Chapter 5 Before the Sun

Lyra's POV

She woke to stillness.

The air was warm. The sheets, too smooth. And the scent-clean, masculine, unfamiliar-told her everything before her eyes even opened.

This wasn't her bed.

The truth unfurled in slow, unbearable clarity.

She moved, just slightly, and felt it. Him.

Cassian Dorne lay beside her.

They weren't touching anymore, but the space between them still hummed with the memory. The weight of instinct. The imprint of a bond neither of them had chosen. Her breath caught as her gaze moved to him.

He lay on his side, one arm half-draped across the sheet, the other folded beneath his head. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that was almost too calm. Like nothing had happened. Like the night hadn't cracked something open between them.

He looked different asleep.

Without the armor of his tailored suit, without the glacial distance he wore in every meeting, Cassian seemed almost human. His hair, usually slicked back and perfect, had come undone. Black waves falling over his forehead, slightly flattened where the pillow had pressed. Stubble shadowed his jaw, rough and real. His mouth, relaxed in sleep, was softer than she remembered, too soft, too vulnerable.

And yet she felt none of that softness in herself.

Her chest tightened, every breath shallow. She sat up slowly, careful not to let the sheets rustle. Her skin prickled with a faint ache, heat blooming low across her abdomen and curling beneath her collarbone. It wasn't pain. It was instinct, residue.

A bond's afterglow.

She didn't need to look to know the spot just below her shoulder, high on her neck, would be tender. It pulsed faintly. Like a bruise pressed by memory. Not enough to scar. Just enough to prove she had been claimed.

Not officially. Not even permanently.

But enough.

Lyra eased the sheet off her body and slid out of bed, every movement silent. Her dress was draped over the back of a nearby chair, wrinkled but intact. Her clutch sat beneath it, slightly open, the edges curled. One of her shoes had fallen on its side near the bathroom door.

She didn't look in the mirror.

She didn't have to.

She already knew what she'd see-skin too flushed, hair wild, eyes glassy with something between fear and shame. A stranger in her own face. A ghost behind her own eyes.

She reached for the dress and stepped into it. The silk clung awkwardly now, the zipper stiff. Her hands shook as she reached behind herself to pull it up.

Then, behind her, Cassian stirred.

He murmured something low. Barely audible.

One word.

"Stay."

Lyra froze.

The sound of it-unfiltered, vulnerable, half-formed-hit her like a blow. Not the polished, clipped voice he used in boardrooms. Not the distant one from press calls or staff videos. This was different. A whisper dragged from somewhere deeper, closer to truth than either of them had ever allowed.

But he didn't wake.

And she didn't answer.

Her fingers found the zipper again. She pulled it all the way up, breath held tight in her throat. She grabbed her shoes, stuffed them into her clutch. Didn't fix her hair. Didn't wipe her face.

As she bent down near the bed, a flash of gold slipped from her lap.

She didn't feel it fall.

Didn't hear it land.

One of her grandmother's earrings-vintage gold, delicate scrollwork-slid into the folds of the linen, just inches from where Cassian's hand rested against the mattress.

Gone. Forgotten in the panic.

The right one.

She didn't notice until she was three blocks from the nearest station, the sun still trapped beneath the city skyline, her arms wrapped around her ribs as she walked fast and silent through the sleeping streets.

Each step echoed louder than the last.

She passed a darkened storefront. Her reflection flickered in the glass-distorted by streetlight and motion, barely recognizable. Hair half-loose. Dress rumpled. Eyes wide and hollow.

She stopped, just for a second.

Her own face stared back at her like a question she couldn't answer.

What have you done?

Who are you now?

She looked away first.

Always, she looked away first.

By the time the city began to stir-windows glowing, early trains rumbling beneath her feet-Lyra had vanished into the crowd. Just another woman in a green dress. Just another mistake no one would remember.

Except she would.

She'd remember every breath, every heartbeat, every terrifying second when she hadn't been herself. When her body had chosen for her. When instinct drowned out reason.

She'd remember the sound of his voice in the dark.

And worst of all...

She would remember how much, in that one unguarded moment, she'd wanted to stay.