The man reached Lucien first, and the relief on his face was so immediate that Lucien almost forgot the pain running through his body.
"My boy."
He crouched beside him without hesitation, checking Lucien's arms, shoulders, and face as though expecting to find some hidden injury.
"You have been gone far too long. We thought something happened to you."
The woman knelt on Lucien's other side and pressed a hand against his forehead.
"You're cold."
Lucien could only stare at them.
Now that they were this close, the resemblance was impossible to dismiss.
The man looked like Luke, not vaguely and not merely enough to make Lucien suspicious. The similarities were too precise. The woman beside him carried the same familiarity.
Cienna.
The memories inside this body recognized both of them immediately. They were not strangers who merely resembled people from Lucien's future.
They were this young man's parents.
Luke and Cienna.
Lucien's thoughts stalled.
