เข้าสู่ระบบAuroraThump. Thump. Thump.My heart keeps a rhythm like it is practicing for something important. It presses against my ribs, impatient, curious, refusing to calm down. I notice it the same way I notice everything lately, like my body is a room I am walking through, touching the walls just to make sure they are real.Sophia stands in front of me with safety pins held between her teeth, brows pulled together in focus. She adjusts the back of my dress with careful fingers, tugging once, then again, checking the fall of the fabric like she is solving a puzzle. Her hands pause. She tilts her head. One more pin. Then she steps back.There it is. Her smile. The satisfied kind. The one that means she approves.I look down at myself. The dress feels heavier than I expected, not in a bad way. More like it carries meaning stitched into it. I smooth my palms over the fabric without thinking. My fingers tremble a little. I pretend not to notice.The door opens without warning.Anastasia barg
LucasI straighten my bowtie and tilt my head a fraction to the left, then back to center. The angle matters. Three degrees off and it looks careless. Two degrees too tight and it pinches the collar in a way that shows up in photos. I fix it once more and stop. Any more and it turns into a tell.The clock on the wall ticks every second. Not loud. Precise. I count six ticks, then ignore it. The mirror gives me what I expect. Grey suit, clean lines, shoulders sitting right. I don’t smile at myself. I don’t need to. This is correct.Reid sits on the couch with his small shoes lined up heel to heel, copying the way he saw me do it earlier. He glances up at me, then at Mikhail, then back at me. He nods once, like he’s approving a plan.Jake stands close, not hovering, just present. Big brother energy. He watches me adjust my cuffs and says nothing, which is how I know he’s satisfied. If something were wrong, he would already be fixing it.Alexei finally lifts Emmet, who immediately grabs h
AuroraI wake slowly, the way I do when my body feels heavier than usual because my body is still recovering from injuries, like sleep doesn’t want to let go yet. My eyes open to the familiar ceiling, the faint crack near the corner that I always count when I can’t rest. I never let anyone remove this crack, because it is the only imperfect thing in my perfect room...The thing which makes it look like part of my world.Morning light spills in through the window, soft enough that it doesn’t hurt.I stay still for a moment. Breathing. Listening.Then I turn my head.Lucas is on the floor beside the bed, stretched out on his side in his wolf form. His fur is dark against the wood, one ear tilted back like he fell asleep halfway through listening for danger. His chest rises and falls in an easy rhythm. One paw rests near the leg of the bed, close enough that it feels intentional, like even sleeping he needs to know where I am.A smile spreads across my face before I can stop it.Of course
LucasI slip past the outer edges of James’s mind the way you step into a room you have already been warned about. No announcement. No hesitation. Just presence.The moment I push through, the noise hits.Images do not arrive gently. They collide.Ruby is the first thing I see. Younger than I expected. Softer around the eyes. She is laughing, head tipped back, hair catching the light. James stands close to her in this memory, too close, watching her instead of the world. I notice the way his gaze clings, how it tightens when she looks away. Even here, even before everything breaks, possession hums beneath the surface.The memory shifts.Ruby is crying now. Her hands are shaking. James’s face stays calm, detached, like emotion is something he studies instead of feels. He tells her something. I cannot hear the words yet, but I feel their shape. Warning. Instruction. Control disguised as care.Then the scene fractures.I am standing somewhere dark, watching through James’s eyes. Rogues s
LucasThe pull reaches me before I consciously name it.It settles deep in my chest, quiet but unyielding, like a hand closing around my ribs and turning me in a specific direction. My wolf stirs at the sensation, not with strength, not with hunger, but with recognition. He is still weak, still recovering, and I do not lean on him. I do not ask him to lead. The bond does that on its own.Aurora.My body responds before my thoughts catch up. My feet shift. My shoulders angle away from the estate. The noise behind me fades into something distant and unimportant. I do not stop to explain. I do not stop to think about whether this makes sense. It does. That is enough.I start moving.Gravel crunches beneath my boots, the sound sharper than I like, but I keep going. My breathing stays controlled, not because I am calm, but because panic would slow me down. Every second matters now, even if I cannot fully explain what I am feeling, I have to trust my instincts.Footsteps fall in behind me,
AuroraI shift my wrist as far as the chain lets me. It is not enough to free myself. Just enough to remind my body that it still listens to me. Metal scrapes against metal, a thin sound that feels too loud in my head. James hears it. He always hears everything.“What have you planned for me?” I ask. I soften my voice on purpose, let it shake in places where it normally would not. “How long are you going to keep me here like this?”I drop my gaze after that. People read surrender faster when you stop looking at them. They fill in the rest on their own.James does not answer right away. He moves across the room instead. His boots brush over dust settled into the cracks of the floorboards. The fire in the old mantle pops softly. I count his steps without trying to. Four. Five. Six. He stops close enough that I can smell antiseptic and something metallic underneath it.“I am going to take you away from here,” he says. “Far from where you don’t belong.”I lift my eyes slowly. His face sta







