Aria’s POV

    I never should have agreed to this.

    b84 /b

    s.

    A day had passed since I smuggled Lucien into my bedroom, and already the walls felt too close, the air too heavy. My sanctuary–the one ce where I was untouchable–now carried his scent. It clung to the nkets I’d given him, faint traces of iron and smokeced with something wilder, something that stirred my wolf in ways I couldn’t name.

    He didn’t move much the first night. His body still fought the remnants of poison, his strength only beginning to return. But tonight, as the moonlight spilled through the window and brushed against his skin, I could see the way his chest rose stronger, steadier. His wolf was healing.

    And I hated the way that reassured me.

    I sat at my desk, pretending to sharpen des that didn’t need sharpening, while my eyes betrayed me–sliding toward him, drawn again and again to the golden gleam of his eyes. Even dimmed by exhaustion, they were fierce, catching every flicker of light like molten fire.

    He caught me staring once.

    I snapped my gaze away, jaw clenched, but my wolf betrayed me with the faintest thrum of interest, a restless energy in my blood. It was the same hum I’d felt in my dreams.

    Dreams that would not leave me alone.

    Last night I had seen us–him and me–standing at the edge of a battlefield, his hand gripping mine, our wolves circling each other like twin shadows. His voice had whispered my name, not the one the world knew, but something softer, buried deep, as if he had known me all along. I had woken with my heart hammering, my lips tingling with the ghost of a kiss that had never been.

    Even now, remembering it, heat pooled in my

    chest.

    I pressed the thought away, but Lucien spoke, his voice low, rough with something unspoken.

    “You’re restless.”

    I froze, then forced myself to nce at him. “You’re imagining things.”

    He shook his head, golden eyes narrowing as if he could see straight through me. “No. I can

    9:08 Frib, /bSep 12

    :

    feel it. The way your wolf shifts when you look at me. You dream, don’t you?”

    My throat tightened. He shouldn’t know that. He couldn’t.

    “You presume too much,” I said coldly.

    b84 /b

    s

    But his eyes softened, the hard Alpha edge giving way to something raw, something that stripped the air bare between us. “I know because I dream too. Of someone I lost.”

    The words struck like a de. I turned toward him fully, unable to stop myself. He leaned forward slightly, his body taut with restrained emotion, every muscle alive with it.

    “I had a mate,” he said, voice breaking on the edge of memory. “Or at least, I thought I did. She was my light, my anchor. And then she was gone. Taken from me. My wolf has never been the same.” His hand flexed against the nket, ws threatening to break through. “Every night I see her face in the fire. Every night I hear her scream.”

    Painnced through his words, so raw it made even my wolf still. I should have stayed silent, let him drown in his own grief. But instead, I found myself whispering, “What was her name?”

    He looked at me then, truly looked at me, and for a moment his eyes widened as if he saw something there–something he dared not believe. He didn’t say her name. He only swallowed hard, his voice shaking. “She had eyes like mine. And she never feared the dark.”

    The room was too quiet. My pulse thundered too loud in my ears. My wolf pressed against me, restless, uneasy, and I forced myself to stand, to put space between us.

    But the moment I turned, fragments tore through my mind.

    shes of gold. A hand sped in mine. A voice–his voice–calling me by a name that wasn’t Aria.

    I staggered, gripping the desk, breath shallow. It wasn’t a dream. Not entirely. My body remembered something my mind refused to yield.

    Lucien’s scent brushed against me as he rose unsteadily to his feet. His wounds were still raw, but he moved with Alpha determination, his wolf wing back control. He came close–too close–and I felt the heat of him at my back.

    “You felt it too,” he said, low, dangerous, not quite a question.

    I whipped around, my hooded cloak shifting with the motion. “Stay back.”

    But he didn’t move. His eyes burned, not with dominance, but with desperate need. “Tell me I’m wrong, Aria. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel the bond scratching at the

    9:08 Fri, Sep 12

    edges of your soul.”

    b84 /b

    s

    My lips parted, but no sound came. Because gods help me, I did feel it. Every breath I took near him stirred something buried, every nce at his golden eyes cracked another piece of the wall I had built around myself.

    I remembered Maeryn’s warning–Aedric was watching me. One misstep and everything would fall apart. Yet in this room, with Lucien’s wolf pressing against mine in invisible waves, it was as though the world beyond no longer existed.

    The dreams weren’t dreams. They were memories wing their way back into me. And Lucien…

    Lucien was the key.

    I took a step back, forcing air into my lungs, forcing control into my words. “Three days,” I said harshly. “Three days until the full moon. Stay alive, stay hidden, and then you leave. Whatever this is “I gestured sharply between us, trying to mask the tremor in my hand, “–it changes nothing.”

    He tilted his head, wolfish, dangerous, yet almost tender. “We’ll see.”

    The silence stretched, thick with the things neither of us dared say. I turned away first, retreating to the window, clutching the sill until my ws bit into the wood. The moon hung heavy above us, bright and using.

    And all I could think of was how wrong it felt to be standing apart.