The sheets cling to my skin as I jolt awake, my heart hammering against my ribs. The room has dropped to an unnatural temperature, my breath visible in the dim light filtering through the curtains.

My phone lights up on the nightstand, casting an eerie glow. One new voicemail. From Eliot.

Three months. Three months since I'd last heard from him, since I'd run from the intensity of what we had. Three months of trying to forget how his hands felt on my skin, how his voice could make me ache with a single word.

Against my better judgment, I pick up the phone and press play. That voice — deeper than I remember, roughened with what sounds like hunger — fills the silence.

"You thought you could just disappear?" His low chuckle sends a shiver down my spine, not of fear, but of something far more dangerous.

"That little spell of yours... cute. Desperate, but cute." The sound of him moving closer, though he's miles away, echoes through the line.

"Did you really think I wouldn't come when you called?"

I drop the phone as the lights flicker, plunging the room into darkness. The scent of his cologne — sandalwood and something spicy — wraps around me like a vice. Cold fingers brush the back of my neck, trailing down my spine to the waistband of my sleep shorts.

"You belong to me," he growls directly into my ear, his body pressing against mine from behind. "Always have. Always will."