Vaela shows up at my door with a dinner tray like she’s auditioning for the role of devoted wife. Timing’s either perfect or catastrophic—full moon’s tonight, which means I’ll be losing my shit in approximately three hours.
“Thought you might be hungry,” she says, stepping inside without invitation.
The dress she’s wearing? Sheer as a fucking lie. I can see everything she wants me to see, which is everything. Strategic wardrobe choice for a strategic woman.
“Thanks,” I mutter, not looking directly at her because I’m not an idiot.
She sets the tray down, takes her sweet time arranging things. Bends over more than necessary. Brushes against me when she straightens up.
“You know,” she says, voice soft as silk and twice as calculated, “you need someone who understands duty.”
Right. Because nothing says romantic chemistry like discussing political obligations.
“Do I?”
“Lucy was… sweet. But she was raised without purpose. Without understanding what it means to serve something larger than yourself.”
Sweet. Like Lucy’s a candy bar instead of the woman who walked into my nightmare and dragged me back to sanity.
“You didn’t know her.”
“I know enough.” She moves closer, and her perfume hits me like a chemical weapon disguised as flowers. “I know she ran when things got difficult. I know she let you risk everything for someone who couldn’t even fight for herself.”
“She didn’t run. She was taken.”
“Was she? Or did she finally realize what being with you actually costs?”
The words hit like a physical blow because there’s a sliver of truth in them. Lucy did pay for being mine. Blood, chains, exile. Maybe she’s better off without me.
Vaela steps closer, close enough that I can feel her heat. “I’m not afraid of your transformations. I’m not afraid of what you become.”
“You should be.”
“Why? Because you think I’m fragile? Because you think I can’t handle seeing you at your worst?”
Her hand touches my chest, right over my heart. Right where the bond used to burn bright and now barely flickers.
“You need someone strong enough to stand beside you,” she whispers. “Not someone you have to protect from your own nature.”
She’s not wrong. Lucy did need protection—from the court, from Valen, from the politics that devour everything good in this world. But she never needed protection from me.
“I don’t need anyone,” I say.
“Everyone needs someone.” Her fingers trace along my jaw. “The question is whether you want someone who complements your power or someone who diminishes it.”
She leans in, lips almost touching mine. “I could make you forget her.”
For a second—just a second—I consider it. Because forgetting sounds easier than this constant ache, this fading hope, this desperate clinging to something that might already be dead.
Then the first wave hits.
Pain explodes through my chest like lightning made of molten glass. My bones start their familiar song of breaking and reforming, and every rational thought gets buried under the avalanche of transformation.
“Shit,” I gasp, doubling over.
Vaela steps back, but not far enough. Her eyes widen as my spine curves, as claws punch through fingertips, as everything human about me starts dissolving into something prehistoric and violent.
“Cassian?”
I look up, and she sees it—the moment the man disappears and the monster takes over. Golden eyes, elongated canines, the kind of smile that promises pain and delivers on every threat.
She runs.
Smart move. The wolf that’s taking over my nervous system doesn’t give a shit about politics or seduction or strategic marriages. It just wants to hunt, to tear, to taste blood that isn’t its own.
I hear her heels clicking frantically down the hallway, hear her ragged breathing as she puts distance between herself and whatever I’m becoming.
Through the haze of transformation, one thought cuts through clear as a blade:
Lucy never ran.
She walked into this nightmare and called me back by name. Vaela talks a good game about not being afraid, but when faced with the reality of what I am, she bolts like everyone else.