Damien stood alone on the training grounds just after dawn, hands wrapped in bandages, shirt clinging to his back with sweat. He wasn't training not really. His body moved, but his mind was somewhere else.
He kept hearing her voice.
> "She died."
> "I rewrote the rules."
He had thought he was prepared. That this contract was business. A solution.
But Selena D'Archer was proving herself to be more than a name in ink. And that unsettled him.
Lucas approached from the west gate, tossing a cold bottle of water to his Alpha.
"She's getting under your skin," he said bluntly.
Damien caught the bottle mid-air. "She's being strategic."
Lucas shrugged. "So are you. But you don't pace your training yard at 6 a.m. over strategy."
Damien didn't respond. He unscrewed the cap and drank, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"She said she wanted safety," Damien muttered.
"And?"
"I think she meant revenge."
Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not projecting?"
Damien didn't answer.
Instead, his eyes drifted to the far wall, where a mural of the old Blackthorn ancestors towered in quiet judgment. Something about the eyes of one figure a woman with silver hair and a crescent scar under her left eye pulled at him.
He didn't know her name.
But in his dreams, he'd seen her burn.
That afternoon, Damien locked himself in the Blackthorn archives.
He told no one not Lucas, not the Council.
He pulled scrolls, records, journals anything on the D'Archer lineage, his own bloodline, and the early days of the Moonlight Court.
It was the journal of Alpha Varyn Blackthorn that stopped him.
Halfway through the tattered pages was a note written in spidery script.
> A D'Archer girl tried to break the Luna circle once before. She married in. She died trying.
> They made sure no record of her remained. But I remember her scream.
Damien's fingers froze. He read the line again.
A D'Archer girl. Erased from history.
He closed the book slowly.
And for the first time since signing the pre-contract, a small whisper inside his chest asked:
> What if Selena's not lying?
Elsewhere, Selena stood in front of the estate greenhouse but she wasn't tending plants. She was watching.
A servant girl moved past her carrying tea and a message scroll.
Selena watched the girl's limp.
Two days ago, that limp hadn't been there.
Selena had been trained to observe the smallest shifts.
Every injury was a message.
Every silence had weight.
Inside her study, she pulled out the Council file again and compared it to her old journal the one she'd hidden before her first death.
The names didn't match.
Dates were off.
Photos had been removed.
> Someone didn't just falsify my record, she thought. They rewrote the D'Archer line.
> And they started doing it long before I died.
At sunset, a council gathering was called at Blackthorn Hall an informal one, for "family updates and political alignment discussions."
In truth, it was gossip.
Selena knew that.
She also knew Elira would be there.
She arrived late, on purpose.
When she entered the room, everything stopped for a moment.
Selena wasn't wearing a bridal dress or the usual soft pastels expected of noblewomen.
She wore a fitted black suit with a midnight-blue sash a perfect mirror of the Blackthorn family colors.
Whispers rippled through the room.
Damien stood near the fireplace, goblet in hand, watching her approach.
He didn't smile.
But his gaze lingered longer than it should have.
Lady Amira was the first to greet Selena with a raised brow. "That's a bold look for a bride-to-be."
Selena answered smoothly. "A bride prepares for her future. A partner prepares for power."
There were a few audible gasps quickly covered by sips of wine.
Elira stepped into the circle next, smiling with practiced venom.
"Sister," she said, "your confidence is truly unmatched."
Selena tilted her head. "And your fear is showing, Elira. Fix it. You're in public."
Damien's jaw tightened.
He should've stepped in.
But something held him still.
He wasn't sure who he'd be protecting anymore.
After the gathering, Damien lingered in the empty council hall.
Lucas joined him silently.
"She's not afraid to speak like an Alpha," Lucas said.
"She's not one yet."
"But she could be."
Damien looked down at the goblet in his hand. The wine was untouched.
"She knows things I haven't told her," he murmured. "About the Council. The Whisper Network. Even about the bond between Alpha and Luna."
Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Do you think she was trained? Groomed for this?"
Damien shook his head. "No. I think she lived it. I think she's seen more than we realize."
A pause.
"Lucas…" Damien said quietly, "Do you believe in reincarnation?"
Lucas blinked. "That's... sudden."
Damien's eyes were distant. "Last night I had a dream. Fire. Screams. A girl. She was reaching for me. And I didn't help her."
Lucas stared. "Was it Selena?"
Damien didn't answer.
That night, Selena returned to her chambers and wrote in her journal by candlelight.
> He's remembering. Not fully. Not yet. But soon.
> The past is bleeding into the present. And when the pieces click, he will either fight for me…
> Or kill me again.
She closed the journal and blew out the candle.
The war was no longer approaching.
It had already begun.