The silence between them was suffocating. Lucien's fingers gripped the edge of the stone balustrade as he stared into the silver-stained woods. Elena stood only a few feet behind him, every instinct in her body alert, yet unafraid.
"You need to leave this place, Elena," Lucien said at last, his voice low and carved from something old and painful.
"I just got here," she replied, eyes narrowing. "Why invite me if you wanted me gone?"
His jaw clenched. "That was a mistake."
Something cold flickered through her chest. But she lifted her chin. "I don't believe that."
Lucien turned slowly to face her, the moonlight illuminating half his face and shadowing the other. He looked like a man torn in two—between what he wanted and what he feared.
"You don't understand what I am," he said. "What this place is."
"I'm starting to," Elena replied. "But I'm not running away because you tell me to. I came here to uncover the truth, remember?"
He stepped closer, the air thickening between them.
"This truth is not something you want to uncover," he said. "It isn't safe. Not for you. Not for anyone."
She crossed her arms, her voice steady. "Are you threatening me, Mr. Blackthorne?"
His eyes flashed not with anger, but something wilder.
"No," he said. "I'm warning you."
They stood at a precarious edge of something unspeakable. Elena could feel it thrumming beneath the surface danger, power, the magnetic pull of something not quite human. And Lucien, for all his attempts at coldness, couldn't hide the way he looked at her.
Like he was starving.
Like he was afraid of what he'd do if he got too close.
"I saw your eyes change," she said quietly. "That night on the terrace. You were going to shift, weren't you?"
He looked away.
"I wasn't going to hurt you," he said.
"Then why stop yourself?"
He didn't answer.
"I don't scare easily," she added.
He stepped forward again closer than before. "That's the problem."
There was a pause. The wind whispered through the open terrace doors, curling around them like a secret.
Then Lucien reached into his shirt and pulled out a pendant, a rough black stone encased in silver wire, hanging from a thin leather cord. It pulsed faintly with warmth and something… otherworldly.
"This," he said, "is a relic passed down through my family. It suppresses the beast. Barely. Without it, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you. I'd be…"
He didn't finish.
"A werewolf," Elena murmured.
He nodded once.
"There's more to the curse," he said. "It's not just about shifting. It's about control. Emotion makes the wolf stronger. Especially certain emotions."
She stared at him. "You mean… love?"
Lucien's expression tightened. "Desire, Attachment, hope. They unravel the bonds I've built inside myself. And when that happens, when I lose control I endanger everyone."
"Including me," she whispered.
He nodded again, as if every movement cost him.
They were close now. So close her breath caught in her throat. She could feel his warmth, smell the pine and musk clinging to his skin.
Elena raised a hand slowly, brushing her fingers against his cheek.
"You're fighting this so hard," she said. "But why?"
He didn't speak. His eyes flicked to her lips.
And before she could think, before either of them could second-guess the madness between them, He kissed her.
It was fire and frost, hunger and restraint, a thousand years of longing compressed into a single heartbeat.
She kissed him back.
For one impossible moment, the world stilled. The curse, the danger, the rules—it all faded into the dark as they lost themselves in each other.
But then Lucien broke the kiss, panting, his hands trembling as he stepped away.
"I shouldn't have done that," he rasped.
"But you did," she said, breathless.
His voice cracked like thunder. "Don't you see? The more I feel, the more the beast inside me awakens. You make me weak. You make me lose control."
She didn't flinch. "Or maybe I make you stronger."
"You don't understand," he said, backing away toward the shadows. "The last woman I let in… she died because of me. Torn apart before I could stop it."
Elena froze.
Lucien's voice dropped to a whisper. "The wolf doesn't love. It possesses. It devours."
"Then why let me in at all?" she asked, her voice shaking. "Why bring me here? Why kiss me?"
"Because I'm selfish," he said. "Because I hoped for something I can never have."
They stood in silence, the air heavy with unsaid things.
Later that night, Elena sat by her bedroom window, scribbling in her notebook with trembling fingers.
The man I'm falling for might kill me.
And yet… her heart raced not with fear, but with want. She'd seen the pain in Lucien's eyes. The rawness. The guilt. But also something else—a sliver of humanity fighting to survive beneath the beast. There was a war inside him. And she wasn't ready to walk away.
Meanwhile, in the study below, Lucien poured himself a glass of blood-red wine he would never drink. He stood by the fire, shirt unbuttoned, the pendant resting against his bare chest.
The wolf stirred inside him.
It wanted Elena.
It hungered for her.
And for the first time in years, Lucien was afraid the beast might win.
Then a sound shattered his thoughts.
A howl.
Far off, from deep in the woods.
It was long, low, and unmistakably challenging.
Lucien's spine stiffened.
Kael.
Another alpha.
The wolf he had exiled.
He was back.
Lucien threw the glass into the fire and stormed out of the manor. His shift began before his feet hit the forest floor—bones cracking, fur erupting, eyes glowing gold as the wolf took over.
He ran.
Faster than the wind.
Through the dark trees, through the ancient roots of Blackthorne lands.
If Kael was back, it meant Elena wasn't just in danger from Lucien's curse.
She was in danger from everything.
Back in the manor, Elena awoke to the sound of distant howling.
Not one.
Two.
And something inside her told her…
They were howling for her.