Raina couldn't breathe.
Not from fear.
From want.
The mansion felt different tonight thick with something unspoken, like the walls were listening. Every candlelit corridor she passed hummed with secrets.
She walked barefoot, the hem of her silk slip brushing against the ancient rugs. Her skin tingled, her pulse quickening with every step.
She didn't knock.
Lucien's door was already ajar, the faintest sliver of light slicing through the shadowed hallway. And the moment she crossed the threshold, the air shifted.
He stood by the window, shirtless, back turned. Moonlight wrapped around him like armor, illuminating the deep silver scars that crossed his shoulder setched history she still didn't fully understand.
"I couldn't sleep," she whispered.
"I know," he replied, voice low and steady.
She hesitated, then stepped further into the room. "You left."
"If I stayed…"
He exhaled slowly.
"I wouldn't have stopped."
She swallowed. "Then don't."
Lucien turned.
His gaze locked with hers burning steel laced with something older, deeper. He crossed the room in two long strides and cupped her face like he was holding a memory made flesh.
"Say it again," he murmured.
"Don't stop."
He kissed her and the world disappeared.
It wasn't soft.
It wasn't tentative.
It was fire crashing into the wind.
Her back hit the wall. She gasped as his hands slid beneath her slip, lifting her without effort. Her legs wrapped around his waist instinctively.
"Lucien"
"I'm losing control," he rasped.
"Then lose it."
His eyes flickered gold.
He carried her to the bed, setting her down with reverence and urgency. The moonlight spilled across her skin as he peeled the silk from her body, inch by inch, like he was unwrapping a secret he'd waited centuries to know again.
"You're fire," he whispered against her collarbone.
"And you're ruin," she breathed.
His mouth found her breasts, worshipping each curve with slow, deliberate heat. She moaned, fingers tangled in his hair, pressing him closer.
He moved lower.
She opened for him unabashed, already shaking with need.
Lucien's tongue found her center, and she cried out, her body arching into his mouth. He groaned low and primal and kept going, drawing wave after wave from her until her thighs trembled.
She shattered.
Once.
Twice.
When he rose again, she was breathless and undone.
He kissed her letting her taste herself on his lips.
"I'm not finished," he growled.
He entered her with a slow, relentless thrust that left her gasping. The stretch, the pressure it was all too much and not enough. She clung to him, nails sinking into his back, dragging lines across old scars.
He moved faster, deeper their bodies locked in rhythm.
"Look at me," he demanded.
She did.
And in his eyes, she saw her undoing.
Her beginning.
Her belonging.
Their climax broke over them like a storm. He cried her name. She screamed his.
And the world cracked open in light.
They collapsed together.
Chest to chest.
Breath to breath.
The mark on her wrist glowed softly in the dark.
"You're mine," Lucien whispered.
"And you're mine."
Outside, something howled.
And deep within the mansion's bones, something ancient stirred.
The silence afterward was louder than any scream.
Raina lay still, curled against Lucien's chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It should have comforted her. Instead, it echoed like a warning.
He held her gently, his breath brushing her hair in quiet intervals. One hand rested at the small of her back. The other traced slow circles along her arm as if memorizing her by touch alone.
Neither of them spoke.
Because words would shatter whatever this was.
The moonlight filtered through the high window, casting long silver shadows across the room. Outside, the forest rustled faintly. But the mansion? It had gone quiet.
As if watching. As if waiting.
Lucien shifted slightly, propping himself up on one elbow. "You're cold."
"I'm not," she whispered. But he pulled the sheet over her anyway, tucking it around her with a care that made her ache.
Raina stared at him, searching for the man behind the fire and the fangs.
"I don't feel like myself anymore," she admitted.
"You aren't," he said quietly.
The words hit harder than they should have.
She turned away, resting on her side. Her mark throbbed softly on her wrist like a second heartbeat.
"You keep saying this was meant to happen," she murmured. "That I've lived before. That we... did."
Lucien didn't respond.
"But I don't remember any of it."
Still, he said nothing.
She sat up, holding the sheet to her chest. "Do you remember me? From before?"
Lucien's gaze was unreadable. "Every lifetime."
Raina blinked. Her throat tightened. "Was I always like this?"
He looked away. "No."
"What changed?"
"You died."
The words dropped like a stone in her gut.
Lucien finally looked back at her, and his expression held so much longing, guilt, something like fear. "You died. I didn't."
"And that... bound us?"
"No," he said softly. "That cursed us."
The air between them thickened.
Raina didn't know what to say to that. She reached for her robe at the edge of the bed and stood, walking toward the tall mirror.
She paused when her reflection blinked.
Not her.
The woman staring back had her face, but was older. Fiercer. Her eyes glowed faintly. Her hair was longer, darker. She wore a crown made of antlers and bone.
Raina stumbled back. The image was gone.
Just her now. Pale. Wide-eyed. Human.
Lucien was already beside her. "You saw her."
"Who is she?" she asked, trembling.
"You."
"No—"
"In your last life," he said. "When the world feared your name."
Raina turned to him. "Why would I come back?"
"I don't know," he said. "But I know this when you did, the mark returned. And the bond reawakened."
She wrapped her arms around herself. "And Aeris?"
"She remembers too much. And forgets what she should."
"And you?" she whispered.
"I remember enough to be terrified of losing you again."
Raina didn't know whether to run or fall into his arms.
The house creaked suddenly.
Both of them turned.
A door down the hall slammed shut though no wind had touched it. Then footsteps. Not hurried. Not slow. But steady.
Lucien tensed.
"What is it?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he reached for his shirt, sliding it on with practiced urgency. "S
tay in this room. Don't open the door for anyone. Not even me."
"What"
"Raina." His voice was steel. "Promise me."
She nodded, fear curling in her gut.
He was gone in seconds, the hallway swallowing him whole.
Raina backed away from the door. The silence returned. But this time, it didn't feel empty.
It felt like the beginning of something coming.
Something old.
And it had found her again.