“I don’t know, Lucus. I’m not rea—” A loud crash from the kitchen cut me off.
I bolted around the corner to find a shattered vase at the wolf’s feet. Morino, I was pretty sure that was his name. Glass shards glittered across the floor like broken ice.
“Oops,” he muttered. “I’ll clean it up.”
I rubbed my hands down my face, trying to center myself. At the table, Alic sat with a beer clutched loosely in his hand, eyes distant. Rasmus kept flicking glances around the apartment, cataloging every detail for some mental archive. Morino looked like he needed something, anything, to do with his hands. Preferably something that didn’t involve touching Aniyah’s things.
Lucus bent over beside him, gathering the sharp pieces one by one. I opened my mouth to tell him to leave it, that I’d take care of it, but then he glanced up at me with a cold, impenetrable look.Don’t fuck with me, his eyes said, and I raised an eyebrow at him. If he thought he could treat me any way he pleased, it would be a cold day in hell before that happened.
He kept his gaze low, his voice deceptively even. “Aniyah is my mate.”
Silence. A sharp inhale. Every head in the room whipped in his direction, then, chaos.
Alic was the first to move. His chair scraped back, beer nearly spilling as he surged to his feet. “Lies!” he barked. “She’s not. There’s no way. Have you even seen the mark?” He laughed, but it was tight, unhinged at the edges. “She would never take a mate. She told me that herself. It’s a moot point.”
“She’s my wolf’s mate, too.” Morino’s words were calm, measured, but they hit like a punch to the ribs.
“What?” I blurted. My stomach dropped.
“I met her almost five years ago,” he continued, eyes on the floor. “Right before she moved here. That was when my wolf chose her. I’ve been looking for her ever since.” He dragged a hand through his hair, voice becoming rough. “She’s hard to track. Smart. But I never stopped trying.”
What the actual fuck?Five years, and none of us knew?
My pulse thundered in my ears, and before I could stop myself, the truth spilled out. “She’s my flame.”
That shut everyone up.
“That’s why I couldn’t heal her earlier,” I added. With each word I spoke, my voice became quieter, steadier. “I didn’t want to say it until I was sure… but that’s what she is to me. My flame.”
Three sets of eyes turned on me, mouths slightly open, blinking like they were trying to reset reality.
I turned my head, eyeing Alic, who tipped the bottle back again, drank deep, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “There isnoway that she’s my mate,” he said flatly, but the hidden despair in his eyes said he wished she was. His insistence made no sense.
I was positive…
Lucus slammed his hands down on the table, the sound echoing through the apartment. “That's a bunch of fairy shit, and youknow it.”
Alic glared at him, teeth bared, about to explode?—
Then a quiet voice, dry and curious, drifted through the room. “What fairy shit?”
We froze.
Slowly, heads turned toward the bedroom. There stood Aniyah, sleepy-eyed, one shoulder leaning on the doorframe, her hair a wild halo and confusion softening her features.
Fuck.
She’d heard everything.
19
ANIYAH
Warmth curled low in my belly, the stings from earlier melting into a steady, rhythmic thrum. Five pulses, not perfectly timed but undeniably present. Each beat echoed through my limbs and bloomed outward from my spine as if something ancient and intimate had been awakened.
What the hell is this?
The pulses spiraled in my mind, not chaotic, but deliberate, like dancers spinning golden thread through my nerves. Soft, glinting strands of light wove from my back to my chest, tethering themselves to my heart. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t invasive. It felt… right. Final. Like a lock sliding into place after a lifetime of fumbling with the wrong key.
