When I woke, the light was dim — early dawn, the kind of gray that doesn't quite belong to day or night. My body ached as if I'd spent hours fighting waves in my sleep.
Every muscle felt heavy, every breath tasted of metal and smoke.
For a moment I didn't know where I was. The sheets tangled around me smelled faintly of iron and pine, sharp and masculine, and my throat burned from too many swallowed words.
Then memory crawled back: the square, my ex-husband's face, Leonardo's hand closing around his throat, the sound of his voice — low, lethal — when he said I was his.
My pulse stuttered.
I turned on my side. Leonardo was sitting near the edge of the bed, still in the same white shirt from last night, only now it clung to his shoulders like a second skin.
His hair was damp, a few strands sticking to his temples. He hadn't slept. I could tell from the hollow set of his eyes, the tension rippling across his jaw.
For a while he didn't speak. The only sound was the faint rustle of fabric as he rubbed his thumb over a small scar on his hand — the same hand that had almost crushed a man's throat.
"Leonardo…" My voice cracked.
He didn't look at me right away. Instead, his shoulders lifted with a slow inhale, and when he exhaled, the air thickened. Pheromones — faint, controlled, but threaded with something darker. A warning.
"You should rest more," he said finally, his tone flat but rough, as if dragged through gravel.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
I tried to sit up, but my head throbbed and the room tilted slightly. A steady hand caught my shoulder before I could fall back. His fingers were warm, steady — yet I felt a shiver crawl up my spine.
His scent was stronger this close, that heavy mix of cedarwood and storm. It clung to my lungs, dizzying.
"Easy," he murmured. "You're still recovering."
"I just—"
"Evne."
My name.
The full one.
He'd never said it before. The way it left his mouth made it sound like something forbidden — like a prayer spoken in a war zone.
I looked up. His eyes met mine, silver like cracked glass under morning light. Something in my chest lurched. For a second, he looked almost human — lost, haunted, trembling with something that wasn't anger but too sharp to be tenderness.
"Don't look at me like that," he said, barely above a whisper.
"Like what?"
"Like you don't remember what I am."
I swallowed. "You didn't kill him."
His jaw tightened. "I wanted to."
"I know."
The silence that followed wasn't empty; it pulsed, alive, full of things neither of us knew how to say. I could still feel the faint warmth at the base of my neck where the mark was — not burning, just there, like a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
I pushed the blanket aside and stood. My knees trembled, but I managed to reach the window. Outside, the morning fog rolled across the street, veiling the town in pale silver. For one fragile moment, everything seemed peaceful.
"You shouldn't have gone out yesterday," he said from behind me.
"I told you I needed to breathe."
"Breathing almost got you killed."
"And hiding will make me a ghost," I shot back, turning to face him. "You can't keep me locked up here, Leonardo. I'm not a prisoner."
He stood, and the air shifted instantly — that subtle hum that made my skin prickle. He didn't come closer, but the tension in the space between us grew taut as wire.
"You don't understand," he said, his voice low. "The mark makes you visible to every Alpha in range. They'll smell me on you. Some will challenge it. Others will try to erase it."
"And you?" I asked quietly. "What will you do?"
He took a long breath, his eyes darkening. "Try not to lose control."
I could see it then — the faint tremor in his fingers, the faint sheen of sweat along his hairline. He was fighting something invisible, something primal.
His pheromones kept flickering, struggling against the discipline that made him who he was.
"Leonardo…"
He looked at me sharply, and for a heartbeat, his mask slipped. The raw hunger beneath it wasn't lust; it was instinct. Claim, protect, destroy. The trinity that built and ruined every Alpha.
He turned away, pressing a hand against the wall as if anchoring himself. "You need to leave this room," he muttered. "Go downstairs. Get some air."
"Is it—" I hesitated. "Your rut?"
The muscles in his back went rigid.
I immediately regretted asking, but the air already answered for him. The tension, the heat, the faint metallic taste of suppressed pheromones — it was all there, radiating from him in waves.
"I'll be fine," he said, though his voice was strained. "It's early. I can control it."
I wanted to believe him.
But when he turned back to me, his pupils had dilated so wide that his eyes were almost entirely black. He blinked, inhaled sharply, then forced a shaky laugh — as if mocking his own weakness.
"See?" he said hoarsely. "Fine."
"You're not," I whispered.
He stepped closer, one hand hovering near my face like he's going to kiss me before pulling back. His restraint was palpable — visible even in the tremor that shook through his wrist.
"You shouldn't have to see me like this."
"And yet I'm here," I said softly.
His breath hitched. The next moment, he moved — not to touch, but to retreat. He turned away, shoving open the balcony door. The cold air rushed in, scattering the scent and breaking the pressure in the room.
I stood there for a long time, staring at his back. He was gripping the railing so hard that his knuckles were white. I never said anything in return but I know I want him too.
Something inside me ached — not pity, not fear, but an ache that had nowhere to go.
I wanted to reach out, to tell him he wasn't alone in this. But I also knew that one wrong move could shatter the fragile line he'd drawn between control and chaos.
So I said the only thing I could. "You called me Evne Roman."
He didn't turn around. "Because I needed to remember you're real," he said quietly.
"Not a dream I can't let go of."
I didn't know what to say to that.
The mark pulsed again, faint but steady. The morning light caught his figure — silver hair, scarred shoulders, the shape of a man who carried a kingdom and a curse.
And for the first time since I woke up in this world, I wondered which one of us was truly trapped.