Se connecterKael's povI stood outside her door, waiting for her breathing to settle. The hallway was quiet, washed in the smell of rain and cold concrete. Her presence lingered in the air like a faint trail, almost invisible, but not to me. Six years changed everything about her, yet the space around her still bent in a way I recognized.My wolf paced inside me, restless, alert.*Maia.*The name pulsed through my mind with a steady beat.I kept my back against the wall across from her door. My hands stayed at my sides. My thoughts stayed fixed on the fact that she ran from me the moment our marks sparked. She hid her face, hid her voice, hid every single piece of herself as if she expected me to break her again.Maybe she was right to expect that.A soft sound came from inside her apartment. A breath she tried to steady. She was close to the door. Listening. Deciding. Trembling.My chest tightened.I had imagined meeting her again in countless ways. None involved her backing away from me like I
Maia's povI didn’t stop running until the rain blurred the streets into silver ribbons and my lungs burned like fire.By the time I reached the small apartment I was renting, my hands were shaking so hard I dropped the keys twice before I finally managed to shove the door open.The moment it closed behind me, I slid down the wall, breaths coming fast and uneven.Get it together, Maia.I pressed both palms to my face. They were cold. My cheeks weren’t.“Damn it,” I whispered, hating the way my voice cracked.I wasn’t crying again.But the moment his voice replayed in my mind Maia? my chest tightened painfully.Six years.Six years of hiding myself, burying the bond, teaching my wolf to sleep, to forget, to settle for being half-alive.Six years convincing myself that the man I’d once loved, the Alpha I’d nearly died for, had moved on, had chosen someone else.And then… he looked at me tonight like I’d been carved out of stone and resurrected in front of him.Like he recognized me inst
Kael's povThe rain didn’t bother me. The cold didn’t touch me. The city noise didn’t exist.All I felt was the hollow space where Maia had just walked away.The wolf inside me slammed against my ribs, snarling in a way it hadn’t in years, not since the night she disappeared without a trace. I dug my fingers into my palms hard enough to sting, grounding myself before I did something reckless. Something Alpha. Something I couldn’t hide beneath this polished corporate skin.Her scent, muted, carefully masked still clung to the air. Beneath it, faint but unmistakable, glowed the ghost of the bond she’d tried to kill.Maia.Alive.In my city.Working under my company.Running from me with the same stubborn fire she always had.And Elara had made it worse.I turned sharply, storming toward the glass doors of Silvercrest Tower. “Kael—Kael, wait!”Her voice hit me before her heels did. Click-click-click, fast and sharp across the floor. Elara grabbed my arm, but I didn’t slow. Didn’t look a
Maia's povHis footsteps didn’t echo, they never did. Kael moved like the night itself, too controlled, too deliberate, like he could bend the shadows out of his way.I didn’t turn. “Running again, Maia?” he asked, voice smooth as black ice.My lungs squeezed tight. He said my name like he’d been holding it on his tongue for years.I forced air into my chest and stepped farther into the alley, shoes splashing in shallow puddles. “Stay away from me, Damon.”He let out a quiet, humorless breath. “That’s not my name. Not to you.”I swallowed hard. The rain, the cold, the city—it all vanished under the weight of his presence. It was like being dragged back into a memory I’d tried to bury under six years of silence.“Don’t do this,” I murmured.He took another step. I felt it more than heard, his wolf was too close. Maybe it had been close since the moment he grabbed me in the kitchen.“Why did you run?” he asked softly. Too softly. The kind of softness that always came before a storm.I
Maia's povI sat by the window of my tiny apartment, city lights flickering through the rain. My shirt sleeve was rolled up, and there it was the mark that should have faded six years ago.I pressed my thumb hard against it, trying to smother the glow, trying to convince myself it was just stress. Just exhaustion. Just a trick of memory.But deep down, I knew better. The bond never lies.I’d run from the pack, from Kael, from the blood-soaked war that tore our lands apart. I’d run to this city to be no one—no Alpha’s mate, no lost heir, no shadow of what I used to be. Just Maia Hayes, head chef at Silvercrest Events.And yet here he was again. Kael. Damon. Whatever name he used in this glass-and-steel world.I had thought he would never find me. But fate had a cruel sense of humor.My phone buzzed on the counter. I nearly jumped.From: Mr. Han'Emergency board meeting tomorrow morning. You’ll represent the culinary division. Corporate presence mandatory.'My stomach twisted. Corporate
Kael's povI stood by the glass window of my office. I should have been relieved. The moonlight always made the wolf inside me restless, the part that had started stirring again ever since she appeared.Maia.I said her name in my mind, and the mark on my wrist burned faintly, just like it had that day in the kitchen. The moment I caught her before she fell, something inside me snapped. I’d known her scent was gone and masked, buried, twisted by whatever potion or ritual she’d used to erase it, but the moment my hand brushed her skin, the bond screamed alive.Six years I had buried it.Six years of war, blood, and sleepless nights convincing myself she was dead.And now she was here, working for me, looking at me like a stranger.I exhaled, low and sharp, fingers tightening on the glass. My reflection looked nothing like the Alpha I used to be. The city had turned me into something polished, distant. Damon Rylan Daire CEO, not Alpha. A mask built from power and lies.The door opened b







