CHAPTER 20 : LUCIAN WANTS ME BACK

“Ask him what he did the night you died.”

Lucian’s words stuck with me, echoing long after he left the archive. I stood there by the table, just staring at the execution record in my hands. The ink had faded a bit, but my name—Seren Vale—was still sharp. Execution authorization pending review. That date matched the day I died.

Behind me, Darius shifted against the wall, his shoulder stiff under his shirt. He’d refused to let the healer look at it, insisting he’d survived worse. I honestly wasn’t sure anymore if it was stubbornness or him hiding something from me.

“What did Lucian mean?” I said.

Darius’s jaw clenched. “He wants you to doubt me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he said, meeting my eyes. “It isn’t.”

That honesty unsettled me more than any lie could.

I folded the record and slid it into my pocket. “Then I guess I’ll have to find the answer myself.”

I brushed past him.

“Seren.” I stopped in the doorway, but didn’t turn.

“Don’t meet Lucian alone,” he called.

A bitter laugh slipped out. “You don’t get to give me orders anymore, Darius.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because you keep acting like just admitting something makes it acceptable.”

He went silent. I glanced back. He looked pale, but his gaze was locked on mine.

“I’m not asking you to trust Lucian,” he said quietly. “I’m asking you to remember he’s not the only one who knows how to lie in this fortress.”

That hit harder than it should have. Maybe because I already knew he was right. Maybe because I kept wondering if he meant Lucian—or himself.

“I’ll remember,” I said, then left him standing there.

Lucian was easy to find. Right before sunset, I spotted him in the western courtyard, beneath an archway, talking with a guard. When he saw me, he dismissed the man.

Neither of us spoke right away. Last time I’d stood this close to him, I believed he’d never hurt me. In my first life, Lucian had been my mate—the man whose promises made me feel safe, the one I trusted even when everyone else wanted to see me fall. When the accusations came and the pack turned on me, dragged me before the council, that trust became something they used against me.

I remembered searching the crowd for his face. I remembered the terrible emptiness when I couldn’t find him.

“You came,” Lucian said.

“You asked me to.”

His gaze lingered on my face, like he was searching for a ghost. “You look different.”

“I died.” The words came out sharper than I wanted.

Lucian flinched. For the first time since our reunion, he seemed to realize I was not the same woman who’d once run to him when she was afraid.

“I know you don’t remember everything like I do,” he said. “But we were happy once, Seren. Before all this.”

“Were we?” I asked.

His expression tightened. “You loved me.”

“I did.”

He stepped closer and I tensed, automatically. He noticed. Something hurt passed through his eyes.

“You used to let me hold you.”

“I used to believe you would protect me.”

“I would have.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

That question hung between us.

Lucian looked away. I’d imagined this conversation too many times—sometimes screaming, sometimes demanding explanations, sometimes hoping he’d confess without my asking. But now, facing him, what I really wanted was one honest answer.

“Why weren’t you there when they sentenced me?” I asked. “Why didn’t you speak up when they called me traitor? Why did I have to die believing you’d abandoned me?”

His throat worked. “I was deceived.”

“By who?”

“The council. People I trusted. They made me believe you’d betrayed the pack.”

“And you believed them?”

“I was shown evidence.”

“What evidence?”

He hesitated. There it was again. That pause, that careful weighing of words—the same hesitation I’d noticed when he mentioned the execution record.

I crossed my arms. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I can’t explain everything here.”

“Of course you can’t.”

“Seren, please.” His voice softened. “I know I made mistakes. I know I should have questioned it. But I never wanted you dead.”

“Yet I died.”

He looked like I’d struck him. Good. Maybe a little pain would help him understand what his excuses could never fix.

“I spent years thinking about you,” he whispered. “Wondered what I could’ve done differently. If I’d listened, if I’d stood beside you—maybe none of this would’ve happened.”

“Maybe.”

“I still love you.”

I stared at him. For one dangerous moment, the courtyard faded away. I remembered a younger Lucian, holding my hand beneath moonlit trees, promising I would never feel alone. I remembered laughter, stolen kisses—the naive certainty that love would protect us.

Those memories hadn’t died just because I had.

That was the cruel part. My heart still remembered tenderness, even when my mind remembered betrayal.

Lucian reached for my hand.

I didn’t move away—not right away. His fingers brushed mine, warm and familiar, and something old and half-buried stirred inside me.

“Give me another chance,” he said. “Let me prove the man who failed you isn’t the one standing here now.”

I looked at our hands. Part of me wanted to believe him. Not because his explanations made sense, but because believing meant our past hadn’t been entirely fake.

Then I remembered the execution platform. Cold restraints around my wrists. The crowd waiting for me to die.

I pulled my hand back. “You don’t get a second chance just because you regret losing me.”

“I understand.”

“No, Lucian. You want me to remember how much I loved you. You want me to pretend the past can be fixed, just because you finally admit you made mistakes.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“Then what are you asking?”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I’m asking you not to let Darius come between us.”

My stomach twisted.

There it was.

“Why drag Darius into this?”

“Because I’ve seen how he looks at you. He wants you close, but won’t explain why. He knows things about your death he won’t tell you. He keeps you under his protection and calls it concern.”

“He saved my life.”

“And how many times has he put you in danger?”

I stiffened.

Lucian pressed on. “Look at it: every time you discover something, Darius already knows part of the answer. Whenever you ask him a direct question, he gives you just enough truth to keep you by his side.”

His words were almost too familiar. I’d asked myself the same things.

Darius had hidden the burned parchment, kept secrets about my mother, concealed the execution record—and now Lucian claimed there was something else he’d done the night I died. But Darius had also taken a blade meant for me, shielded me when the beam fell, and begged me not to die again while barely conscious in my arms.

I never knew which memories frightened me more: the ones Darius refused to share, or the ones he revealed when he thought I couldn’t hear.

“Are you saying he’s manipulating me?” I asked.

“I think he knows how vulnerable you are. You’ve come back to a life you barely remember, and he’s using that confusion to make himself indispensable.”

“And you’re not?”

Lucian stilled.

“You ask me to trust you because we once loved each other,” I said. “You tell me Darius is dangerous because he keeps secrets, but you haven’t told me what evidence made you believe I was a traitor.”

He bristled. “That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I was trying to protect you.”

“From what?”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

I shook my head. “You keep telling me what you meant to do. I want to know what you actually did.”

His eyes darkened—regret, maybe. Or fear.

“I made mistakes,” he said. “But I never signed your death warrant.”

My heart lurched.

I hadn’t mentioned a signature. I hadn’t told him my suspicions about Darius and the execution authorization.

“How do you know there was a death warrant?” I asked.

Lucian’s expression changed—a brief flicker of alarm. The awareness that he’d slipped, that he’d revealed something unintentionally.

“You just said you never signed it,” I reminded him. “I didn’t ask if you had.”

“Seren—”

“Who told you about the warrant?”

He glanced toward the archway. “Someone who wanted the truth buried.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you. Not yet.”

I stepped back. “You want another chance, but can’t give me one straight answer.”

“I am trying to keep you alive.”

“So is Darius, apparently.”

Lucian’s face tightened at the name.

“Darius doesn’t love you like you think he does.”

The words landed hard. I hated that they got to me. I hated even more that part of me wanted to ask Lucian what he meant.

“And how do you know what he feels?” I shot back.

“Because I know what he’s capable of.”

“So do I.”

“No, Seren. You only know what he lets you see.”

Before I could say anything, a voice came from the archway.

“Are you finished speaking for me?”

Darius stood a few paces away, his injured arm at his side, gaze fixed on Lucian’s hand hovering near mine.

Something cold passed through his expression.

Lucian straightened. “We were having a private conversation.”

“Then you should have picked somewhere private.”

“You don’t own this courtyard.”

“No. And I don’t own Seren.” Darius’s eyes shifted to me. “But I won’t act like I don’t see what you’re trying to do.”

Lucian gave a flat laugh. “You mean asking her to remember the man she loved before you started filling her head with secrets?”

“I haven’t asked her to forget.”

“You don’t need to. Just stand there looking wounded whenever she pushes you.”

Darius’s jaw tightened.

“Careful,” he warned.

“Or what? You’ll threaten me because she might choose someone else?”

“Enough,” I snapped.

Both of them looked at me.

I was sick of being spoken about like a prize, a debt, a decision I didn’t get to make.

“I'm not territory for you to fight over—or a debt you’re settling. And I’m definitely not a choice you make for me.”

Lucian looked away. Darius didn’t say anything.

I looked at Darius. “You heard him. Is there something you want to tell me?”

For a second, I thought he would. His expression shifted, like he wanted to cross the space between us and confess something that's been tearing at him. Instead, he glanced at Lucian.

“Not here,” he said.

I chuckled without humor. “Of course. Not here. Not now. Not yet.”

“Seren—”

“I’m done waiting for the truth to become convenient.”

His face tightened, and he looked away. Small movement, but it felt like a door closing.

“I see,” he said.

He walked off toward the entrance of the fortress.

“Darius, wait.”

My voice caught him just before he disappeared. He paused, but didn’t turn.

“Don’t follow me out of guilt,” he said softly. “And don’t follow because you’re afraid I’ll leave.”

He slipped through the heavy doors.

I stood there under the archway, watching him leave. I didn’t know what hurt more—him walking away, or that a part of me wanted him to stay.

Lucian moved beside me.

“You see?” he murmured. “He can’t let you question him.”

I turned on him. “Don’t use Darius leaving to make yourself look honest.”

He shut up. I walked away before either could say anything else.

Night had taken over Bloodmoon territory by the time I reached my rooms.

I locked the door, dropped the execution record on my desk. Darius’s words echoed in my mind: Don’t follow me because you’re afraid I’ll leave.

He’d picked up on something I didn’t want to admit. I was afraid. Not of loneliness—I’d faced death alone already. I was afraid that caring about Darius would let the truth destroy whatever fragile feeling had started to grow between us. And if Lucian was honest, maybe I was walking into another betrayal.

I pressed my fingers to my temples. I needed a way to separate what I felt from what I knew.

The record was as good a place to start as any.

I opened my desk drawer and took out the folded page. The execution authorization line was half-hidden beneath a dark stain. I tilted it toward the candle; a few words appeared under the discoloration.

Authorization confirmed. Release the prisoner before moonrise.

My breath caught.

Release the prisoner?

I read the words again. Why would an execution order instruct someone to release me?

Maybe there had been another plan. Maybe my death wasn’t the only outcome.

A knock rattled the door.

I snatched up the record. “Who is it?”

“Lucian.”

I closed my eyes. For a second, I considered ignoring him. Instead, I opened the door with the chain still fastened.

He looked grave.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did in the courtyard,” he began.

“Which part?”

He looked exhausted. “All of it. I shouldn’t have tried to turn you against Darius without proof.”

“That’d be a start.”

He glanced behind him, then leaned in.

“But there’s something you need to know about the night you died.”

I tightened my grip on the door. “What?”

Lucian met my eyes. “I wasn’t deceived about everything, Seren. I knew they were going to take you. I knew the council had arranged something behind your trial.”

I felt the room tilt. “You knew?”

“I thought I could stop it.”

“You thought?” My voice shook. “You knew I was in danger and you did nothing?”

“I went to the council chamber. By the time I got there, the order was already signed.”

“By who?”

He hesitated, and anger flared up inside me.

“Lucian, if you came here just to throw more half-truths—”

“Ask him what he did the night you died.”

I froze.

“Who?”

Lucian’s expression tightened. “Darius.”

He leaned closer, voice barely above a whisper. “Ask him why he was the last person allowed to see you before your execution.”

My fingers went numb around the door.

Darius had told me he tried to reach me that night. He’d said he heard me calling for him. But he never mentioned seeing me before my death.

I stared at Lucian, searching for the lie.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I don’t want you to make the same mistake twice.”

He glanced at the record in my hand.

“And if Darius told you he tried to save you, then he’s only told you half the story.”

He stepped back.

“Ask him what he did the night you died, Seren.”

He left, and I stood there with the execution record trembling in my hands—and a new question that scared me more than any prophecy.

What if Darius hadn’t just failed to save me?

What if, on the night I died, he had the power to choose whether I lived?