Chapter One: Born in Fire, Reborn in Flesh
POV: Aria (Selene Blackthorn Reborn)
Fire.
It was always fire.
Even before the screaming began, I remembered the way my skin peeled like silk from a blade how flames danced across my arms like lovers turned cruel. The scent of sacred incense mixed with charred flesh. Moonlight wept overhead, but no goddess came to save me. Only betrayal. Only silence.
And then nothing.
No pain. No body. No breath. Just darkness, and the whisper of a vow.
"I will return. And I will make them pay."
That promise carried me through the void. Through centuries or second until the world rushed back with a vicious gasp.
I choked on air like it was poison. My eyes flew open to stone ceilings and cold sweat. I was alive. Reborn. But not as Selene Blackthorn, the last Moon Priestess.
I was Aria Nightshade now. And I was in the enemy's den.
"She's waking up," a voice murmured, male and deep. Rough as gravel.
I sat up too fast. The room spun, nausea curled in my gut, and my body this body felt strange. Heavier. Fuller. I stared at my hands, ivory-pale, moonlit. A crescent-shaped birthmark shimmered just beneath my collarbone. My skin glowed faintly. Too radiant for a rogue. Too divine for a prisoner.
I heard bootsteps. Then him.
Alpha Lucian Draven.
The man whose father burned me alive.
He stood at the doorway like a phantom carved from obsidian tall, brutal, shoulders like carved stone. Black hair spilled over his forehead. His blood-red eyes pinned me like a crucifix. And though I couldn't read his expression, my body remembered him.
No Selene's body remembered.
His scent hit me like a war drum: spice, iron, cedar, and smoke. My thighs clenched without permission. The air thickened with something dangerous. Something primal.
"Get out," he growled to the others. "Now."
The attendants scurried. I remained frozen on the bed, my fingers gripping the sheets, the pulse between my legs already throbbing from proximity alone.
He stepped inside. Locked the door. The tension coiled so tight I could barely breathe.
"You're awake," he said, voice like silk over a dagger. "I thought you'd take longer to come back from the brink."
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
He came closer, boots silent against the stone floor. I didn't move, but my body betrayed me in subtle ways a hitch of breath, a quickening pulse. He noticed everything.
"Do you remember what happened to you?"
Which part? The fire? The betrayal? Or the fact that I came back to haunt you?
"I was attacked," I said, adopting the voice of a frightened rogue. "I don't remember anything after that."
A lie, but close enough to pass.
He crouched in front of me. His eyes flicked to my neck, my face, my wrists. His gaze was clinical but charged, like he was memorizing every inch of me.
"You were found half-dead on the edge of our border. No scent. No pack bond. And your aura…" He paused. "It was strange."
Strange. Divine, he meant.
He leaned closer. His breath brushed my cheek. "Tell me, Aria Nightshade… who are you really?"
I blinked slowly. "Just a rogue."
His hand reached for my face. Callused fingers grazed my jaw, lingering near the corner of my mouth. My breath caught. Heat pooled low in my belly. The air pulsed with magic and something hungrier.
"That's what I thought," he said, but his tone was skeptical. "Still…"
His fingers trailed lower down my throat, across my collarbone, to where the sheet dipped dangerously close to my breast. His eyes followed. His nostrils flared.
"Even rogues don't smell like starlight."
I swallowed. "Are you always this… invasive?"
A flicker of amusement curved his mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Only with things that don't add up."
His thumb brushed over the edge of my breast. Just a stroke. Barely skin. But my nipples hardened instantly. My thighs pressed together in silent betrayal.
He felt it. Knew it. Smirked.
"Interesting."
I slapped his hand away, more for myself than for him. My voice came sharp. "Don't touch me."
His gaze burned hotter. "You're in my territory. I'll touch what's mine."
"Then I'm not yours."
Something primal shifted in him. His eyes darkened, his jaw clenched, and he surged forward. One knee on the bed. One hand beside my hip. His body caged mine like a wall of flame.
"You will be," he whispered.
Then he leaned in and
Bit me.
Not a full mark. Just a graze. His fangs skimmed my neck, drawing a drop of blood. My head fell back with a gasp, spine arching. Heat surged through me wild, involuntary. My core throbbed. My skin felt too tight.
He didn't kiss me. He inhaled. Groaned.
Then backed away, eyes blazing.
"You smell like moonlight and fucking prophecy."
And then he was gone. Door slammed.
I sat there, shaking. Wanting. Furious. Wet.
Lucian Draven didn't recognize me.
Not yet.
But he would.
And when he did... I would make him kneel.