Lucian's POV~
When I first saw her in that hall, I thought I had finally gone insane.
Selene.
The name had haunted me like a curse, endless, whispering in every dark corner of my mind.
For the past week, I had built walls of steel around that sound. I told myself she was gone, that she no longer existed in this world. But then...there she was.
So close I could hear the faint tremor in her breath as she greeted everyone.
I had spent the entire dinner convincing myself that it was a trick of the light. That my eyes, hungry for her ghost, were deceiving me. But every time she moved, the air changed. Every time her voice floated softly across the table, it hit me like a blow to the chest.
It was her.
And I…gods help me... I wanted to go to her.
I wanted to drag her out of that cursed hall, pin her against the nearest wall, and demand to know where she had been all these days. I wanted to scream, to hold her, to shake her, to fall apart at her feet.
But I didn't move.
