Caelan dreams of blood that isn't hers.
At least, he doesn't think it is.
The forest is silvered by moonlight, every sound too loud, every breath too sharp. His boots sink into damp earth as he moves forward, heart hammering with a dread he cannot name. Something is wrong. Something has already happened.
He looks down.
There is blood on his hands.
Too much.
It drips from his fingers, dark and thick, soaking into the ground as if the forest itself is drinking it. His chest tightens, panic clawing upward.
"No," he mutters, though he doesn't know what he's refusing.
He turns.
She is kneeling between the trees.
Not Lyra.
Not anyone he recognizes.
Her face is wrong—blurred, shifting, like memory refusing to take shape. But her posture is burned into him: spine straight despite the position, chin lifted in defiance even as blood stains the front of her clothes.
His stomach twists violently.
He knows this moment.
He doesn't know why.
"Please," she says.
The word hits him like a blade.
His hand moves.
He watches himself lift the knife.
"No," he says again, louder now. "Stop."
His body does not listen.
The blade descends—
—
Caelan wakes with a roar trapped in his throat, body jerking upright as if ripped from drowning. His heart slams violently against his ribs, sweat slicking his skin.
The scent of blood is gone.
The guilt remains.
He drags in air, hands shaking as he stares down at his palms. Clean. Empty.
Still, his wolf snarls beneath his skin, agitated and furious.
Find her.
"Shut up," Caelan growls hoarsely.
The bond pulses in response.
Not sharp.
Not painful.
Worse.
It hums.
Lyra wakes at the exact same moment.
Her breath comes in ragged gasps as she curls onto her side, nails digging into her palm hard enough to draw blood. The dream clings to her like smoke, thick and suffocating.
She smelled the forest.
Felt the cold ground beneath her knees.
Heard his voice crack as he begged himself to stop.
She presses her forehead to the mattress, teeth clenched.
"You don't get to dream of me," she whispers. "You don't get to remember me like this."
The bond throbs, slow and deliberate, as if mocking her.
She feels his unrest like a second heartbeat—erratic, frantic, spiraling.
He's breaking.
Good.
By morning, Caelan is unraveling.
He knows it by the way his attention fractures during council briefings, by the way his gaze keeps drifting toward the corridor outside—toward where she is, even when she is nowhere near him.
He smells her everywhere.
On stone she walked past hours ago.
In the air where she stood.
Faint and maddening, like memory without meaning.
He catches himself listening for her footsteps.
Watching doors.
Waiting.
When one of the guards reports her movements—routine, harmless—Caelan reacts before thinking.
"Who authorized that?"
The guard stiffens. "You did, Alpha."
Caelan exhales sharply, jaw tightening.
He doesn't remember.
That terrifies him.
Lyra feels it when he sends guards after her.
Not physically—emotionally.
The bond tightens, possessive and intrusive, like fingers closing around her wrist.
She stops walking abruptly in the corridor, breath hitching as the sensation spikes.
"So that's how it's going to be," she mutters.
When she turns, she finds Caelan at the far end of the hall.
Watching.
Not pretending otherwise.
His eyes rake over her slowly, intensely, as if confirming she's real. His control is thinner now—frayed at the edges.
"Why are you following me?" she asks coolly.
"I'm not," he replies.
The lie is weak.
She steps closer.
The bond thrums.
"Then why does it feel like you're inside my head?"
Something dark flickers across his face—relief mixed with fear.
"You feel it too," he says quietly.
She doesn't answer.
"I don't know what you are," Caelan continues, voice low. "But every instinct I have is telling me not to let you out of my sight."
Lyra tilts her head. "And do you always obey your instincts, Alpha?"
The question lands harder than she intends.
His jaw tightens.
"Not anymore."
For a moment, they stand too close, air heavy with tension and something far more dangerous than desire.
Then Lyra steps back.
"You should stop dreaming about killing women you don't remember," she says softly. "It's unbecoming."
His breath stutters.
"You saw that," he says.
She smiles faintly.
"No," she replies. "I lived it."
She turns and walks away, leaving Caelan standing frozen in the corridor, pulse racing, mind spinning.
The bond tightens painfully around his ribs.
Because for the first time, he realizes something is very wrong.
Not with her.
With him.