?Chapter 185:


    But the second his fingers brushed the fabric, she snapped. “Ah!” A shriek ripped through the air.


    Without warning, she lunged, clutching his wrist with a death grip, her fingernails digging in like ws. Before Merlin could jerk away, her teeth sank into his flesh. It was fast. Violent. Sharp.


    That familiar jolt of pain triggered a sh of memory—he’d been bitten by a stray dog once, and the sensation was disturbingly simr.


    “God—damn!” Merlin hissed, inhaling through his teeth. Despite the pain, he didn’t pull back. He stared at her instead. There she was, clinging to his wrist like a cornered animal, her mouth stained red from the bite. She had no idea who she was up against. And she wasn’t holding back, either.


    She sank her small, pointed teeth into his wrist, ripping through skin until blood rose and smeared across her lips.


    Merlin was, without question, an anomaly among men. While others his age brimmed with restless vigor—chasing romance, dreaming of love—he felt nothing but an instinctive revulsion. It was as if his very wiring rejected the notion of intimacy with women.


    Just minutes ago, he’d watched Cole kiss Elliana and had recoiled in visible disgust—not out of jest, but with genuine loathing. The mere thought of skin brushing skin in tender affection made his stomach churn.


    Vivien had once made the grave mistake of brushing her hand against his. The result was catastrophic. In an instant, the polite veneer had shattered, and rage consumed him. He had kicked her with such unrestrained fury that her body crashed across the room like a rag doll, blood spilling from her nose and mouth.


    Everyone who had witnessed it was shaken to the core. No one had seen a man unleash such unfiltered violence on a woman before.


    From that day forward, Merlin’s name had be synonymous with danger. Women who had once entertained fanciful dreams about him now shrank from his presence, whispers of his temper trailing in his wake. Even those with no romantic designs treaded carefully around him, fearing that the slightest idental touch might provoke another storm.


    And yet—Hailee had just bitten his wrist. He should have hurled her away, just as he had Vivien. His instinct should have red like wildfire. But instead, nothing. No, not nothing. Something stirred. Something maddeningly unfamiliar. He didn’t want to strike her. He didn’t even want to move. There was an odd warmth swelling in his chest—infuriatingly tender, strangely sweet.


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    His arm tingled where her teeth had sunk in, an electric buzz spreading under his skin. It coursed through him, numbing and paralyzing him. His legs wouldn’t obey. His body, once so quick to recoil, now refused to respond.


    Even his voice—his sharp,manding voice—failed him. He opened his mouth tosh out, to demand she stop whatever madness this was, but not a single word escaped.


    And just like that, the moment hung in suspension—frozen in time. Merlin stood stock-still, his entire body locked in a rigid trance as the reckless girl clung to his wrist, her teeth buried deep.


    At first, he felt pain—sharp, searing—but it ebbed quickly, reced by an eerie numbness that spread like wildfire through his nerves. The jolt that followed was


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