Chapter Three: Stay

Steam fogged the mirror.

Selene wiped it with the back of her hand, stared at her reflection, and saw only restraint in them. Long damp hair clung to her shoulders. Her shirt stuck to her ribs and those amber eyes, even dulled by hot water, still glowed faintly — too much like a wolf’s.

The blood was gone but the scent still lingered.

She’d washed it from her skin, but not from her memory — the feel of it, warm and human, sticky between her fingers. Lucas’s blood.

That alley had nearly turned her. She’d been seconds from ripping out throats of those bastards. For him.

It was stupid and reckless as her father would say, but obvious thing to do.

Selene took a breath and stepped out of the bathroom barefoot.

The lights in the hotel room were low. The air smelled of antiseptic that clung to him. She expected to find him gone — or sitting up, panicking, maybe calling someone.

But he was curled on her bed.

Asleep.

He lay on his stomach, his arms tucked under the pillow. His chest rose and fell slow, steady, safe. The bandage on his temple was still clean. She’d done a good job.

Selene stood at the edge of the bed, watching him for longer than was acceptable. Minutes, maybe. She wasn’t sure. Her senses slowed around him — time, thought, breath. Her instincts coiled low in her belly. Not to strike. To take.

She reached down.

Fingers brushed a damp curl from his forehead. His face scrunched slightly in his sleep but didn’t wake. She could feel the heat coming off him, the faint tremor of his pulse under thin skin. His scent pulled at her like gravity.

He smelled like comfort and so she sat on the edge of the bed.

Although he didn’t stir, it was a very bad idea.

She should’ve gone to the chair. Or the couch. Or out the door. But she didn’t. Instead, she turned slightly, drew her legs up, and leaned back against the headboard — watching him, silent, still, barely breathing.

What are you doing?

He didn’t belong in her room. In her life. In her thoughts. He was human. Young. Kind. Soft. A thousand things she’d knew not to touch.

But he was here. And it was too late to pretend she hadn’t already chosen him.

Selene tilted her head, studying the curve of his throat, the slope of his jaw. A bruise was forming there — small, from when one of the thugs had shoved him. It made her jaw tighten. Her fingers itched.

She should’ve broken that one’s spine.

Lucas shifted again in his sleep, sighing softly, and something inside her broke just a little.

She hated this. This weakness and need.

Selene had gone decades without craving anything beyond blood, silence, and survival. She’d buried her past with her old name. She didn’t form bonds. Bonds got people killed.

But this man — this fragile, tired, utterly unaware man — had taken up residence in her mind like a ghost she couldn’t exorcise.

And now he was sleeping in her bed.

What the hell am I doing…

She leaned forward slightly, close enough to feel his warmth brush her cheek. Her hair slipped over her shoulder and grazed his chest. He didn’t wake up.

A groan low in her throat nearly escaped. She caught it before it formed.

This wasn’t hunger. Not really.

It was something crueler.

Possession.

Selene stayed like that for a long time. Long enough that the air went still, and the sounds of the city softened beneath thick glass. Long enough for her mind to start running through all the scenarios she didn’t want to admit she wanted and thought off — him waking up and reaching for her, half-conscious and grateful. Him whispering her name without knowing why. Him asking her to stay.

None of it would happen.

She couldn’t have that.

She couldn’t have him.

And still… she didn’t move.

Lucas stirred an hour later. Slow. Groggy. Confused.

Selene turned her head as his eyes blinked open, green and dazed in the dim light. He looked at her, sleepy and surprised.

“I don’t remember much,” he said after a pause. “Just… pain and then you.”

“You were lucky.”

“That what you call it?”

Selene looked at him for a long moment.

“Do you want to leave?” she asked.

Lucas frowned, brow creasing gently. “Can I?”

“No.”

Silence stretched.

He studied her face like he was trying to read a language he didn’t speak.

“Who are you really?” he asked quietly.

Selene opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

She crawled toward him slowly, her silhouette dark against the window’s glow. “You still don’t know what I am,” she whispered.

Lucas’s lips parted slightly, something soft crossing his face, maybe pity. She didn’t want that. “No,” he said. “But I’m not afraid of you.”

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” he said suddenly. “Is that okay?”

It was too much.

Too open. Too fragile.

Selene hesitated. Then lay back slowly beside him, resting her head on the same pillow, her face inches from his.

“You can,” she murmured.

“I thought you didn’t save people.”

“I don’t,” she whispered. “But I can’t seem to stop saving you.”

He didn’t respond. His breathing slowed.

He was already asleep again.

Selene lay there in silence, watching the rise and fall of his chest, her body burning with heat she couldn’t name. Her claws had receded. Her hunger, for once, felt quiet.

But deep inside her, the beast stirred again — not in rage.

In need.

This wasn’t over.

It was just beginning.