CHAPTER 82: CHAPTER 82: IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN YOU

Selene’s POV ~

The second I heard him, it felt like something snapped inside me.

My mate.

My lungs forgot how to breathe.

My heart, the traitorous, cursed thing, slammed so violently against my ribs, I swore it would tear itself free and confess everything. I stood completely still, but inside, everything shook.

He was looking for me. He didn’t know. But he was looking.

And I—gods—was standing right in front of him.

A thousand thoughts collided in my head, none of them staying long enough for me to grab onto. I could feel the blood draining from my face, the edges of my vision flickering.

But I forced my expression to stay neutral. I’d had a year to prepare for this moment. And yet, I felt as though I were standing at the edge of that damn cliff again.

My voice—when it came—was barely a whisper, but it didn’t shake. I wouldn’t let it.

"What happened to her?" I asked, trying to be as emotionless as possible.

He didn’t answer at first.

His gaze had dropped, the cold mask on his face softening just enough to reveal something raw underneath.

"She fell," he said finally, his voice quieter than before. "From the cliff near our pack border."

My breath caught. That place. That memory. His scent in the air, the wind screaming around me, the bond tearing at me as I leapt to my death.

Or at least, that’s what they thought.

"We searched for days," he continued, his jaw tightening. "But we couldn’t find her. Not even her body. There was no trace left of her."

There was pain in his eyes now. But I had never seen Aeron like this, definitely not in the past, and how much change in a year, I have no idea.

I swallowed hard, trying to push the storm inside me back down where it belonged.

"And what if..." I said slowly, testing my own limits, "What if she did die?"

A moment of silence.

"What if that’s why she never came back?"

For a heartbeat, everything stopped.

Then he snapped.

"No."

It wasn’t a growl nor a shout, but it was filled with certainty.

"She’s still alive," he said, like he was declaring law. "I can feel her. My heart can feel her."

His eyes were locked somewhere far away now, as if he was speaking to himself. Not to me. It felt more like he was speaking to himself, like a chant. A truth he had clung to for too long. The only thing keeping him sane.

And I—I couldn’t breathe.

Because I was the very thing he was trying to keep alive.

I was the ghost he refused to bury.

I was the mate he refused to mourn.

And standing here now, hearing his voice crack, watching his pain slip past the mask he wore so carefully—I didn’t know what to do with it. I had spent a year hating the bond. Cursing it. Escaping it. Tearing myself away from everything it stood for. And yet...

Why did part of me ache to be held in his voice like that?

Why did hearing that he never stopped searching make something warm and dangerous bloom in my chest?

"No," I told myself viciously. Don’t you dare feel anything.

I had done what I had to do. I had left because there was no life in that world for me. Because they would have torn me apart for what I was. Because freedom had never been an option for me.

I couldn’t think.

I felt sweat sliding down my spine in slow, trembling rivers. Gods, I was suffocating, and it wasn’t from heat. It was from the weight of him. From the way his eyes clung to my silence, waiting for me to speak.

I forced myself to breathe, barely parting my lips as I prepared to say something just to break the tension.

But then—

Boom.

The sound exploded from the floor below us. I couldn’t react. There was a loud ringing in my ears.

Another blast followed. Then another. Each one louder than the previous one, until the whole building seemed to shudder beneath our feet.

My heart slammed into my ribs.

Then came the thick smoke, curling up from beneath the doorframe like a serpent made of fog. One by one, like rhythmic death, bombs began to erupt through the building. I could hear the chaos rising. And I knew he had heard it too.

And then—

Crash!

The window beside us shattered, and something clattered to the floor at our feet.

Gas bomb. I recognized it immediately as a smile pulling on my lips. Finally.

A hiss filled the room. I didn’t wait for even a second before leaping out of my chair.

My instincts kicked in. My body remembered what my mind was still trying to process. My rescue has come; now it is time to leave this forsaken and shitty place that was manipulating my emotions.

But before I could make it past the gate in the thick smoke, that was enough to blind even an Alpha.

A powerful hand shot out of the smoke and grabbed me, fingers clamping around my wrist with unrelenting force. Before I could twist away, I was slammed back against the wall, hard enough to rattle the stone.

I choked on a gasp, not from the impact but from the sudden jolt that sent a shiver down my spine.

One touch, and the damn mate bond flares up like a river waiting for someone to finally drink from it.

It burned through every inch of me, raw and alive and unforgiving. And I knew he felt it too. I knew it by the way his breath caught. By the way, his entire body stiffened.

And it did not take long before the growl slipped past his throat before he could stop it.

"Mine."

He declared it, and I felt myself being transported back in time—to the first time he had said those words. I don’t know why, but my eyes suddenly stung with tears.

The tears didn’t come because I was emotional or happy that he recognized me. It was more out of resentment...like, how could he just claim me? Calling me his, like he had every fucking right to, without even asking me.

A whole year has passed, and yet nothing has changed. It’s still the same. I’m still standing here, just like I was back then...with no say in it. No choice. No voice to decide whether I even want this mate bond or not.

I could feel his chest against mine, his hand still gripping my wrist, and his breath was right next to my mouth. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of it through the smoke. My heart was pounding like war drums. I was trembling.

"Let go," I whispered, wanting to remind him of his place, but it sounded weak even to my own ears.

Because something inside me wanted to run so far away from the world, where no one could find me.

His grip loosened—but only slightly.

Through the veil of smoke, I could see the outline of his face. His eyes burned like molten silver in grey, locked on mine, wide with disbelief and something that looked far too much like hope.

"You..." he whispered with desperation. "It’s you."