Chapter 526 A SECOND CHANCE (BONUS – 5)
LUCIAN’S POV
The bonfire was beautiful.
That was the problem.
If it had been loud and ugly and poorly organized, I could have stood at the edge of it and felt smugly vindicated in my decision to avoid pack events wherever possible.
Their world had nearly ended, and yet Nightfang had somehow created a beautiful celebration from the ashes of battle and loss.
If only it were that easy.
And I couldn’t even detest them because Nightfang had been kinder than I deserved since waking up.
Nobody stared when I entered a room. Nobody whispered behind my back or looked at me as though they expected me to grow claws and start ripping through furniture at any moment.
But they gave me space. The kind of distance people instinctively gave wounded animals and unexploded bombs.
I couldn’t blame them. If our positions had been reversed, I wasn’t sure I would have known how to act or what to say either.
Congratulations on surviving your corruption?
We forgive you for the attempted murder of our Alpha and Luna?
Welcome back from being magically dismantled and reconstructed?
Unfortunately, social etiquette offered little guidance for situations like mine.
So I stood at the edge of the celebration with a drink in my hand and watched it unfold around me rather than with me, feeling the distinction more sharply than I wanted to admit.
I took another sip of whiskey.
Then another.
The alcohol burned pleasantly on the way down, not enough to numb anything important, but enough to take the sharper edges off thoughts I wasn’t interested in entertaining tonight.
Rhegan stirred beneath my skin.
‘Too much.’
‘You healed my wounds like they were nothing,’ I replied. ‘You can handle alcohol.’
‘You’re avoiding the point.’
‘I learned from the best.’
‘Coward.’
‘Accurate.’
His irritation rolled through me, but it wasn’t entirely because of the alcohol.
It was because of the full moon.
Because of the scents surrounding us—or more accurately, the lack of a particular scent he had been straining toward since the moment I opened my eyes in the medical wing and realized its owner wasn’t there.
With the power of the full moon pulsing above us, it was getting harder and harder to ignore those instincts,
Hence, alcohol.
My gaze drifted through the crowd until it landed on Sera.
She stood near one of the larger fires with Kieran’s arms wrapped around her waist as they watched Daniel sprint through the clearing with all the grace and dignity of a small natural disaster.
The firelight caught in Sera’s hair, and her smile glowed as Kieran leaned down to say something in her ear.
She giggled, and the sound brought a small smile to my face—but it faded almost as soon as it came.
It wasn’t longing; that had died a long time ago.
Nor was it regret, at least not the kind people would assume.
I didn’t want Sera. Not anymore.
Perhaps, if I were being honest with myself, I never really had.
What I had wanted was hope. Familiarity. A second chance wrapped in enough resemblance to an old wound that I could pretend I wasn’t trying to resurrect the dead through someone who had never asked to carry that burden.
I realize how unfair that had been to both of us, but the damage was already done.
Now, the ache in my chest came from watching two people look at each other as though the world made more sense because the other existed inside it.
It came from watching Kieran glance at her the way starving men looked at food. From watching Sera lean into him with the unconscious certainty of someone who didn’t question whether she would be held.
That kind of love existed.
I simply wasn’t built for it.
Some people found their way home.
Others became cautionary tales.
The energy shifted as a deep horn echoed across the clearing.
Excitement rippled through the crowd as wolves began drifting toward the edge of the grounds where the pack run would begin.
The full moon hung enormous overhead now, silver light spilling across the clearing until the entire world seemed dipped in mercury.
Something twisted painfully inside my chest at the thought of the pack run.
Shadowveil would be running tonight, too.
I wondered if they would look for me among them out of habit before remembering I wasn’t there, or if my absence had already become another part of the new normal they were learning to live with.
The practical part wasn’t difficult. I knew the roads back to Shadowveil, the gates, the patrol routes, and every face waiting on the other side.
It wasn’t the journey that frightened me; it was the thought of standing in front of them and feeling the weight of every mistake settling across my shoulders like chains.
The thought of looking at my people, knowing what I had allowed myself to become. Of explaining where I’d gone, and why I’d returned without my Beta.
The thought of whether I could wear the title of Alpha without hearing Catherine’s voice whispering through the ruins she’d left behind inside my head.
A soul-deep weariness wrapped around me as I looked out over the celebration and knew I couldn’t stay any longer.
So I slipped away before the pack run began.
Nobody stopped me or questioned my departure.
The music and laughter gradually faded behind me as I crossed the grounds toward the packhouse, leaving the warmth of the bonfires and the glow of the lanterns beneath the trees.
The cool night air felt good against my skin.
The quiet felt even better.
I moved through the empty corridors slowly, one hand trailing absently against the wall as I headed toward the stairs.
Then a scent drifted through the air.
Cinnamon. Old books. Rain. Magic.
I stopped walking. My heart stopped with me.
Footsteps rounded the corner ahead, soft against the wooden floor, and then—
There she was.
Evelyn froze the moment she saw me, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.
For one suspended heartbeat, neither of us moved.
The silence stretched between us, fragile and heavy and somehow louder than any conversation could have been.
She looked tired.
Not physically, but in the way exhaustion settled behind a person’s eyes and refused to leave, no matter how much they slept.
Her hair had escaped her attempt to tame it, curly amber strands falling around her face in soft disarray, and dirt was smudged beneath the cuff of her cardigan alongside a faint streak of ink across one hand.
She looked as though she’d come from work she hadn’t wanted to leave unfinished.
Or maybe from a battle nobody else knew she was fighting.
Her throat bobbed with a swallow. “Lucian.”
Rhegan surged forward so violently my head spun.
MATE!
The word crashed through me with such fierceness that I almost recoiled from it.
Beyond the windows, the full moon hung high above Nightfang, its silver light spilling through the glass and pooling across the floor between us.
Under its glow, the bond beneath my skin felt raw and exposed, stretched too tightly across instincts I no longer had the strength or sobriety to keep under control.
Mine! Mine! Mine!
Need rolled through me in hot, overwhelming waves that made it hard to see straight, let alone think.
I gripped the banister hard enough that the wood creaked beneath my hand.
Evelyn’s brows pulled together.
“Lucian?”
A short, unsteady laugh escaped me before I could stop it, sounding strained even to my own ears.
She took a cautious step toward me.
“Lucian, are you—”
“Don’t!”
The word came out rougher than I intended as I lifted a hand between us, not to push her away so much as to hold the entire world at arm’s length for one more second.
But also to push her away. Because I knew exactly what would happen if she came any closer, and it terrified me.
Concern flickered openly across Evelyn’s face.
“Lucian…” Her voice softened. “You’re shaking.”
She was right. I was like a leaf out in a storm.
Maybe it was the whiskey.
Maybe it was the moon hanging full and merciless above.
Maybe it was Rhegan, pressing against every wall of composure I’d spent years building.
Probably all three.
Her scent surrounded me now, impossibly familiar despite how little time we had actually spent together, and it drove me crazy.
Her expression shifted as she watched me struggle through what was happening inside my head.
I watched her turn toward the moon outside the window. Watched understanding dawn in her eyes. Watched her take a hesitant step back.
“Maybe I should go,” she said quietly.
The panic that hit me was so sudden and so irrational that it stole the breath from my lungs.
“No!”
Evelyn’s eyes widened as she paused.
I closed mine for a moment, dragging in a breath that did absolutely nothing to steady me.
“I didn’t mean—”
But the words died somewhere between thought and speech as she took several steps back, stopping only when her back met the wall.
The distance wasn’t much—a foot, maybe two—but it was unbearable.
Before I could think better of it, before I could remember all the reasons this was a terrible idea, I crossed the distance between us.
Evelyn’s breath caught as my hand landed against the wall beside her shoulder. A fraction of a second later, the other found its place on the opposite side, caging her in without touching her.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The moonlight spilled through the windows beside us, washing the corridor in silver as my breathing turned uneven beneath the weight of emotions I could no longer hold back, so fierce and overwhelming that they frightened me with their intensity.
Evelyn stared up at me with wide eyes as I fought for control that felt as though it had slipped through my fingers long before tonight.
“Lucian…”
I’d been imprisoned and ensalved—physically and mentally—but I’d never been more terrified in my life.