Chapter 32 · Forbidden Resonance

"Get out of my head, Kaelen. Now!"

Sloane slammed her back against the cold stone wall of the corridor, her breath coming in jagged hitches. She wasn't talking to the air. She was screaming into the void of her own consciousness, where Kaelen’s presence felt like a live wire pressed against her spine.

*I can't,* his voice echoed, vibrating not in her ears, but in her marrow. *I can still feel Varis. He's like a stain on your skin. I have to scrub him out.*

"You're not scrubbing anything!" Sloane hissed, clutching her temples. Her fingernails dug into her scalp. "You're overloading me. I can't tell where my thoughts end and yours begin. It's like drowning in you."

Kaelen materialized beside her, not as a ghost, but as a physical weight that suddenly displaced the air. He didn't just stand there; he crowded her, his chest inches from hers, pinning her between the wall and his own suffocating heat. He didn't touch her—not yet—