chapter 10

~ Ares’s POV ~

She was dreaming again.

I felt it the moment her consciousness slipped under, that specific pull, like a thread tugging at the center of my chest, drawing me toward her the way the tide had no choice but to follow the moon. It happens every night now. The moment Mira Wyrmblood closed her eyes, something in the universe decided I needed to know about it.

I sat in the armchair by the window of my hotel suite, fingers steepled beneath my chin, the city lights of Philadelphia shining gold across the ceiling above me.

I should not do this.

I told myself that yesterday and the night before but my eyes closed before I could think about it and the dream space opened like a door I already had the key to.

It was her office but softer, the way dreams always softened reality at the edges. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed a sky full of stars instead of city lights. The desk was gone, In its place, a vast open room, dimly lit, the air carrying the faint scent of cedarwood and something warmer underneath.

She stood at the window with her back to me, wearing a silk robe the color of midnight, her hair loose down her back. Even in her own dream she held herself like a queen, spine straight, chin level, like she was daring the stars to disappoint her.

I moved toward her slowly, the way you approached something rare and dangerous that you did not want to startle.

“You’re in my dream again,” she said, without turning around.

I stopped, She could feel me. Of course she could, Wyrmblood blood meant even her subconscious had sensors most supernatural beings could only dream of.

“I am,” I said.

“That’s a violation,” she said.

“Technically,” I agreed, “it’s a warlock ability I have very little control over.”

She turned then, and the sight of her unguarded nearly stopped me where I stood. Her eyes were different here, still dark, still sharp, but the walls were thinner. The exhaustion she hid so carefully during the day lived closer to the surface here, and underneath it, something that looked dangerously like longing.

“Liar,” she said softly. “You have control over everything you do.”

She wasn’t wrong.

I crossed the remaining distance between us slowly, watching her face for the flinch, the step back, the wall slamming up. None of it came, In here, her body didn’t have the same reflex her mind did.

I stopped close enough that I could have counted her lashes.

“You’ve been having nightmares,” I said quietly, “About the night your family died.”

Something flickered across her face, quickly.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “I know what you saw, I know what your grandfather told you before he disappeared.” I held her gaze. “And I know you have been carrying it alone for so long that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to put it down.”

Her jaw tightened, Even in dreams, she fought.

“You don’t know me,” she said.

“I’ve been dreaming of you for two years, Mira.” My voice dropped lower. “Before the gala, before I knew your name I knew the shape of your grief before I ever saw your face.”

Her breath caught just barely enough.

I raised my hand slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, my fingers barely grazing her cheek, and felt her breath stutter at the contact like I had pressed a live wire to her skin.

“You should leave,” she said, but she didn’t move.

“Probably,” I murmured.

I leaned in, my lips close to her ear, close enough that my breath moved the loose strands of her hair, and I felt her go absolutely, dangerously still.

“But you don’t actually want me to,” I said, my voice low and deliberate, each word placed carefully, “do you?”

“You are so sure of yourself,” she breathed.

“No,” I said honestly, pulling back just enough to look at her face. “I’m sure of you, There’s a difference.” My thumb brushed the line of her jaw, featherlight, and her eyes, those devastating, guarded eyes fluttered for just one second. “I’m sure that underneath all that armor you wear so beautifully, there is a woman who is tired of fighting alone.”

“Don’t romanticize my trauma,” she said, but her voice had gone unsteady.

“I’m not, ” I tilted my head, watching her. “I’m telling you I see it, all of it. And I’m still here.”

The silence between us stretched for a minute.

Her wolf, I could feel it even in here, made a sound I felt more than heard, Low and wanting.

Mira felt it too. Her eyes dropped to my mouth for exactly one second before she caught herself, and the flash of something hot and startled that crossed her face was the single most satisfying thing I had witnessed in years.

“Your wolf likes me,” I said.

“My wolf has terrible judgment,” she replied immediately.

I smiled Slowly And watched the effect of it move across her face.

“Ares.” My name in her voice, breathless and warning at once.

“Mira.” I mirrored her tone exactly.

“I swear if you don’t….”

“Tell me one thing,” I said softly, cutting through it, “Just one.” I held her gaze. “When you wake up tomorrow and you remember this and you will remember it tell me you felt nothing.”

She stared at me.

I waited.

Her lips parted.

And then the dream cracked at the edges the way they always did when she was about to surface, light shining in from somewhere far away, the room softening, dissolving—

“This isn’t over,” I said, before she slipped away entirely.

**********

~ Mira’s POV ~

I shot upright in bed.

My heart was slamming against my ribs like it was trying to break out, My skin felt feverish, My hair was damp at the temples.

I pressed both hands to my face and sat there in the dark of my bedroom, breathing.

It was a dream, just a dream. I smoothed the duvet with sharp, deliberate movements, a very inconvenient dream featuring a warlock who had absolutely no business looking at me like that or saying things like…

Tell me you felt nothing.

I pressed my lips together.

I felt nothing, Obviously, I was Mira Wyrmblood and I had survived exile, betrayal, and three years of clawing an empire from nothing, I was not undone by a dream.

I reached for the glass of water on my nightstand.

My fingers froze.

Beside the glass, placed with careful precision on the dark wood, was a single black rose.

Still fresh and impossibly perfect.

And beneath it, a small card in handwriting I hadn’t seen before but recognized immediately as someone who wrote like they had centuries of practice.

You felt it.

…..A

The glass slipped from my fingers.

He had been here.

Not just in my dream.

He had actually been here.