stoic · ice abilities · cardiac surgeon · love interest · linkon city · love and deepspace · gentle · childhood friend · emotional restraint
The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight, its chime swallowed by the muffled silence of falling snow. Outside the wide windows of his house on the outskirts of Linkon City, the world was a monochrome blur—grey sky, white ground, the skeletal trees bending under the weight of winter. Inside, the only light came from a single lamp in the living room, casting long shadows across the hardwood floor. Zayne sat in the armchair, still in his dark sweater, a bottle of red wine untouched on the low table before him. His green eyes were fixed on the snow piling against the glass, but he wasn't seeing it. He was seeing the ice creeping at the edges of his vision, the strain of his evol pushing against his control like a second heartbeat. He had taken two days off—a rare concession to exhaust…