(Leonardo's POV)
I don't sleep that night.
The house breathes around me—timbers expanding in the cold, pipes whispering under pressure—but inside my skull there's only noise. The same heartbeat, the same pulse that isn't mine. Hers.
The mark burns faintly, a phantom brand against my palm. Every time I close my hand it flares, like the echo of her skin is still trapped there. The wolf inside me prowls the edges of thought, impatient, unsettled.
You claimed her.
"No," I mutter to the dark. "It wasn't a claim."
It laughs, a sound made of breath and growl. Then why does she smell like home?
I press the heel of my hand to my temple. I've lived through wars, through the Luna's death, through the taste of ash and betrayal. None of it ever unmade me like this quiet house does—her scent laced through every room, that trace of fear and trust and something dangerously close to belonging.
The window's half-open. Cold air slips in, cutting the heat that rolls off my skin. I stare out toward the thin line of dawn creeping up the horizon. I should leave before the sun rises, before she wakes and looks at me like I'm something monstrous again.
But my body refuses to move.
The wolf shifts restlessly. It remembers the battlefield: the dying, the smell of iron and rain. It remembers the moment everything went still—right before I came back here and found her waiting. The same pull I felt then, an instinct older than logic, older than the crown.
Protect her.Possess her.Don't lose her like the last one.
The thoughts snarl together until I can't tell which are mine and which belong to the beast.
A sound behind me. The faint creak of floorboards.
I turn before I mean to. She's standing in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket, eyes still hazy from sleep. The lamplight brushes her hair, and for a second the image wavers—past and present overlapping. The Luna used to stand just like that, watching me when nightmares woke me.
But it isn't her.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asks softly. Her voice is careful, like she's speaking to something wounded or dangerous. Maybe both.
"No." I force the word out, rough. "You should go back to bed."
"I tried." She hesitates, then steps closer, bare feet silent on the floor. "It's the mark, isn't it?"
I don't answer.
She comes to stand beside me, looking out the same window. The world outside is washed in gray; even the city sounds haven't started yet. For a long time we just stand there, breathing the same air.
Then she says quietly, "I can feel it too. Like a heartbeat under my skin."
That confession hits harder than any blade.
"I didn't want this," I whisper. "Not for you."
"I know." Her voice trembles. "But that doesn't change that it's there."
Silence again. The kind that stretches, full of words neither of us are ready to say.
"I lost someone because of this," I tell her finally. "The Luna. My wife. I thought marking meant safety. It didn't. It turned to chains."
She looks up at me, eyes searching. "You think I'm her replacement?"
The wolf flinches at the accusation, but I force myself to hold her gaze. "No. That's what scares me."
Her lips part, a breath drawn too sharply. "Because it's different?"
"Yes." The word comes out almost like a growl. "Because it shouldn't be."
I step back, needing space, but the mark throbs in protest. The pull between us feels like gravity—move too far and it drags me back.
"I can't control it," I admit. "The wolf keeps… remembering your scent. It thinks you're mine."
"And you?" she asks.
I wish she hadn't.
Because the truth is tangled. I'm supposed to be the Alpha King, the man who commands armies with a glance. Yet here I am, undone by the memory of her scent on my skin, by the thought of her flinching when I touch her.
"I'm trying not to be him," I say finally. "The man who let instinct ruin everything."
She studies me for a long time, then does something I don't expect. She reaches out and lays her hand over mine where it grips the windowsill. Her touch is light, tentative—but it steadies the tremor running through me.
"Maybe instinct isn't always ruin," she says. "Maybe it's warning."
"Warning of what?"
"That we're both standing on the edge of something."
Her hand is warm. The wolf stills, uncertain. I can feel its attention shift from hunger to curiosity.
I take a slow breath, forcing my body to stay still. "If I ever cross a line—"
"You won't," she interrupts. "I'd stop you."
That earns a ghost of a smile from me. "I don't doubt it."
The moment stretches again. The sky outside bleeds from gray to pale gold. Morning has found us, but I don't feel any lighter.
She pulls her hand back, wrapping the blanket tighter. "Try to rest," she says, voice quieter now. "You look worse than you think."
When she leaves, the room feels colder. The mark still hums under my skin, faint but persistent, as if it's listening to her footsteps retreat.
I lean my forehead against the windowpane and close my eyes.
The wolf whispers, softer this time. She isn't the past. Don't lose her to it.
"I don't intend to," I whisper back. "But wanting and deserving are not the same."
Outside, dawn spills over the city, washing away the night's ghosts. Inside, I wait for the sound beneath my skin to fade.
It doesn't.