Chapter 18 Eighteen

Chapter 18 Eighteen

ZINNIA'S POV

I was frozen, my most private shame, the unexplained dread I’d carried since childhood, was just sitting in the open between us on the table. He had named it as though he was in my head.

“Who are you?” I demanded. My voice trembled, and I hated it.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up smoothly and walked to a section of the dark wood wall. He pressed something I couldn’t see. A panel slid back without a sound, revealing a hidden compartment. He pulled out a small book. It was bound in worn brown leather, the edges frayed.

He came back and placed it on the table in front of me, next to my fallen fork.

“This belonged to someone who felt the same,” he said. His voice was matter of fact. “Read it or don’t, but understand this Zinnia.” He leaned forward, his storm grey eyes holding me prisoner. “What you are experiencing: the healing, the dreams, the way the world is too loud and too sharp is not an affliction. It is a remembering.”

I stared at the journal. I didn’t touch it. “Remembering what?”

“Yourself.” He sat back down, swirling the dark wine in his glass. “Most humans carry echoes of their ancestors. Faint whispers in the blood, a fear of heights, a talent for music, a stubborn chin. For a rare few, the echo is not just a whisper, it is a roar. Your genetics are not just a recipe for your body, they are a library. And you, for reasons we do not need to discuss tonight, have just been given access to the stacks.”

He spoke quietly, but each word landed with the weight of a stone. Genetics as lineage. Instinct as memory. The dream of running, the impossible healing of a cut my body was recalling something it knew how to do.

It was insane. It sounded like science fiction but when I wrapped around the facts of the last week and pulled them tight into a knot that, horrifyingly, made a lot of sense.

The wine, the low light and his hypnotic, calm voice wove a spell around me. My fear was still there, a cold rock in my stomach, but on top of it now sat a terrible, dawning curiosity.

What if he was right?

What if I wasn’t breaking but waking up?

My mind was reeling in a tornado of thoughts.

I needed air.

I needed this to stop.

I reached to push my wineglass away, a gesture of defiance to break the spell.

At the exact same moment, he reached to refill it.

Our hands brushed.

It wasn’t just a spark but a startling jolt.

A visible, bright arc of blue white static electricity snapped between our fingertips with a sharp crack. The shock was less pain than recognition, a surge of raw energy that shot up my arm and slammed into my core, warming and unsettling me deep inside. I gasped, snatching my hand back.

He pulled his hand back too, his movement just as quick. We both stared at the point of contact, at the space where light had just jumped between us.

When I looked up at his face, his eyes had changed. The storm grey was still there, but shot through with gleaming flecks of amber, like embers in ash. His gaze was intense, focused.

“You see?” he murmured. His voice was rough, lower than before. “Your body knows what your mind refuses.”

VALOIS'S POV

She was frozen, caught between the instinct to flee and the desperate need to understand. The question, who are you, was the correct one, but she was not ready for the answer. The answer required context.

The journal was the best intermediate step. A tangible piece of the past. Isolde’s journal, from her early years, detailing her own confusing awakening.

Letting Zinnia read it would powerfully pass the message: you are not the first, your confusion is not unique, it is inherited.

Her refusal to touch it was expected. The mind defends its reality fiercely.

I watched her as I spoke. The fight in her eyes slowly banked, replaced by a dazed, mesmerized terror. The terror was good. It was the first stage of belief. She was listening. The wine and the intimacy of the setting worked as intended, lowering guards, fostering a receptiveness that daylight and confrontation would shatter.

Her mind, overwhelmed, sought to reject the trappings, the wine. She moved to push the glass away.

My movement to refill it was not an accident. Timing is everything. The contact had to seem incidental, but the connection needed to be made.

When our hands met, the surge was immediate and strong. Her power, raw and unformed was reacting to the proximity of mine. It was a physical manifestation of the potential bond, a preview of the circuit we could form.

The shock made her gasp. The energy would be traveling through her, unfamiliar and alarming, yet fundamentally familiar to the deepest part of her. It would feel like coming home and being invaded simultaneously.

I pulled back, letting her see the change in my eyes. Letting the amber glint, a glimpse behind the human mask. It was a risk but a calculated one. She had seen the painting. She needed to start connecting the man to the wolf.

Your body knows what your mind refuses.

I said it to cement the lesson. The jolt was not magic. It was biology. It was physics. It was proof. Her rational mind could debate my words, but she could not debate the lightning that leapt from her own skin to mine. That evidence was hers now, locked in her muscle memory.

She stared at her hand, then back at me, her breath still coming fast. The evening’s trajectory was now set. The intellectual seduction was underway. She was no longer thinking about the contract, or the money, or even the boyfriend. She was thinking about the jolt, the journal, the roar in the blood. She was thinking about what it meant.

And she was afraid. But for the first time, she was afraid of the thing inside herself, not just of me. That was essential. I am not your monster, the setup whispered. I am the only one who can help you with the monster you are becoming.

The next move would be hers. Whether it is a question, a demand or tears, I was ready for all of them. The foundation was already laid. Now we would see what she tried to build upon it.