Evaline:
Oscar.
I stared at him like I was seeing a ghost—except ghosts didn't breathe heavy in the moonlight. They didn't hold your gaze with golden eyes full of wild tension. They didn't smell like fire and pine and something dangerous that lived in the back of your throat and heart.
But he did.
He was real.
And he was naked.
I instinctively took a step back, heart slamming so hard it hurt. The weight of the mate bond flared up between us like it had just remembered its purpose. A golden string pulled tight in my chest, vibrating, burning.
Oscar didn't speak at first.
His gaze locked on mine, unreadable.
The same man who once told me to stay away. Who hadn't even looked at me since that day in the Council chamber when my world tilted and my heart betrayed me by choosing him as one of my fated mates.
He'd rejected that bond.
Rejected me.
But his wolf?
His wolf had done the exact opposite.
