Lucien POV
The scent of antiseptic clung to my skin. No matter how many times I washed my hands, it refused to leave.
Her scent lingered beneath it warm, clean, threaded with adrenaline.
Ariana.
It had been hours since I left the clinic, yet she was still under my skin like a fever I couldn't burn out.
The storm had eased to a drizzle by the time we reached the manor. Lysander walked beside me, his silence far too calm for the chaos that burned in his eyes. He was never quiet without reason and that silence meant danger.
"She's not just anyone," he finally said when we reached the iron gates. His tone was flat, but I knew him too well. There was hunger there, and something darker. "You feel it too."
I didn't answer. The gates opened with a metallic groan, and we stepped into the sprawling estate — a labyrinth of marble, glass, and secrets. The air inside was heavy with damp wood and smoke. Our family's legacy lived here, carved into every inch of the house like a scar that never healed.
Lysander laughed softly behind me. "You do feel it. I can taste it on you."
I turned sharply, pinning him with a glare. "You stay away from her."
He leaned against the banister, smirking. "We both know that's impossible."
"She's human," I bit out.
"So was Mother." His voice cut through me like a blade.
I froze. He always knew which wounds to twist.
"She wasn't supposed to be hers," I said quietly.
Lysander's grin faded, his expression shifting. "And yet she was. The curse doesn't care about supposed to, brother. It never did."
I looked away. He was right, but I refused to let him see it.
The curse ancient, cruel, written in blood bound the twin alphas of our bloodline to share one fate, one bond, one mate.
To resist it meant madness. To accept it meant ruin.
Every generation, it repeated. Two brothers. One woman.
Always ending in death.
I poured myself a glass of whiskey and downed it in a single breath, trying to drown the pull I felt toward Ariana. But it wasn't lust not just lust. It was something that lived deeper. Something that hummed in my bones, called to my wolf in ways I hadn't felt in centuries.
She didn't fear me.
That alone made her dangerous.
"She looked at you like she could slit your throat and walk away without a tremor," Lysander said, almost admiringly. "I think I'm in love."
I slammed the glass down, the sound echoing through the quiet room. "You don't love. You consume."
He chuckled. "And you, dear brother, pretend you don't."
"I'm warning you"
"No," he interrupted smoothly. "I'm warning you. You can't fight this forever, Lucien. If she's ours, she's ours."
The word ours sent a sharp ache through me. I hated it the reminder that nothing in my life was ever truly mine. Not my freedom, not my fate, not even the woman fate had chosen for me.
"She's not ready," I said.
"Neither were we."
The conversation died there, but his smirk lingered long after he left. I stood by the window, watching the rain streak across the glass, and tried to steady the thing clawing at the edges of my restraint.
I could still see her the defiance in her eyes, the way her hand didn't tremble even with a gun to her head. Most humans broke under my gaze. She didn't.
She met it head-on.
It wasn't bravery. It was something else something reckless and pure.
And I wanted it.
No… I needed it.
My wolf stirred, pacing beneath my skin. Mine, it growled. The sound echoed through my skull, a command older than language itself. I gritted my teeth, forcing the beast down. Claiming her would bind us all. Claiming her would doom her.
And yet every time I closed my eyes, I saw her mouth trembling but unyielding. I heard her voice.
"Shoot me if you have to."
No fear. Just fury. Just fire.
I'd seen thousands of faces, thousands of women. But none of them had ever looked at me like she did like she saw through the mask, through the violence, straight into the rot I kept hidden.
I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and whispered the one truth I could never say aloud.
"She'll be the death of us."