Aria
Waking up felt like dragging myself out of a lake I didn't remember falling into. For a few seconds, I didn't know what time it was or where my arms were supposed to be or why my chest felt tight. Then the world clicked back into place all at once — the ceiling, the window, the headache blooming behind my eyes like a warning flare.
Lucian.
His scent didn't just linger in the room. It lived in it. It sat heavy on my sheets, threaded itself into my hair, clung to the collar of the shirt I'd slept in as if he'd buried his face there. Not the usual Vale Lodge atmosphere — that calm, ancient wood smell the manor was built from — but the concentrated version of Lucian that felt too intimate.
Too deliberate.
I pushed the blankets off with more force than necessary and sat on the edge of the bed, breathing through my teeth.
This wasn't normal. He hadn't just walked past my room. He had been close. Too close. Maybe even inside the room, though I wasn't ready to let myself believe that. The memory of his words from last night slid through me like a blade:
"It is stronger than the air in my lungs."
I flinched — actually flinched — as if someone had spoken behind me. My throat tightened. I pressed a shaking hand there, feeling the faint heat from where his mouth had been.
This wasn't just some mistake made in anger or grief or whatever it was he thought he felt for me. If his Wolf meant those words, if what he said was the truth and not a crack in judgment… everything I'd been holding together for Lyra was hanging by a thread.
My hands were trembling vigorously.
I stumbled into the shower, turned it on too hot, and scrubbed until my neck stung. Every time the water hit my skin, I imagined washing off his breath, the heat of him, the scent he'd left like a brand.
If he regretted the kiss, I could survive that.
If he didn't… I don't know if I'd be able to handle it.
Some part of him believed I belonged to him…
Lyra's life — her whole future — was in danger. So also was mine.
By the time I stepped out, wrapped in a towel and shaking from more than the steam, someone knocked softly at the door.
"Mom?"
Lyra's voice. Light, but thin. Too thin.
I dragged on jeans and a sweater, pulled my expression into something that felt like a smile, and opened the door.
"Good morning, Luna," I said, injecting a teasing lilt to distract from the dread sitting in my chest. "Ready to pretend we're normal?"
She tried to laugh. It came out like a breath caught on a thread. She looked pale — not sick, just drained, like her energy was bleeding out of her. Her shoulders slouched in a way I'd never seen before.
"Alpha Lucian says I shouldn't go anywhere alone today," she said, trying so hard to sound important. "He said I… need an anchor."
Of course he did.
"He wants someone watching you," I said gently, because sugar-coating anything these days felt like lying. "And who gets the honor?"
"Elias." She nodded toward the hallway.
A weird sense of relief washed through me, warming the space behind my ribs. Elias — quiet, steady, patient Elias — was the best possible option.
"Oh, that's perfect," I said honestly. "He's… good. In ways a lot of people here aren't."
Something in her face softened, like she'd been holding her breath since she woke up.
"He told me I didn't have to pretend," she whispered, eyes drifting toward the tall, silent figure at the end of the hall. "He said he can feel it when I'm overwhelmed even when I don't say anything. He just… sees me."
Something tightened in my throat. The way she said that — the relief in her voice — made me want to pull her into a hug and never let her go.
"You deserve to be seen," I murmured. "Remember that."
I walked past her before I said something that would make her worry about me instead.
But God, his scent was still on me. I couldn't escape it.
*********
Lucian
Aria's scent hit me before I even entered the room. jasmine, warmth, panic — the exact combination that had filled the hallway after she fled from me. I couldn't focus on anything. Not the ledgers, not the council agendas, not the numbers twisting on the page like they were mocking me.
All I could see was her face when she said that word:
Mistake.
Every rational part of me said to let it go. To bury the feeling until it suffocated. But something inside me — something not entirely rational — kept pacing under my skin.
I needed control. I needed order.
Lyra was the priority.
I found Elias in the gym, stripped to the waist, moving like someone who could wearily carry the whole Pack without ever complaining about the weight.
"Elias," I called out. "Take point on Lyra today."
He didn't react at first. He finished the exchange with his sparring partner, ducked a hit, landed one, then turned with a slight frown.
"The female guard on rotation is qualified."
"That's not what I'm asking," I said. "Her bond is unstable. She's overwhelmed. You ground her."
His expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes — not hesitation, not confusion.
Understanding.
"You will track her energy," I continued. "Her moods. Anything that shifts."
He nodded once, the acceptance immediate.
But something tightened in me at the way he moved — purposeful, concerned, protective.
Not possessive.
Not desire.
But a devotion that felt older than the ceremony.
The wolf in me snarled. Heat tore through my chest in a quick, sharp snap.
I shut it down. Hard.
Not now.
—————
Later that evening
Mother's study smelled like expensive parchment and the kind of perfume women wore when they wanted the room to remember them. She didn't even glance up when I entered.
"Lucian," she said, still writing. "Your timing is excellent. I've prepared the Council notes for —"
"I'm not naming a Regent."
The pen stopped mid-stroke.
She set it down with care, then raised her head. Her eyes were sharp, calculating, unreadable.
"Don't do this," she said softly, as if speaking to a child on the verge of a tantrum. "Your father's death left a vacuum. You cannot fill it alone. Your Luna is not ready. The Pack needs stability."
"This isn't about the Pack," I said.
Her lips shifted — not into a smile, but something colder.
"You sound like Rowan," she said. "Always insisting emotion and leadership could coexist."
The temperature in the room dropped.
She stood, moved with slow, practiced elegance to the wall, and pressed her palm to a hidden panel. A safe clicked open.
"Your father never loved me," she said, not bothering to hide the bitterness this time. "I was the price of a treaty. He gave his heart to another woman long before I came along."
Her fingers curled around a black velvet box.
"He spent thirty years mourning her. Thirty years weakened. Distracted. You know what that cost him."
I did. I saw his body. I smelled the blood.
"And now," she said, turning toward me, "you are walking the same path. Aria Hale is not your destiny. She is a liability you cannot afford."
I opened my mouth to speak — I don't know what I planned to say — but something on her desk caught my eye.
A ledger.
Old. Worn. Half-open.
A single six-figure sum circled in red ink.
Two letters scribbled beneath it:
E.C.
My heart stuttered.
My wolf bared its teeth.
That number wasn't a payment.
It was a cover-up.
A secret.
Something dangerous enough that even she didn't want it fully in the open.
The safe clicked again. She was returning.
I stepped back before she turned.
The room suddenly felt too small.
The lie was bigger than I imagined.
And older.
Much more older.