The Messenger( Iva) novel Chapter 71

Work Drama-2

“I need money. I need independence. I cannot stop working because of… this situation.”

His gaze flickered – not softening, not hardening – recalculating.

“You wash dishes.”

It was not a question.

Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

“Yes.”

A strange expression crossed his face something between disbelief and restraint.

“You are the supposed Messenger,” he said slowly, “and you wash dishes.”

“I am also a lone wolf who needs to eat. I don’t have a pack to rely on.”

Silence stretched again.

She braced for ridicule.

It did not come.

Instead, he studied her with an intensity that made her feel transparent.

“You will be escorted.”

Her head snapped up.

“That is not necessary.”

“It is not optional.”

The tension between them thickened, invisible yet tangible.

Her independence warred with her survival instincts.

He stepped even closer now – close enough that his scent wrapped around her like heat.

Her breath hitched.

He noticed.

His gaze flickered briefly to her throat where her pulse raced visibly.

“Your heart rate is excessive.”

She flushed bright red instantly.

“I am not used to arguing with royalty before breakfast.”

A faint, almost invisible shift touched the corner of his mouth

–

gone before she could be certain it

+25 Points

<Work Drama.

existed.

He moved past her toward the entrance.

“Get your things.”

She stared after him, mind struggling to catch up.

“Avalon… what is happening?”

“Our mate is rearranging reality.”

“That is not helpful.”

“It is accurate.”

+25 Points

Iva stood frozen in the center of the luxurious living space, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, still clutching uncertainty like a shield, still trying to understand how a single night had rewritten the rules of her existence.

Behind the controlled tension, beneath the fear, beneath the confusion…

A dangerous realization began to take shape.

Nothing in her life had ever changed this fast.

And nothing about Caleb Adama suggested he intended to let things remain simple.

When he turned back toward her, car keys in hand, expression composed but eyes burning with something unreadable, she understood one thing with absolute clarity-

Going to work today would not be routine.

It would be the beginning of something far more complicated.

“Move, Iva,” he said quietly.

And without fully understanding why…

She obeyed.

The drive was silent.

Not the comfortable kind of silence – not the soft, companionable quiet that settles between people who understand each other.

This silence had weight.

Iva sat rigidly in the passenger seat, hands folded in her lap, acutely aware of everything – the hum of the engine, the controlled rhythm of Caleb’s breathing, the faint heat radiating from his body, the red thread between them pulsing faintly like a living vein.

She stared straight ahead.

Work Drama-q-

De not think.

Do not look at him.

Do not feel.

Her pulse betrayed her anyway.

+25 Points

Caleb drove with effortless precision, one hand resting lightly on the steering wheel, posture relaxed yet alert. He did not glance at her once, but she could feel his awareness like a second presence in the car.

Avalon stirred quietly beneath her skin.

“He is listening to your heartbeat.”

“Please stop narrating my humiliation,” Iva whispered internally.

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