Chapter 2 A Scent That Won't Let Go

Aurelia's POV

I sat on the cold marble floor, my back pressed against the wall, trying to catch my breath. My chest ached as if something had torn through me, yet beneath the pain there was a strange clarity. The bond... whatever it was, had already taken root. And it terrified me.

He hadn't moved. Lucien Blackthorne stood there, impossibly tall and composed, his gold-flecked eyes burning into mine like molten metal. The air between us pulsed with something alive, sharp, dangerous. I could feel it-my wolf stirring, sensing him before my mind could.

"I told you to leave," he said, his voice low, controlled, but there was an edge now, a tension he couldn't hide.

"I..." I tried to speak, but my throat tightened. "I didn't-" My voice cracked into a whisper.

"You don't get to touch me," he interrupted, sharp and final. "You don't get to feel this. It's dangerous. And you... you are nothing to me."

Nothing to him. The words were meant to cut, to push me away, but they ignited something deeper inside me. My blood pulsed in rhythm with him, my wolf whined in frustration. This wasn't just attraction. It was recognition. Territory. Destiny. Something primal that refused to be ignored.

"I... I don't understand," I admitted, trembling. "What... what just happened?"

He stepped back, hands sliding into his pockets as if distance could erase the invisible tether now linking us. "I-don't waste your time trying. You are not... mine."

But the pull didn't fade. His scent lingered in the air, threading into my skin and blood, dragging at me like a chain I couldn't break. I wanted to run, wanted to escape, yet every instinct screamed to stay, to respond, to surrender to a force I didn't understand.

"You... you can't just-" I stopped myself. My head spun. My wolf snarled inside, frustrated at its inability to act. It knows him. It knows him, and it's pulling toward him.

Lucien's gaze flicked downward, noticing the subtle tremor in my hands, the racing pulse beneath my skin. "Stop it," he growled, voice barely above a whisper. "You're too young. Too inexperienced. Too weak to handle this."

"Then why-why do I feel this?" I whispered, voice breaking. "Why do I... feel you inside me?"

His jaw tightened, and he turned away, looking out at the city below, as if the skyline could explain what neither of us understood. I thought I heard him breathe-a sharp, shallow inhale that carried the weight of restraint and torment.

"I refuse," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "I refuse this bond. I refuse you."

Even as he said it, his fingers brushed the edge of his desk-the very spot where the bond had pulsed strongest. That small motion hit me like a lightning strike. The pull between us wasn't fading. It was growing.

I didn't want it. I didn't understand it. And yet, I couldn't stop thinking about him, feeling the echo of his presence in my veins. My wolf pressed against the invisible tether, testing it, demanding, impatient.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Why can't you just let me go?"

He didn't answer. Not really. He turned back toward me, calm, unreadable... yet the gold in his eyes betrayed the truth. Something had shifted. Something dangerous. Something that would not allow either of us to walk away unchanged.

The office felt smaller now, oppressive, charged with energy neither of us could control. My heart hammered, my blood screamed, and deep in my gut I knew-this encounter had sealed something irreversible.

I didn't know the extent yet, but one thing was certain: I had stepped into a world I couldn't escape, and Lucien Blackthorne was at the center of it all.