Lucian's POV
The shift always left me aching.
My bones still hummed with the phantom crack of transformation, my muscles stiff and raw like I'd been dragged through fire. Kael was restless even now, prowling just under my skin, furious about Fenric's growl earlier. They'd never liked each other, Fenric and Kael. The rivalry was instinctive, bone-deep.
I rubbed a hand over my face, still feeling the faint pull of Maeve's scent clinging to me like a ghost. Unusually sweet. Sharp in a way that got under my skin.
Kael wanted her close. I wanted to not want her at all.
That was the thing with Lycans. Mates weren't exactly written in stone, not the way outsiders loved to romanticize it. Our Lycan halves, the primal, animalistic part of us, could feel drawn to someone. Sometimes it was fleeting, sometimes it wasn't. And when that bond dug its claws in, it spilled over into the human side. You felt their presence like heat on your skin, even when you didn't want to.
