Chapter 62 Chapter 62: The Wrong Man, The Right Danger
Chapter 62 Chapter 62: The Wrong Man, The Right Danger
The silence the guards left behind felt fragile, as if one wrong breath might shatter it and call them back. My shoulders sagged with exhaustion, and for the first time since the alarms began screaming through the mansion, I allowed myself to believe we had survived the moment. My gaze drifted toward the balcony doors, where the curtains swayed gently in the cool night air, innocent and quiet. A shaky breath escaped me, almost a laugh, almost a sob. He was still out there. He was safe. And for a heartbeat, the world felt merciful again.
I stepped toward the balcony, my feet light and hurried with urgency and relief tangled together. My fingers lifted toward the curtain, brushing the soft fabric as I leaned closer. “Wilder,” I began in a whisper, the name barely forming on my lips. I imagined his expression softening, imagined the tension leaving his shoulders when he stepped back inside. The thought warmed me, steadying my racing heart. Everything was about to calm down. Everything was finally going to slow.
The bedroom door flew open behind me.
The sound shattered the fragile calm like glass hitting marble. Before I could even turn, a hand caught my wrist and pulled me sharply backward. A gasp burst from my lungs as my back collided with a solid chest, the force knocking the breath out of me in a rush of panic. Another arm wrapped around my waist, firm and unyielding, holding me in place with startling certainty. My mind barely had time to register fear before warm breath brushed my cheek, sending a shock of electricity down my spine.
And then his lips found mine.
The world disappeared.
The kiss was sudden and fierce, filled with urgency that stole the air from my lungs. For one stunned second, I forgot how to move, how to think, how to breathe. My hands hovered in the space between us, suspended between pushing him away and gripping him for balance. Heat rushed through me in a dizzying wave as the reality of the moment sank in. This wasn’t hesitation. This wasn’t uncertainty. This was intention.
His hand tightened at my waist, pulling me closer as though the distance between us was unbearable. My heartbeat thundered so loudly I was certain he could feel it against his chest. The kiss deepened, not demanding but desperate, like a confession spoken in a language neither of us fully understood. The room seemed to tilt around us, the quiet night outside pressing against the windows as though the entire world held its breath.
The scent of him reached me next—familiar, unmistakable, impossible to ignore. My eyes fluttered open in startled realization, and a surge of confusion crashed into the whirlwind of emotion already consuming me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The thought struck like ice through my chest, yet my body betrayed me by freezing instead of fighting.
The kiss softened slowly, shifting from urgency to something deeper and more deliberate. It lingered like a question he was afraid to ask aloud. My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt without permission, gripping it as though it could anchor me to reality. Every breath I took felt shallow and unsteady, as if the air itself had grown too thin to hold the weight of the moment.
When he finally pulled back, it was only by a fraction. His forehead hovered close to mine, his arm still firm around my waist, as if letting go entirely was not an option he could accept. My chest rose and fell rapidly, each breath trembling as my thoughts scrambled to catch up with reality.
The lights snapped back to life without warning.
A sharp hum filled the room as the lamps flickered, then steadied, flooding the bedroom in warm golden light. The sudden brightness felt blinding after the shadows, exposing every corner, every surface, every secret the darkness had protected. My heart leapt violently into my throat, and instinct took over before thought could catch up. I shoved against the chest in front of me, my palms pressing hard as panic surged through my veins like fire.
He let me go, stumbling back a step from the force of it.
My breath came in ragged bursts as I lifted my eyes to his face—ready to scold, ready to whisper, ready to warn him that he should never have come back inside. The words crowded my throat, desperate to escape. But they never made it past my lips. Because the man standing in front of me was not the one I expected.
It was Auren Draven.
The realization hit like the ground disappearing beneath my feet. The air vanished from my lungs in one brutal rush, leaving me frozen and breathless. My mind refused to accept what my eyes were seeing, as if reality had twisted into something impossible while I wasn’t looking. Auren stood only a few steps away, his chest rising and falling as though he had run through the entire mansion to reach me. His hair was slightly disheveled, his tie loosened, his dark eyes burning with an emotion so raw it made my stomach drop.
“Auren…” His name left my lips in a broken whisper, barely more than a breath. Shock rippled through me, followed quickly by a wave of dread so powerful it made my hands tremble. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The room suddenly felt too small, the walls closing in as reality crashed down around me.
“You’re not Elara?” he asked, the words falling into the silence like something fragile breaking. His voice held confusion first, then a sharp edge of realization that made my stomach twist painfully. His gaze searched my face as though the answer might be hidden somewhere in my expression. “Where is Elara?” he demanded more firmly, his brows drawing together. A beat passed, heavy and suffocating. “And who are you?”
The questions struck me one after another, but my mind refused to catch them. I stood frozen, the world around me dimming at the edges as shock settled deep into my bones. My lips parted, yet no sound followed. I could still feel the ghost of the kiss, the warmth of his hands, the weight of the mistake hanging thick in the air between us. Words existed somewhere far away, but they felt unreachable, buried beneath the chaos flooding my thoughts.
Auren took a step closer, his confusion sharpening into something more urgent. “Answer me,” he said quietly, though the tension in his voice betrayed the calm tone. His eyes flicked toward the balcony doors for the briefest moment before returning to me, suspicion beginning to flicker beneath the surface. “Why are you in Elara’s bedroom?” he pressed. “Why did you let me think—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening as the rest of the sentence went unspoken.
My heart pounded painfully in my chest, each beat echoing louder than the last. Fear wrapped around my throat like invisible hands, squeezing until breathing felt like an effort. Every possible answer felt dangerous. Every truth felt catastrophic. The mansion suddenly seemed far too quiet again, as if it were waiting to hear what I would say next.
“I asked you something,” he said, softer this time, but no less intense. The rawness in his voice made my chest ache in a way I didn’t understand. He wasn’t just confused. He was shaken. And somehow that made everything worse. “Who are you?” he repeated.