LOGINMaia's povThe rain followed me all the way back to my building, soaking through my clothes until my bones felt heavy. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, no matter how tightly I curled them. Not from the cold. Not from him. From everything piling at once like a storm I had outrun for six straight years.I pushed through the front door of my apartment building and climbed the stairs fast. Too fast. My breath came out uneven by the time I reached my floor. My fingers slipped on the key twice before I managed to twist it.The hallway lights flickered overhead.I stepped inside and locked the door behind me, sliding the bolt twice out of habit.Silence spread through the room, thick and stale. My tiny kitchen smelled faintly of spices from last night. The cracked window rattled with the wind. It should have felt normal. Familiar. Safe.Instead, my skin crawled.I walked slowly toward the table. Something was different. Nothing looked out of place, yet the air felt wrong. Too still. Too quiet
Kael's povThe moment I saw that car shadowing her, my pulse cut into a pace I only knew on the battlefield.The glass doors slid open under my hand, and cold rain slapped against my skin, but my focus stayed locked on her small figure moving down the sidewalk, shoulders tight, steps fast.The black sedan rolled forward again, keeping the same slow, deliberate distance.I stepped into the street.Elara’s voice followed behind me."Kael where are you going."I didn’t answer. I didn’t even break stride. My feet hit the pavement with a purpose that rarely surfaced inside city limits. My wolf pressed against my ribs, claws scraping, instincts sharpening until each scent in the air separated like threads.Maia.Her fear was faint, hidden, but real.The car accelerated by a fraction.My vision narrowed.I crossed the street and followed from behind, not enough to alarm her, but close enough to intercept whatever thought it could close in on her.Her hands were shaking. Even from this distan
Kael'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







