The air in the room was still, but the silence had a pulse.
Elara could feel it—steady, rhythmic, echoing between her ribs.
His presence.
Adrian sat in the chair beside her bed, his elbows resting on his knees, black shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal the faint line of a silver tattoo on his collarbone.
He wasn't supposed to look this calm after an assassination attempt.
"How long have you been sitting there?"
Her voice was hoarse.
"Long enough to know you dream in violence."
His eyes didn't waver. "You said a name in your sleep."
Elara's stomach tightened.
"What name?"
"Mine."
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "But not this life's name."
She sat up, pushing the blanket aside.
"You're playing games again."
"Am I?"
Adrian leaned closer, his breath brushing her ear.
"Tell me, Elara… why do you wake up with your pulse racing every time I'm near?"
Her fingers clenched the sheets.
Because when he spoke like that, something inside her remembered.
A dark ballroom. A blade.
Blood running down her wrist—and his voice whispering her name, over and over, in another time.
Adrian stood, walking to the window. City lights spilled over him like molten gold, painting him both divine and dangerous.
"You killed twelve men once," he said quietly.
"Then you vanished before I could stop you."
Elara froze.
"Stop me from what?"
He turned. His gaze was a storm she couldn't look away from.
"From dying."
The words hit her harder than she expected.
"You're lying."
"No," he said simply. "You just forgot."
FLASH.
The scent of smoke. Screams.
A masked woman standing in a ring of fire, clutching a wounded man to her chest.
"Don't follow me."
"I'll find you in the next life."
Her breath hitched. The memory vanished like mist.
Elara pressed her palms against her temples.
"I keep seeing… pieces."
Adrian walked back to her, kneeling in front of the bed so his eyes were level with hers.
"That's your past trying to come home," he said softly.
"You were never meant for peace, Elara."
"And you?" she whispered.
"What were you to me?"
He smiled faintly.
"The man you spared when no one else would."
Her pulse stuttered.
"And now?"
"Now," he said, voice dropping lower,
"I'm the man who won't make that mistake again."
He stood, straightening his cuffs, mask of control sliding neatly back into place.
"Get some rest. We're leaving at dawn."
"Where?"
"To finish what we started."
His gaze flicked to her hand, where the faint imprint of the Viper insignia still marked her skin.
"Your past has begun to move, Elara. And this time—"
"—it's coming for both of us."