Chapter 10 Luca
I woke up to the faint smell of soap and something warm and unfamiliar. This was not my room. I was on a couch with a blanket covering me from the waist down. The ceiling above was plain with the fan turning lazily in uneven circles. My memory rushed back in pieces.
Rain, blood, Aria.
My wolf stirred immediately in awareness and want. I sat up pressing a hand to the bandage wrapped tight around my ribs. It was clean and the smell of antiseptic still clung to it. I peeled back the bandage and noticed that the wound was a pinkish scar now. Silver was dangerous to our kind and was lucky to have escaped yesterday. The house was quiet with morning light leaking through the thin curtains. This felt too normal for what nearly happened last night. I should not have been here. I should have gone back to pack land. Should have dealt with the injury alone and should never have knocked on her door.
But I did.
Because when I stumbled out of the trees, bleeding and dizzy and barely holding my shit in check, the only place my body moved toward without my permission was her house. That terrified me more than anything. The moment that fact settled in, my heartbeat changed. My wolf leaned forward, interested, and drawn. No way! I close my eyes and breathed through it. SHE'S MY MATE?! The realization landed slow and brutal.
“This was impossible,” I muttered in disbelief.
Aria appeared suddenly in the doorway barefoot on the tile and wearing a loose sweatshirt and leggings with her dark hair piled into a messy knot at the top of her head. I noticed she had eye bags but her eyes brightened when they meet mine.
“You’re up,” she noticed.
“Looks like it,” I replied.
She crossed her arms lightly. “How do you feel?”
I searched for something smooth to say. Something that doesn’t sound like I slept better in her living room than I have anywhere else in years.
“Okay.” I just said, simply.
She tilted her head. “I should probably change the bandage.”
I try not to let the panic I now felt visible. “It’s okay, really. I should get going.”
She doesn’t have to know that the deep gash was almost gone. That would bring up many questions I wasn't ready to answer. She walked back into the kitchen and poured coffee into a mug, bringing it over and setting it on the table near me.
“Did you check on me?”
Her shoulders lifted slightly. “Once or twice.”
My chest fluttered. “Thank you.”
She gave me a small smile. “You were lucky.”
Lucky wasn’t the word I’d use for surviving a silver trap and then crawling to the one person I was supposed to stay away from.
Aria leaned back against the counter. “You said something last night.”
My grip tightened on the mug. “I say a lot of things when I’m half-dead.”
“About there being things in this town people pretend not to see.”
“You weren’t asleep by then?” I asked.
“So I’m not crazy?”
“No.”
She exhaled through her mouth. “That’s both comforting and deeply unsettling.”
For a second, the room felt too still. I shouldn’t still be here. Instead, I ask, “Are you scared?”
“I don’t know,” she finally says. “Last night, I was. I thought maybe you were in some kind of gang trouble but now…”
“Now?”
“Now it feels bigger than that.”
“That’s why you need to stay out of it,” I say quietly.
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t get to bleed on my floor and then tell me that.”
Fair.
I shifted slightly and she cautioned, “Don’t move like that,”
“I’m fine.”
Mine.
The thought hit so strong it stole my breath away. “I should go.”
Her brows knitted together. “You can barely stand.”
“I told you I’m fine.”
“Luca.”
The way she said my name made my chest coil with recognition. “I don’t think you understand what being near me does,”
Her gaze lifted slowly to mine. “Then help me understand,”
The truth sat right on my tongue. That the part of me I fight every day takes one look at her and settled. That my instincts don’t see her as separate. That last night, injured and half-feral, my body chose her without my permission.
I step back instead. “You don’t want that,”
She studied me for a long moment. “Okay.”
I reached for my jacket from the chair. She opened the door for me without being asked.
“Thank you, again.”
She met my eyes. “You owe me one.”
By the time I reached the tree line, Mason was waiting—leaning against a pine, arms crossed with his expression somewhere between worried and pissed.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“Feel like it too.”
He pushed off the tree, eyes flicking to the bandage under my shirt. “You didn’t come home last night.”
“I know.”
“Where the fuck were you?!”
I exhaled. “Her house.”
Mason’s eyes widened. “Aria’s?”
I nodded once. He stared at me for a long second then scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re joking.”
“Wish I was.”
We started walking deeper into the wood and the air cooled with pine scent thickening. “Tell me everything,” Mason said.
I did. He stopped walking. “Silver?”
“Yeah.”
Mason cursed under his breath. “That’s not rogue work. That’s organized.”
“I know.”
He looked at me. “And you went to her house instead of coming to us.”
I didn’t answer right away. “She patched me up and jept me from bleeding out on her floor.”
Mason exhaled hard. “You’re in deep, cousin.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
We started walking again. “We need to tell your dad tonight and the council too.”
“I know but not yet.”
“But first, patrols–” He glanced sideways at me. “We double them triple if we have to. And no one goes out alone not until we know how many hunters and where they’re coming from.”
I nodded. “Agreed.”
“And you—” He stopped, turned to face me fully, serious. “You stay away from her house. From her until we figure this out.”
I met his eyes and didn’t blink. “I’ll try.”
Mason’s jaw was cleanched. “Try harder, Luca”
My wolf was satisfied and didn’t pace anymore. He had finally found his mate and for the first time since I was old enough to understand what the bond meant, I was afraid of wanting it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
The hunter is real and the silver trap confirmed. What do you think—will Luca actually stay away, or is the bond about to pull him right back to her door? How soon before the pack finds out he spent the night on her couch? I'm waiting for your thoughts, my dearest readers😊.