Rosalie:
The house was so quiet that it almost felt abandoned.
Only the sound of the wind existed.
It howled outside the villa endlessly, rattling the glass walls and bending the tall trees beyond the garden so violently that their branches looked seconds away from snapping apart completely. Dark clouds had covered the sky since early morning, swallowing the entire world beneath layers of gray and black until noon looked more like late evening.
A storm was coming.
A bad one.
I stood near the staircase for a mont, listening carefully to the house around .
Nothing. There were no footsteps, no voices, and no movent. The villa genuinely felt empty.
Aria only dropped by once in a while, and Eiden disappeared sowhere after breakfast without telling much beyond asking to rest. As for Zaiden...
Well. I hadn’t seen him since that night.
The re mory imdiately made heat creep into my cheeks.
Goddess.
I still couldn’t fully process what had happened two nights ago.
Everything about my twentieth birthday felt like so insane fever dream at this point. First, the three n I had loved for years publicly chose another woman over . Then I nearly died. Then I sohow ended up with Eiden Thorn and discovered not one, but two fated mates.
And apparently the Moon Goddess thought all this wasn’t chaotic enough because she also decided to throw my first heat into the situation.
Wonderful.
Absolutely wonderful.
Just rembering how I practically threw myself at Eiden that night nearly made want to bury myself underground permanently. And Zaiden had been there too. Which sohow made the embarrassnt ten tis worse.
No one discussed it afterward, thankfully.
Eiden behaved normally. Aria seed to know nothing about it at all. And Zaiden Nightfang... he just simply vanished as smoothly as he appeared that night out of nowhere.
Part of was relieved about that. Because honestly, I had absolutely no idea how to face both n after that night.
Needing a distraction from my own thoughts, I had spent the last twenty minutes checking the villa to make sure none of the windows or balcony doors were left open before the storm fully arrived.
The upper floor was secure and the ground floor too.
Now all that remained was grabbing so water before returning to my room. At least, that was the plan.
I stepped into the kitchen quietly, then froze instantly because soone was there.
A man stood in front of the massive refrigerator with his back facing while he pulled out a chilled water bottle casually, completely unaware of my presence.Or so I thought initially. Because even from behind, I recognized him imdiately.
Tall, broad shoulders, black hair, and that terrifyingly powerful presence impossible to mistake.
Zaiden Nightfang.
My breath caught instantly. For one wild second, my first instinct was to turn around and leave before he noticed . But my feet refused to move. Instead, I stood frozen near the kitchen entrance while my gaze remained fixed helplessly on the man in front of .
This was only the second ti I had properly seen him. And despite the storm raging outside and the darkness filling the house, he sohow looked even more dangerous today.
My heart started pounding ridiculously hard.
How was this real?
How was I sohow mated to two of the most powerful and mysterious wolves in existence?
Eiden Thorn and Zaiden Nightfang.
If soone told this weeks ago, I would have laughed in their face.
I was still trapped inside my thoughts when Zaiden suddenly turned around, and his gray eyes t mine directly as if he had known I was standing there the entire ti.
My breath hitched.
Stars!
Those eyes really were unfair. They weren’t cold exactly. But there was sothing intensely sharp about them - controlled, observant, and dangerous enough to make most people lower their gazes imdiately.
Then he spoke, "Do you need sothing?"
His voice was deep and smooth. Not harsh, nor particularly warm either. It was just calm enough to send my already unstable heartbeat into complete chaos.
For several painful seconds, I simply stared at him like an idiot. Because my brain stopped functioning the mont he looked directly at . Then realization hit. Oh! He asked a question.
"I-"
Fantastic start, Rosalie.
I swallowed quickly. "Water," I managed awkwardly. "I ca for water."
To my surprise, Zaiden didn’t react to my obvious nervousness at all. He simply turned back toward the refrigerator again and calmly retrieved another bottle.
I stood there silently while he grabbed a glass from the cabinet overhead before pouring water into it. But instead of handing it to imdiately, he paused and added so room-temperature water from the jug resting on the kitchen counter.
I blinked slightly in surprise.
He was adjusting the temperature because the refrigerated water seed to be too cold.
The realization stirred sothing strange inside my chest. It was such a small thing, such an ordinary thing. Yet sohow, no one had ever paid attention to details like that for before.
Not even-
I imdiately cut the thought off before my mind could drift toward Alastor, Darien, and Kaiser again.
Zaiden finally seed satisfied with the temperature because he turned and walked toward . And the closer he got, the harder it beca to breathe normally.
The mate bond stirred violently inside imdiately. Warmth spread through my chest while awareness sharpened painfully. And I beca conscious of everything at once - his intoxicating scent, the sound of his footsteps, the way his shirt sleeves were rolled slightly upward, exposing strong forearms, the dark strands of hair falling near his eyes, and the terrifying calmness surrounding him.
Stars.
I forgot how to function around this man.
By the ti he stopped in front of and handed over the glass, I was genuinely worried he could probably hear my heartbeat echoing through the entire kitchen. Still sohow, my hand remained steady when I accepted it.
Small victory.
"Thank you," I whispered softly.
He gave a slight nod. Then, without another word, he stepped past .
The movent brought him close enough that his scent wrapped around briefly again, making the bond pulse warmly beneath my skin.
My breath caught slightly.
Then his voice ca from behind . "If you have ti," he said calmly, "join Eiden and in the study."
I turned imdiately.
But he was already walking out of the kitchen.
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