The woman who chose herself.

Selina’s POV

He walked out like he’d just claimed victory.

Like what happened in that restroom was a game played on his terms.

Like I was still the girl he broke — and not the woman who rose from that ruin.

But I wasn’t shaking because of him.

Not entirely.

I was shaking because he reminded me of the girl I used to be — the one who used to believe in fate, in bonds, in promises made beneath blood moons. The one who had loved him enough to forgive almost anything. Almost.

And that girl?

She was dead. I buried her five years ago — right after he rejected me in front of a hundred watching eyes and called it duty.

I stood in the mirror far too long, dress adjusted, lips re-applied, expression sharpened to steel. But no matter how perfect the image, I knew what was underneath — heat, guilt, rage. And the unmistakable ache of betrayal.

The worst part?

My body still remembered him like a secret.

Like a language I swore never to speak again but still knew by heart.

By the time I walked out of the restroom and back into the gallery, I was Selina again — CEO, alpha-born, untouchable.

No one noticed a thing. They never did.

But Vera did. She caught me just as I passed the bar.

“Lucas?” she asked, her voice low, her expression neutral.

I didn’t blink. “Handled.”

Her brow twitched. “Handled, or… contained?”

I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.

Back at the penthouse that night, I moved like a ghost.

I checked Damon’s room first — the way I always did, no matter the hour, no matter how tired or torn I was. He slept soundly, one leg kicked out from under the covers, arms curled around his favorite plush wolf, the one he pretended he’d outgrown.

I sat beside him, brushed his curls from his forehead.

“You’re why I’m still breathing,” I whispered. “You’re why I’m still fighting.”

He stirred, but didn’t wake.

I left his room with a heaviness in my chest I couldn’t name.

In my room, I poured wine I wouldn’t drink and stared out the glass wall that framed the city like a painting — all steel and hunger and broken promises.

And I let myself feel it.

All of it.

The way his voice had curled under my skin.

The way his touch had opened every scar I’d stitched closed.

The way I hated him and still, still, felt a part of me reaching toward him like gravity.

I’d built a fortress to keep him out.

But tonight, he walked right through the gates — not with force, but with memory.

And worse, with truth.

He said I’d never be sated.

And he wasn’t wrong.

No one else fit. No one else filled the void he left. And no matter how many walls I built, my body knew the difference.

But that didn’t mean I forgave him.

It meant I needed to protect myself more fiercely than ever.

It meant I couldn’t afford to bleed for him again.

I opened my laptop. Called up Vera’s secure channel.

“We need to move the clinic records,” I said.

Vera blinked into the camera. “I thought he believed the lie.”

“He believed it because I let him. But now? He’s hunting again.”

“Understood. I’ll reroute everything.”

“And get me eyes on the Blackwood holdings. All of them. I want to know where he’s vulnerable.”

“Are we escalating this to war?”

I paused.

Then: “No. Not yet. But we’re preparing for one.”

Two hours later, after planning corporate maneuvers like war strategies, I slipped into bed — alone — and closed my eyes.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t sleep, either.

Because every time I drifted, I heard his voice again.

You trembled for me. You’ll burn for me next.

I rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow.

Not from shame.

From fury.

Because he thought he still held the leash. Because he thought claiming me once made me his forever.

Because he thought I was still the woman waiting for him to choose me. But I wasn’t.

I was the woman who chose herself.

And that meant the next time Lucas Blackwood reached for me — with fingers, with fire, with fate — he’d find a blade waiting.

The next morning…I wore red.

Not subtle, not demure — crimson like warning, velvet like a dare. I walked into my boardroom at 9 a.m. and delivered a presentation that left half my competitors sweating and the other half sending apologies before I’d even opened my mouth.

Lucas wasn’t the only one who knew how to play power like a violin.

I made three executive decisions. I fired someone for incompetence. I renegotiated a deal I’d already won, just to prove I could make it better.

I smiled all morning.

No one saw the fire beneath it.

At lunch, I stepped into my car and told my driver to take me downtown — not to the penthouse, not to the spa, not to any place where I could escape.

I went to the rooftop of Blackridge Tower — my building.

I stood alone, high above the world, wind pulling at my hair, and I whispered into the sky:

“I’m not coming back to you.”

Then I added, “But I’m not letting you go either.”

Because I couldn’t. Not yet. Not while the bond still burned.

Back home, I found Damon building cities from blocks and destroying them like a god with sticky fingers.

“Mommy!” he beamed.

I sat with him.

Built with him.

Let him talk about dragons and school and the boy who stole his pencil and how he might be faster than a cheetah if he trained hard enough.

And I realized…

This — he — was the only bond I would never question.

Later, when he was asleep again, I opened my messages.

One from Lucas.

No text.

Just a photo.

Of the night sky.

The moon. Full. Watching.

A reminder.

Of us.

Of what we were.

Of what we still might be.

I didn’t reply.

But I didn’t delete it either.