I didn’t see Amber again that night.
Honestly, I didn’t care.
My mind was too full of someone else—
Someone who shouldn’t have been anywhere near a freshman dorm.
Which made it even worse when I opened my door at 1:34 a.m. to find Riven Hale leaning against the hallway wall.
Blood drying on his temple. Knuckles scraped raw. Chest rising and falling like he’d fought his way across the city.
I froze with my hand on the doorframe.
“You—why are you—?”
“I need a minute,” he said.
Not a request.
Not a demand.
Something in between.
“I’m not here to scare you.” His voice softened, though everything about him screamed danger. “Just five minutes. Then I’ll leave.”
My brain scrambled for an answer. For logic. For anything.
But all I saw was the way he held his shoulder—too stiff, too tight. The fresh cut slicing across his ribs where his shirt hung open. The exhaustion pulling his brows together.
He was hurt.
And he came here.
To me.
“Come in,” I whispered before I could think twice.
He stepped inside silently, like a shadow slipping across the room.
When I reached for a towel, he watched me with an expression I couldn’t read—half wary, half something else. Something softer.
“You’re not scared,” he said quietly.
I swallowed. “You didn’t hurt me.”
He huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh if he weren’t so broken.
“Most people run,” he said. “You don’t.”
“Maybe I should,” I murmured.
“Maybe,” he said. “But you won’t.”
His certainty sent a ripple down my spine.
When I dabbed the cut on his ribs, he didn’t flinch. But his eyes never left my face—not once.
“Those marks…” I whispered. “They’re not from those guys at the club, are they?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Silence stretched.
But then—one corner of his mouth lifted, just barely.
A dangerous smile. But a fragile one too.
“That’s not a story for tonight,” he said. “You’ve seen enough.”
We were too close.
Too quiet.
Too… something.
And despite every instinct telling me to create distance, I didn’t move.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
“For the bandage?” I teased weakly.
“For not being afraid of me.”
My chest tightened.
Because he said it like he wasn’t used to hearing it.
Like it meant something.
Maybe too much.