Seraphina blinked up at the man who claimed her as his mate.
Mate.
The word echoed in her skull, foreign and familiar at once.
"No," she muttered, taking a shaky step back. "That's not possible."
Lucien's expression didn't change. He didn't try to follow her—just watched her with unnerving calm, as if her reaction had been predicted, calculated.
"You feel it too," he said quietly. "The pull."
Seraphina's breath caught in her throat. She did feel something. Like invisible threads drawing her toward him. Like her soul recognized him, even though her mind screamed to run.
"I don't know who you are," she snapped. "I don't belong here. I... I died."
She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the words poured from her lips like poison being purged.
Lucien's crimson eyes flickered. "You were reborn under a blood moon. Marked by an ancient rite. Chosen by the curse that binds us both."
"I never asked to be chosen."
He moved closer now, slowly, like one would approach a wounded animal. "No one does. But fate doesn't ask permission."
Seraphina's heart pounded. Her head spun with questions. Who was this man—this Alpha? What curse? What blood moon? Why was she here, alive, young, and surrounded by a dangerous stranger who said she belonged to him?
Then another voice broke through the trees—low and clipped.
"Alpha, the Council demands your return. Now."
A second man stepped from the shadows. Tall, pale-haired, with silver armor and piercing blue eyes. His tone was formal, but his gaze flicked to Seraphina with open suspicion.
"She's not stable yet," the man continued. "The curse hasn't settled."
"She's mine," Lucien growled.
The silver-haired man didn't flinch. "The Elders won't care. You've brought a cursed woman into the territory without trial. The High Witch is already stirring."
Seraphina stared between them. "What curse? What trial? I don't understand!"
Lucien turned to her slowly. "You were not only reborn... you were chosen by the Fated Bond. But the cost is blood. A mate like you comes once in a thousand years—and it always ends in death."
Her chest tightened. "What... what does that mean?"
Lucien looked her straight in the eyes. "If we fall in love, Seraphina… one of us dies."
---
She wanted to scream.
Instead, Seraphina laughed—sharp, broken, panicked. Her breath misted in the air, her hands trembling at her sides.
"This is a nightmare."
Lucien stepped closer. "It's your second chance."
"I didn't ask for one!" she shouted. "I was burned alive by people I trusted. And now I wake up here, half-naked in snow, with a stranger telling me I'm cursed and his? I don't even know you!"
"I know," Lucien said softly. "And I won't force you. But you can't escape what you are now. You are Luna to the Alpha of Midnight."
She backed away again, but her legs gave out beneath her. Her knees hit the snow, and a cry escaped her lips before she could stop it.
The silver-haired man moved, but Lucien lifted a hand.
"Don't touch her."
He walked toward her, slow and careful, until he crouched beside her in the snow. His hand hovered near her shoulder—not touching. Just offering.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said. "But others will."
Seraphina met his gaze.
And for a second, she didn't see the Alpha. She saw the man beneath—the haunted one. Tired. Burdened.
Cursed.
Just like her.
She didn't take his hand.
But she didn't run, either.