

But his hand is warm against my skin, and he smells like home, and when he looks at me like that, it's hard to remember why independence mattered so much.

"Don't do anything stupid," I say instead.

"Too late for that." His thumb traces my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "I've been doing stupid things since the day I met you. Loving you across centuries. Watching you die. Waiting for you to come back. That's all stupid. But it's also the only thing I know how to do."

My breath catches.

"Ezra—"

"I know you're scared." His voice is rough now, raw with emotion. "I know you don't trust this. Don't trust me. Don't trust any of it. But I need you to understand something: Adrian is dangerous in ways you can't comprehend. He'll seduce you with promises of power and freedom. He'll make you feel like choosing him is choosing yourself. But it's not. It's choosing chains wrapped in silk."

"And what are you offering?"

"The same chains, probably." His laugh is bitter. "But at least I'm honest about them. At least I'm asking for your consent instead of taking it."

It's the most vulnerable thing he's ever said to me.

I close the distance between us, and his hand drops from my face as I move closer. Our bodies are nearly touching now, separated by mere inches. I can feel the heat radiating from him, can smell the smoke and sandalwood that's become as necessary to me as breathing.

"If I agree to stay away from Adrian," I say slowly, "it's not because you're ordering me. It's because I'm choosing to."

"I know."

"And if I choose to leave—if this becomes too much, if I need to walk away—you have to let me."

His jaw clenches, but he nods. "I know."

"Even though it will destroy you."

"Even then." His hand finds mine, and his grip is almost painful. "Because if I cage you, I lose you anyway. At least if you choose to leave, I know it was real while it lasted."

The honesty in his voice undoes something in me.

I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him, and it's not gentle or tentative. It's desperate and consuming and tastes like smoke and surrender. His hands find my waist, pull me closer until there's no space between us, until I can feel his heartbeat thundering against my chest.

When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.

"Don't let him near you," Ezra whispers against my mouth. "Promise me."

"I promise."

But even as I say it, I feel the lie settle heavy in my chest.

Because Adrian's contract is still on my desk, and some part of me—the part that remembers being someone dangerous and wild and utterly unafraid—wants to know what he's offering.

Wants to know who I was before I learned to be afraid.

And that terrifies me more than anything else could.