Chapter Four- Amelia

My lungs burned. My legs felt like they’d been replaced with lead. I’d ducked down three side streets, cut through an alley, and slipped into a narrow lane where the noise of the market couldn’t follow.

It should have been safe here.

But it wasn’t.

I could feel them.

Not footsteps, not breathing — something deeper. Like invisible threads tied from my chest to each of theirs, pulling me toward them no matter how badly I wanted to run the other way.

“Don’t come any closer.”

My voice came out sharper than I expected, echoing in the empty street. I spun around, and there they were.

The golden-eyed one stood in front — tall, solid, like nothing could move him if he didn’t want to be moved. His gaze burned straight through me, and my pulse stumbled.

The silver-eyed one leaned against a wall a few steps back, watching me like he was studying a puzzle only he could solve.

And behind them, a few paces away but somehow still the center of everything, was the third. Older. Dark hair falling into his eyes. Calm in a way that wasn’t comforting — the kind of calm that came from knowing he could control anything around him.

“Amelia,” the dark-haired one said, and I felt my name ripple through me like a touch.

I took a step back. “How do you know my name?”

The golden-eyed one answered without hesitation. “Because you’re ours.”

A laugh — harsh and wrong — slipped from me before I could stop it. “You don’t even know me.”

“Not yet,” the silver-eyed one said, his voice low and smooth. “But we will.”

The air between us thickened. My hands itched with the same heat from before, the power building under my skin, begging to be let out. I didn’t know if I wanted to use it to shove them away… or pull them closer.

“I’m not yours,” I said, even though the words felt like a lie in my mouth.

The older one — Dimitri, though I didn’t know his name yet — tilted his head slightly, like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear.

“Run if you want,” he said softly. “We’ll still find you.”

And the terrifying part was… I believed him.

Dimitri pov:

I’d known her scent long before today.

The first time was years ago, barely a whisper on the wind while I was hunting near the old river crossing. I’d followed it until I found a girl — small, bruised, staring out a cracked attic window like she was watching the world from the wrong side of a cage.

Her hair was shorter then. Her eyes just as fierce. Even from that distance, the bond had burned through me like wildfire. I’d wanted to go to her, break the door down, rip apart whoever had put that hollow look in her gaze.

But I couldn’t. Not then.

We were still under the council’s leash, still bound by rules that would’ve gotten her killed if I claimed her too soon. So I made a choice.

I left.

The scent faded. The bond quieted to a dull ache. And I told myself I’d imagined it.

Until today.

Now she was here, standing in front of us, all grown and thrumming with power she didn’t know how to control. And I could see it in her — the fight, the mistrust, the way she was bracing for hurt like it was the only thing she’d ever been given.

Mateo’s bond was loud, all heat and instinct. Jason’s was sharp, calculating, already planning how to keep her. Mine was older. Heavier. I’d carried the weight of her absence for years, and I had no intention of feeling it again.

“We’ll still find you,” I told her, and I meant it. I didn’t care if she ran to the ends of the earth. This time, I wasn’t letting her vanish.

Jason shifted slightly behind me, restless. Mateo looked ready to lunge. But they both waited, because they knew I was the one calling the pace.

She turned and disappeared down the alley, her scent trailing like a challenge.

Mateo growled low. “You’re just going to let her walk away?”

“For now,” I said. “She’s lived in fear too long. If we take her by force, she’ll see us as the same as whoever’s kept her.”

Jason’s silver gaze met mine. “And when she runs?”

I smiled — slow, cold, certain. “She can run as far as she likes. The bond will always bring her back to us.”