SERAPHINA’S POV
I didn’t understand how Alina did it.
One mont, I was beneath the open sky, my new body trembling with unfamiliar instincts, the ocean roaring against the shore.
The next, everything around shifted in a way that defied distance and logic.
There was a tightening sensation deep inside my chest, as though sothing invisible had gripped the thread of my existence and pulled.
The world blurred.
Sand dissolved into shadow.
Salt air collapsed into cold, familiar earth.
And when my vision steadied again, I was standing upright, human again.
Barefoot on stone pavent that I instantly recognized.
The air was colder here. Heavier. Real in a way the Maldives had started to feel less and less like.
I stumbled, my hands instinctively pressing against my own arms as if to confirm I was truly back inside myself.
My breath ca unevenly, and for a mont I thought I might fall again, caught between two versions of existence that refused to settle.
“Where...” My voice broke as I looked around. “Where am I?”
Alina’s presence was still there, but quieter now, like an echo settling after a storm.
‘Close your eyes,’ she said softly inside my mind. ‘Ground yourself.’
I did not fully understand why I obeyed her, but I did anyway.
And when I opened my eyes again, I saw it.
The Lockwood Manor.
It stood before like a mory carved into stone, tall and imposing, its lights warm against the night as though nothing in the world inside it had ever fractured.
Windows glowed softly, golden and steady, the kind of light that suggested laughter, warmth, and lives that continued without interruption.
My chest tightened.
The family who had rejected without hesitation lived here.
The Lockwoods.
A lump ford in my throat as I took a hesitant step forward, drawn and repelled at the sa ti.
Sothing inside wanted to turn away, to run again, to disappear back into whatever unstable reality I had just escaped.
But another part of , deeper and more primal, refused.
It pulled forward.
I reached the edge of the courtyard slowly, pressing myself behind the low stone wall bordering the garden. From here, I could see inside through the large windows.
What I saw made my breath catch painfully.
Inside, the room was warm with life.
So sort of gathering was happening.
Glasses clinked softly. Laughter rose and fell in natural rhythm. People moved with ease, with harmony, with familiarity, with the kind of comfort that ca from belonging.
My fingers dug into the cold stone as I watched, grief swelling until my heart ached and my eyes burned.
I had always been on the outside of monts like this. I didn’t know what it was like to laugh and live in harmony with my own family.
“This is them?” I whispered under my breath.
‘Yes,’ Alina replied quietly. ‘But not as they really are. This is an illusion woven from the fabric of twisted mories.’
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with that information. I still wasn’t fully convinced I wasn’t losing my mind.
My eyes moved through the room again, slower this ti, as though I might find sothing that would make this easier to understand.
Ethan stood slightly apart from the others, his expression carrying the kind of quiet authority that did not need to announce itself to be understood.
Margaret Lockwood sat gracefully nearby, her posture perfect, her presence calm in a way that felt almost untouchable.
There was warmth in her expression as she spoke to soone across from her, but it did not quite reach the edges of her eyes, as though it had been carefully chosen rather than freely given.
And beside her stood Edward Lockwood, composed and dignified, his attention moving across the room with asured detachnt, the kind of man who observed everything but revealed little.
Even his laughter, when it ca, felt controlled—polished rather than spontaneous.
And then there was her.
Celeste.
She looked exactly as I rembered.
Beautiful in a sharp, deliberate way. Confident in a manner that suggested she had never once been made to question her place in the world.
And around her—
My breath stopped completely.
My chest seized with a wild, consuming ache that stole my breath and hamred through my chest.
My gaze locked onto him without permission, as though sothing inside had been waiting for this exact mont without my awareness.
It was the face I kept seeing but couldn’t place.
The man stood close to Celeste, her body nestled comfortably against him as if she belonged there without question.
His posture was steady, protective in a quiet way, his expression unreadable from this distance.
But it was not his face that struck .
It was the feeling.
A pressure deep in my chest, like so invisible weight was pressing down on .
And then he turned.
Slowly. Deliberately.
As if he had felt it too.
The mont his eyes t mine, the world around fell away.
No sound, no movent, no distance—only him.
Sothing inside ripped open with a ferocity that was blinding, undeniable.
It was not thought. Not logic. Not mory.
It was instinct. Recognition.
My body knew him before I did.
My breath caught sharply as I stepped back half a pace without realizing it, my hand pressing against my chest as if I could physically hold myself together.
Across the courtyard, his expression shifted sharply, as if sothing in him had just snapped into place.
Even from this distance, I felt it.
The pull.
The bond.
It hit like a physical force, tightening around my ribs, my throat, my entire being until I could barely stand still.
Alina’s voice went completely silent.
For the first ti since I had woken up in that wolf form, there was nothing guiding . Nothing explaining. Nothing interpreting.
Just .
And him.
“Mate,” I whispered, though I did not understand where the word ca from.
His hand shifted against Celeste’s arm, and his gaze darkened. I saw it then—the exact mont he understood what I was.
Celeste noticed the change imdiately.
She followed his line of sight, her expression twisting the mont she saw standing beyond the window.
Her face hardened instantly.
“No,” she said sharply, pulling away from him. I flinched at her voice. “What is she doing here?”
The door to the manor opened abruptly, and Celeste stord out into the courtyard, her heels striking stone furiously.
Her expression was no longer composed; it had fractured into sothing far more volatile.
“You,” she snapped, pointing directly at . “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
I took a step back instinctively.
“I didn’t—” My voice faltered. “I don’t even know how I got here.”
“That’s a lie,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing. “You always show up when you want to ruin things.”
Behind her, I could see figures moving closer inside the manor. Not intervening. Observing. Judging.
“I didn’t co here to ruin anything,” I said quietly, though even to myself, my voice sounded uncertain.
Celeste laughed sharply.
“You always say that,” she snapped. “And yet here you are. Again. At the exact mont when things are finally going right.”
Sothing inside stirred at her words, but I could not na it.
A mory? A feeling? A pattern I did not understand?
Before I could respond, movent behind her caught my attention.
The man had stepped out.
The mont he appeared, the air shifted again.
Not as sharply as before.
But deeper. More final. As if sothing was being locked into place.
His obsidian gaze locked on mine and didn’t waver.
Celeste noticed imdiately and moved closer to him, almost possessively, as if trying to reclaim sothing that had shifted without her permission.
“Don’t look at her,” she said quickly, her voice tightening. “She’s here to destabilize everything. She always does this.”
But he did not respond.
His eyes stayed on , and I couldn’t tear mine away from him.
Like sothing inside had finally found its missing half and refused to lose it again.
"I don’t know you," I whispered, though even as I said it, my heart pounded with conflicted recognition and denial.
His expression shifted faintly at that—his brows furrowed as if confused why I would say that.
Without warning, Celeste charged towards , her hand raised high.
“Stay the fuck away from him!”
The motion ca too quickly for to fully process, and instinct made freeze.
But I never felt the impact.
Because a hand caught her wrist mid-air.
The sound of it stopping echoed through the courtyard more loudly than the slap would have.
Celeste gasped sharply, turning her head in shock.
The man held her wrist firmly, his grip controlled but absolute, his attention never leaving mine, even as he restrained her.
“Enough,” he said quietly.
The word was not loud, but it silenced everything.
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