LOGINLUCEN'S POV
The city glowed beneath my office window, all steel and glass and false calm. One-hundred floors up, the world looked orderly. Predictable. Controlled.That illusion shattered every time I looked down. I held the tablet loosely in my hand, but my grip tightened unconsciously as the image refreshed. Elric... leaning against the lamppost across the street, hands shoved into his coat pockets, head tilted up just enough to track the building’s entrance.Waiting.Again.ELI'S POV“I left the contract,” I said, lifting it slightly, my voice steadier than I felt. “It ended.”“That’s not what I asked,” Lucen snapped, his voice cutting through the room like a blade barely held in its sheath.The air pressed in on me. Too heavy. Too full of him. “You weren’t there,” I shot back before I could stop myself.The words hung between us...sharp, raw, undeniable.For a second, something flickered in his expression. Not anger. Not dominance. Something closer to… guilt. But it vanished just as quickly. “You think that gives you the right to disappear?” he demanded, stepping closer. “To leave my house like you were never there?”I took the spare copy of the mating bone breaking agreement. My grip tightened around the paper in my hand. “I didn’t disappear,” I said, quieter now. “I ended what was already over.”His jaw clenched. “…over?” he repeated, like the word itself offended him.I swallowed, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “That’s what it was, Lucen. A contrac
ELI'S POVThe night felt wrong long before anyone said it out loud. I knew it the moment the sky turned darker than usual outside my window, the way the silence in the halls stretched too far, too thin… like something was missing. Or maybe someone.Lucen.I sat at the edge of the bed, hands resting on my lap, staring at the door like it might open if I just waited long enough. Like he would walk in the same way he always did... unannounced, composed, carrying that quiet authority that filled every space without trying.He was supposed to come tonight... that was what I had been bracing for. I am not hoping… no, I wouldn’t call it that. I wasn’t hoping. I was preparing for the end, conversation we both knew was coming. The one that would strip everything down to what it had always been... a contract. An agreement. A transaction that had reached its expiration. Vulk was probably already adjusted by now.I thought he would come in, look at me with that unreadable expression, and say it p
LUCEN'S POVThe door had barely finished echoing shut behind the last of them when the silence settled again... thick, heavy, almost intimate.I didn’t let go of him. Not after the kiss. Not after the way his lips had softened under mine, the way his hands had instinctively clutched at my suit like I was something solid he could anchor himself to. That reaction… it lingered. It stayed with me longer than it should have.”Lucen,” Eli murmured after the kiss.Eli was still close. Too close.Close enough that I could feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing, still trying to steady itself. Close enough that the faint trace of his scent... jasmine, gardenia and something softer tonight, dampened by tears and fountain water... curled into my lungs and refused to leave.Dangerous. I should’ve stepped back. I didn’t. Instead, my hand remained at his waist, firm, grounding. Keeping him exactly where he was.Mine. The thought came uninvited. I exhaled slowly, forcing it down before it could take
ELI'S POVHis hand didn’t let go. Even after the kiss or even after the music swelled again and the world slowly returned around us like nothing had just shifted.His hand stayed wrapped around mine... firm, warm, unyielding. And that… that alone was enough to unsettle me more than anything else that happened tonight. Because Lucen didn’t hold on to things. Not people. Not me. Not beyond what was necessary. And yet... Here he was. Still holding on mine. At some point, I want to believe this is all real. But I'm afraid that it is just wishful thinking... because I'm not in Lucen's side as myself but a temporary replacement to my brother.The doors to the ballroom opened, and the noise crashed back into me... music, laughter, the low murmur of conversations layered beneath chandeliers and gold light. The same place that had suffocated me earlier now felt… different. Not welcoming. Not comforting.But different because this time I wasn’t alone. Lucen didn’t slow as we stepped in. If anyt
LUCEN'S POVFor you.The words left my mouth with a simplicity that betrayed nothing of the storm beneath it. But there was nothing simple about this. Not anymore.I watched him as he held the suit… the silver catching the faint garden lights, reflecting against his damp skin, against the tear tracks he thought I hadn’t noticed. His fingers trembled slightly against the fabric, careful... too careful, like he was afraid it would disappear if he held it too tightly. Like everything else in his life. My chest tightened. Annoying. Unnecessary. Dangerous.“Change,” I said, my tone steady, controlled. “We’re not finished yet.”That was easier. Command. Structure. Distance. It was how I kept everything in place.Eli blinked, pulling his gaze away from the suit to look at me. His eyelashes were wet, clumping together in small, dark fans, and his lower lip quivered... a flicker of vulnerability that sent a jolt of alarm through my system. There was something in his eyes… something softer now.
ELI'S POV The marble of the fountain’s edge was an icy, unforgiving anchor, biting into my thighs through the layers of my sodden, soaked trousers. I didn’t move. I didn’t want to. The ballroom behind me...a cavernous space of gold leaf, crystal chandeliers, and the stifling fragrance of expensive perfumes—felt like a reality I had been evicted from. Everything had dulled. The music, a frantic, swirling waltz, had bled into a rhythmic thrum that pulsed behind my eyes, distorted and distant. I felt like I'm underwater, trapped in the freezing depths of my own quiet misery, while the world above danced on, oblivious. My fingers, pale and trembling, traced the surface of the fountain water. Ripples. They were small, pathetic things that vanished as quickly as they were born. Just like my time here. Just like the phantom status I’d been granted. "Three months," I whispered, the words catching on the jagged edges of a sob. The count was a death sentence I had signed the moment I stepp
ELI'S POVThe car that brought me to Lucen’s estate was silent. The driver sat rigid in the front seat, a man carved from stone, his eyes fixed forward, his scent muted to the point of deliberate erasure. He didn’t speak. He didn’t acknowledge me. I wasn’t a passenger; I was cargo.I wore black for
LUCEN'S POVThe bass was a physical thing, it was the sound of power, of decadence, of our world. Here, in the gilded cage of "The Howl's” VIP room, being an Alpha wasn’t just a biological roll of the dice; it was divinity.We were the gods of this small, sweating universe, and the air was thick wi
LUCEN'S POV“I can’t guarantee I won’t take another Omega,” I’d said, and the way his face had gone chalk-white still burned in my memory. How pedestrian, that he thought those words were a threat.Now, as he sat motionless, I let my eyes roam over him. His dark curls framed a face too soft for the
ELI'S POVMy legs felt like gelatin as I stepped out of the shadows, the heavy book forgotten at my feet. The words I’d just overheard looped like a broken record in my head... Lucen’s arrangements, the terrified omegas, the bruises, the payments. The floorboards creaked beneath me, and Lucen’s hea







