Chapter 3 Instinct

Lyra's POV

The music was live and flawless. Strings and piano sweeping up through the vaulted ceilings like some orchestral spell. Crystal chandeliers shimmered overhead. Perfumed bodies moved in elegant clusters, each person dressed in black tie and careful hierarchy.

Lyra stood along the edge of the crowd, careful to keep to her role: present, but forgettable.

She'd followed every instruction in the gala packet. Her ID badge clipped discreetly to the inside of her clutch. Hair twisted up. Gown steamed and lint-rolled twice. The green mask she'd chosen. Simple silk, matching the dress, fit snug across her nose and cheekbones, another layer of camouflage.

Suppressants administered. What little of them she had.

She hadn't been able to refill her prescription. The pharmacy had been out of stock. Delays in production, they'd said. Come back next week.

Next week was too late.

So she'd used her backup, the old vial buried in her medicine kit. It was months past expiration. The liquid had turned slightly opaque. Bitter at the back of her throat. But she'd taken it anyway. Let it settle into her system and hope.

Then, just in case anyone questioned her, she'd rinsed the empty vial and filled it with soda water. Clear, fizzy, passable.

Now, in the center of the Virelux Grand Atrium, she knew it wasn't working.

It hadn't fully kicked in, or worse, it had begun to wear off.

Her skin felt tight. Her breath, uneven. She could smell too much. Everyone's scent layered and sharp, mixing in the heat of the crowd. Alpha tones curled at the edge of her senses, restrained but potent. Cassian Dorne's was the worst of them. Clean, cold, dominant without needing to rise.

Every time he moved through the room, heads turned.

Lyra didn't turn. She kept her back to the mezzanine and pretended to read the event program until the letters blurred.

The throb behind her eyes was not just a headache. It was her body fighting itself.

Get out. Quietly.

She waited for the next round of applause to swell around the stage, then slipped her way toward the rear of the hall. She passed clusters of assistants she vaguely knew. A finance director with too much cologne. One of the legal Alphas whispering in a comms advisor's ear.

No one noticed her. She was still background. Still invisible.

The exit to the terrace garden was dimly lit, framed by velvet ropes and standing floral displays. A few people mingled there, but mostly, it was where smokers and air-seekers retreated.

She just needed a few minutes of oxygen. To breathe, reset, recover.

As she stepped through the open arch, a familiar pressure swept down her spine.

Someone behind her.

Not following, just... watching.

She quickened her pace, shoes silent on the stone flooring. The silk mask clung damp against her face, its green fabric hiding little now. The cool night air beckoned just ahead, crisp and unscented.

Then a voice, low and smooth, brushed her shoulder.

"You shouldn't be out here alone."

She stopped cold.

The speaker was masked, half silver, half black. Formalwear, tailored perfectly. His voice deep, restrained. Just that hint of command under velvet.

Cassian. She knew that voice.

She had heard it before. In briefings. In silent elevator rides. In precisely worded press calls and quarterly videos.

Cassian Dorne.

No title. No introductions. Just instinct, whispering a warning into the base of her skull.

He didn't know it was her. Not yet.

But if she turned around, if he caught her scent now, raw and unprotected. He might know far too much.

---

Cassian's POV

Same evening – Gala Night

Cassian hated galas.

He hated the performative elegance, the soft manipulation dressed as conversation, the way his presence shaped the room long before he spoke. He hated being a symbol of something he no longer believed in. Legacy, structure, control.

But tonight, he hated himself more.

He'd thrown back his third glass of champagne faster than he meant to. He could feel the buzz dulling his precision, loosening the edges of his self-control. He almost welcomed it. Anything to smooth over the ache in his head, the growing sense of suffocation in his chest.

He had been told, quietly but clearly, that the engagement was expected to be formalized before the quarter closed. A strategic alliance. "Stability," they called it.

But nothing about tonight felt stable.

Celeste had sent a message just before the gala began: Running late. Don't wait up. Cold, impersonal. Fitting. They hadn't spoken in more than ten words that week.

Cassian stood along the edge of the mezzanine and watched the ocean of people move below, trying to remember why he was still here.

Then he saw her.

In green.

Moving quickly, but not rushed. Not trying to be seen, but not trying to disappear, either. Something about her posture drew him, like a held breath that never released.

Cassian didn't recognize her. Not by name, not by title.

But his body... did.

It was subtle at first. A tug. The way the air shifted near her. His instincts stirred, quiet and warning. He blinked hard, told himself he was imagining it.

He didn't follow women. He didn't chase shadows. But still, he moved."

He told himself it was coincidence. Curiosity.

He was half-drunk. Tired. The night was almost over.

And then she stepped toward the garden exit, and his senses flared in quiet protest. A part of him moved without permission.

"You shouldn't be out here alone," he said.

Her back stiffened.

The moment between his words and her reaction was less than a second, but enough. Enough for something inside him to pull taut.

He couldn't scent her clearly. Not through the wind. Not with the remnants of suppressant clouding the air. But there was something wrong with the way she turned. Something familiar. Something...

His thoughts stalled. His instincts didn't.