Lyra had spent the entire night turning it over in her head.
Weighing the consequences, the implications, the shame, if she actually went through with it.
But in the end, none of that mattered. This was her only path forward. Her only way to level up.
'I felt it that day… like something inside me woke up. Something ancient. Dormant. And for a moment… it was alive.'
She was thinking about that massage.
That absurd, inappropriate, utterly mind-scrambling massage Rae had given her.
She hadn't even meant to enjoy it, yet her body had betrayed her.
Worse, it had changed her. She'd felt a surge of power she'd never known before.
A flicker of something deep, strange, and utterly foreign.
And now, it was tempting her. Whispering promises in the dark.
She had trained for years. Studied, fought, honed her aura. But nothing, nothing, had ever unlocked that sensation before.
It had to be the key. She could feel it.
'No… I know it is.'
