We didn’t speak right away after that.
Not because there was nothing left to say, but because everything that could have been said in that mont would have only added more weight to sothing that already felt dangerously close to breaking. The tension hadn’t disappeared; it had simply changed shape, settling sowhere deeper, sowhere harder to ignore.
Rowan started walking first, his pace steady but not rushed, as though he expected to follow without needing to ask. I did, though not out of trust alone. There was sothing else driving that decision, sothing quieter and far less comfortable, because staying behind—staying where Kael still stood—felt like stepping backward into sothing I had already chosen to leave.
Still, even as we moved away, I could feel it.
Not Kael himself, not the bond the way it had once been, but the awareness of him, like a distant echo that refused to fully fade. It lingered just enough to remind that whatever had broken between us had not disappeared completely.
That realization sat heavily in my chest as we walked through the city.
The streets were no longer unfamiliar in the sa way they had been when I first arrived, but they still didn’t feel like they belonged to . People passed by without noticing us, absorbed in their own lives, their own concerns, and for a mont, I found myself wondering what it must feel like to exist in a world where everything was that simple.
Beside , Rowan said nothing.
But his silence wasn’t empty. It was deliberate, the kind of silence that ca from soone who was thinking too much and choosing carefully what to say, or whether to say anything at all.
I let it stretch for a while before breaking it.
"You knew sothing," I said, keeping my voice even, though the thought had been building for several minutes.
Rowan didn’t answer imdiately, and that hesitation alone told more than his words eventually would.
"I suspected," he said at last.
I let out a quiet breath, more out of disbelief than frustration.
"That’s not the sa thing."
"No," he agreed. "It isn’t. But we already talked this."
I stopped walking.
This ti, he stopped too, turning slightly toward , his attention shifting fully in my direction.
I t his gaze, no longer willing to let this remain half-said.
"You keep choosing your words carefully," I said, "but you’re still deciding what I’m allowed to understand and what I’m not, and I need to know why."
For a mont, he didn’t respond. He just looked at , as though weighing the question rather than avoiding it, and that alone made it harder to stay angry.
"Because once you heard it," he said slowly, "you won’t be able to step away from it."
I frowned, the answer frustrating in a different way than I had expected.
"I’m already not stepping away."
"That’s not what I an," he replied, his voice quieter now.
"Then explain it."
There was a pause, not tense, but deliberate.
"I don’t know exactly what you are," Rowan said finally, "but I know that whatever you’re connected to doesn’t follow the rules we were taught to rely on. It isn’t limited to one bond, or one Alpha, and that makes it sothing unstable, sothing people will either try to control... or destroy."
The words didn’t shock but they didn’t sit easily either.
"You’re saying I don’t belong anywhere," I said.
"That’s not what I said."
"It’s what it sounds like."
He shook his head slightly, his expression tightening just enough to suggest that I had misunderstood sothing important.
"It ans you don’t belong to sothing predefined," he corrected.
That didn’t make it better. If anything, it made it harder to hold onto anything solid. I looked away for a mont, letting that settle, even if I didn’t fully understand it yet.
"And Kael?" I asked after a few seconds. "He sounded like he knew more than he should."
Rowan’s gaze shifted slightly, not away, but inward, as if considering how much to say.
"He recognized it," he said.
"How?"
"Because he’s seen sothing similar before."
That answer landed differently. It wasn’t vague. It was specific in a way that imdiately raised more questions.
"Where?" I asked.
Rowan didn’t answer. And this ti, the silence felt heavier.
"You’re still holding back," I said, my voice quieter now, but far more certain.
"Yes," he said.
There was no hesitation in that answer. No attempt to soften it. And strangely, that honesty made it easier to accept than anything else he had said so far. I exhaled slowly, shifting the conversation rather than forcing it forward in a direction he clearly wasn’t ready to take.
"Then tell this," I said. "If I stay... what happens?"
Rowan studied for a mont, and sothing in his expression changed, not dramatically, but enough to make it clear that this question mattered more than the others.
"If you stay," he said, "then you stop being sothing that happens to others, and you start becoming sothing they react to."
The words settled into slowly. Not fully understood but felt.
"And if I leave?" I asked.
His gaze didn’t waver.
"Then soone else will find you first."
A quiet chill moved through , not sharp enough to be fear, but steady enough to demand attention. For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. Then, without warning, that familiar sensation returned.
Not as overwhelming as before, not strong enough to pull completely out of the mont, but present enough to interrupt the conversation entirely. It moved beneath the surface of everything else, subtle but insistent, like sothing brushing against the edges of my awareness.
I turned slightly, my focus shifting as I tried to isolate what I was feeling from the constant noise of the city.
At first, nothing stood out.
People passed by as they had before, conversations overlapping, footsteps blending into the rhythm of the street. Everything looked normal. But it didn’t feel normal.
Rowan noticed the shift in almost imdiately.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I’m not sure yet," I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I knew that wasn’t entirely true.
This wasn’t unfamiliar. It wasn’t random. It was controlled. I took a slow breath, letting my senses stretch beyond what was visible, searching for sothing that didn’t belong. And then I felt it. Not strong, aggressive but deliberate.
Watching.
Before I could fully process it, a voice reached us, smooth and unhurried, as though the mont had already been decided long before we beca aware of it.
"I was wondering how long it would take before you noticed."
I froze.
Not because I recognized the voice from mory, but because sothing inside reacted to it instantly, as though it had been waiting for this mont.
Slowly, I turned.
He was already there.
Leaning against the wall across the street, his posture relaxed in a way that felt entirely intentional, as if he had been observing us for far longer than we had been aware of him. His gaze moved between and Rowan with quiet interest, and the faint curve of a smile appeared on his lips, not warm, not welcoming, but edged with sothing far more calculated.
Lucien.
The na surfaced in my mind without explanation.
His eyes settled on Rowan last, and for a brief mont, sothing sharper flickered beneath that calm exterior.
"Well," he said lightly, "this is more complicated but fun than I expected."
And in that mont, it beca clear that whatever path I thought I had chosen—
Had already been seen from the beginning.
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