Adrian's POV
The name came to me like a whisper dragged out of the shadows.
Lucan.
I didn't know why it felt heavy on my tongue—why the syllables carried the weight of memory and betrayal—but the moment it left my lips, something in the air shifted. The room seemed smaller, tighter, the air charged with something old and dangerous. Damon froze mid-step, his usual smugness gone in an instant. His golden eyes narrowed, scanning my face as if he was trying to catch the exact moment the pieces of my fractured past clicked into place.
"You remember him," he said slowly. Not a question. A statement.
My fingers curled into fists, the muscles in my forearms tightening as if bracing for a blow. "Not everything," I admitted. "Just… his name."
The sound of it stirred something deep in my chest—an echo from a time before the bloodshed, before my world had been torn apart and rebuilt in iron and violence.
