Isabella didn't hear the footsteps.
She didn't need to.
Something inside her deeper than instinct, deeper than memory recognized the shift in the air, the pull in her blood, the silent thunder that always came before him.
She was standing before the war table, hands braced on the carved wood, maps and intel spread before her like the pieces of a world she was forcing into order. Shadows flickered along the room's stone walls from the braziers. Men whispered outside. Weapons clinked. The Iron Crown was preparing for war.
But all she felt was stillness.
A presence she had been aching for…hating for…dying for.
Her breath caught.
"Luca," she whispered, without turning. "Who's outside?"
Before Luca could answer, the doors opened.
And the world she'd built to survive without him shattered.
