Blood And Asphalt

ARIA'S POV Damon didn’t ask me to follow him.He dragged me. Literally.One second I was standing there, trying to make sense of the whole bloody werewolf WWE match I’d just witnessed, with a crazy humanoid chasing after me and the next, his hand clamped around my arm like a steel trap.“Hey—HEY! I can walk!” I snapped, stumbling behind him as he stormed down the alley.“Good,” he growled, not slowing down. “Walk faster.”“Excuse you? Who the hell died and made you—”“Aria.”The way he said my name; flat, deep, and annoyed, it made every cell in my body pause for half a heartbeat.Then I remembered who I am.“Don’t use my government name like you pay my bills,” I said.His jaw twitched. Good. Stress him.He shoved open a metal door at the back of the auto shop, revealing a hallway that did NOT, emphasis on the NOT, belong in any normal garage. Dark walls, exposed brick, steel accents, the faint smell of smoke and motor oil…no, this was something else. I just couldn't place my finger

ARIA’S POVDarkness didn’t feel like fading. It felt like drowning.I moved upward mentally through the thick, suffocating nothing until sound finally returned; low growls, heavy breathing, and footsteps pacing around me like restless shadows.When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the Reapers’ compound anymore.Stone walls. Flickering torchlighs. And a boho earthy smell. A circle of men—no, wolves…staring like I was meat on their table.And in the center of them stood the biggest man I’d ever seen.Tall. Broad. With pale scars across his jaw. And eyes like burning coal.He stepped forward with the slow confidence of someone who owned the room, the people in it, and probably the entire world outside.“Good,” he said, with a voice deep enough to vibrate my bones. “You’re awake.”I pushed myself up on shaking elbows. “Uhm. Hi? You are—?”“Your father.”I blinked. Slow. Twice. “Yeah, no. Try again.”He smiled, and it wasn’t kind. “You look like her. The same eyes. The same fire. You are mine