002 | The Morning That Shouldn’t Exist

She woke up tasting blood that wasn’t there.

Aria’s eyes snapped open.
For one disorienting second she was still on the forest floor — silver burning through her veins, three shadows standing over her, the moon watching like it had already moved on.

Then the sensation vanished.

No blood.
No open wounds.
No cold dirt under her back.

Just a thin mattress. A rough blanket. And the soft gray light of early morning leaking through a curtain she hadn’t seen in three years.

Her heart kicked once. Hard.

She sat up too fast. The room tilted. Her hands flew to her ribs, her stomach, her thigh — searching for the holes that should have been there.

Smooth skin.
No scars.
No pain.

Only the faint, almost forgotten smell of the orphanage soap she used to hate.

Aria stared at her own hands like they belonged to someone else.

Smaller. Softer. Younger.

“No…” The word came out broken.

She scrambled out of bed, nearly falling when her legs felt too light, and stumbled to the cracked mirror above the tiny sink.

The girl who stared back at her was eighteen.

Not the twenty-one-year-old who had bled out under the moon.
Not the broken thing that had whispered a final curse.

Just Aria Voss on the morning of her eighteenth birthday.

The calendar on the wall confirmed it. Same faded numbers. Same red circle she had drawn around the date in her first life, thinking something good might finally happen.

Nothing good had happened.

Until now.

Aria gripped the edge of the sink. Her reflection looked pale and wide-eyed, but underneath the shock something colder was already rising.

She remembered dying.
She remembered the exact second her heart stopped.
She remembered the promise she made while the world went dark.

And yet here she was.

Breathing.

Younger.

Given a second chance she hadn’t asked for… but would not waste.

A soft knock on the door made her flinch.

“Aria? You awake, sweetheart?” Mother Helen’s voice. Warm. Tired. Exactly the same. “Happy birthday, dear. There’s some people downstairs asking for you.”

Aria’s pulse jumped.

In her first life, no one had come for her on this day.

She forced her voice to sound normal.

“I’ll be right there.”

She dressed in a daze — same plain clothes, same old sneakers — while her mind raced in sharp, clean lines.

Don’t act crazy.
Don’t tell anyone.
Watch. Listen. Survive long enough to understand the rules of this second life.

When she stepped into the hallway, the orphanage smelled exactly as she remembered: boiled vegetables, old wood, and the faint lemon cleaner they used on Sundays. The familiarity made her stomach twist.

Downstairs, Mother Helen stood near the front door with two men in black suits. They looked wrong here — too expensive, too silent, like they had stepped out of a different world.

One of them looked directly at her.

“Aria Voss?”

She nodded once.

“You’re to come with us. Mr. Dominic Vale has claimed you as his daughter.”

The name hit her like a slap.

Dominic Vale.

In her first life she had only learned that name years later, when it was already useless. The most feared man in the city. Mafia don. Billionaire. The father who had never bothered to find her… until now.

Mother Helen looked anxious. “They have legal papers, Aria. I… I think you should go with them.”

Aria stared at the two men. Then at the open door behind them. Morning light spilled across the cheap floor.

For a moment the soft version of her — the girl who used to hope — wanted to ask questions. Wanted to hesitate.

The version that had died under the moon simply stepped forward.

“I’m ready.”

They led her out to a black car that looked more expensive than the entire orphanage. The door closed with a soft, heavy sound that felt final.

Aria sat in the back seat, spine straight, hands folded in her lap so no one would see them trembling.

Outside the window, the city began to move. Familiar streets. Familiar buildings. A life she had already lived once and lost.

Three years.

That was the distance between this morning and the night she died.

Three years to become someone the old pack would no longer recognize.
Three years to turn every soft part of herself into a blade.
Three years to make sure that when she saw Kael Nightshade again, she would no longer be the girl who begged the moon for mercy.

This time, she would be the one who decided who got to keep breathing.

Aria closed her eyes and let the cold settle deeper into her bones.

Welcome back, she told herself.

Now survive long enough to make it hurt.