Chapter 219: The shape of what I lost

Seth's Pov

The door closed behind Maris with a soft, final click.

I stood alone in the middle of the guest cabin and listened to the silence she left behind. It was thicker than the one that had filled the room while she spoke. That earlier silence had been deliberate, shaped by her. This one belonged only to me, and it pressed against my ribs until breathing felt like work.

I walked to the window.

Outside, Lazarus’s pack continued its ordinary morning. A pair of children chased each other between the rose trellises. An older woman hung laundry with the unhurried patience of someone who had never needed to glance over her shoulder. Smoke rose from chimneys in thin, contented threads. The peace of the place still felt almost aggressive in its completeness.

I rested my forehead against the cool glass.

Some people survive because everyone agrees to lie.

Maris’s words looped through me, soft and poisonous. I did not know what she meant—not fully—but the shape of the warning sat heavy in my chest. Nova could not be allowed to remember. That much she had made clear. And I, the man who had once been Nova’s mate, was expected to help keep the lie intact.

I closed my eyes.

Memory rose whether I wanted it or not.

White hair spilling across a pillow like moonlight given form. Eyes the color of deep water under storm light. The small, irregular birthmark on the left side of her hip, just above the curve where my hand used to rest when we slept. I had traced that mark with my thumb so many times I could have drawn it in the dark. I remembered the exact warmth of her skin there, the way she would shift closer in sleep when my fingers found it.

My throat tightened.

I had rejected her.

I had looked her in the eyes and said the words that severed the bond, and then I had watched her leave with nothing but the clothes she wore. The guilt of that day had never left me. It had only learned how to live quietly beneath everything else.

Now Maris was turning that same guilt into a weapon against the woman I had already harmed once.

I dragged a hand down my face and stepped away from the window. I needed air. I needed distance. I needed_

The door opened again.

Maris stepped inside, the wine-colored gown still perfect, the cream shawl draped neatly over her arms. She looked composed, as though the conversation that had left me raw had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience for her.

She studied me for a moment.

“You’re still standing there,” she said.

“I needed a minute.”

“You’ve had several.”

She crossed the room, set her basket on the table, and began removing her gloves one finger at a time. The motion was unhurried. Controlled. When she finished, she looked at me again.

“Come here.”

It was not a request.

My body moved before my mind fully agreed. Old habits. Old patterns. I stopped in front of her. Maris reached up and rested her hands on my chest, palms flat over the fabric of my tunic. Her touch was cool. Familiar. Wrong in a way I could not name without sounding ungrateful.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” she murmured.

“I’m thinking about what you said.”

“Then stop.”

Her fingers slid up to the back of my neck. She rose onto her toes and kissed me.

The kiss was practiced. Soft at the edges, deliberate at the center. I returned it because that was what was expected, because turning away would invite questions I was not ready to answer. Maris made a small sound of approval and deepened the contact, her body pressing closer until the scent of lavender filled my nose.

I tried to stay present.

I failed.

White hair. The way it had felt when I buried my face in it. The soft sound Nova made when my mouth found the side of her throat. The birthmark on her hip, warm under my palm.

Maris’s hands moved to the laces of my tunic. She loosened them with efficient fingers and pushed the fabric from my shoulders. I let her. When her mouth trailed down the side of my neck, I closed my eyes and saw a different woman entirely.

She guided me toward the bed.

I went.

The mattress dipped under our combined weight. Maris climbed over me, the wine-colored gown pooling around her thighs as she settled astride my hips. She kissed me again, slower now, while her hands worked the rest of my clothing open. My body responded out of pure physical reflex. Heat gathered low in my stomach. My cock hardened against the soft pressure of her.

But my mind remained elsewhere.

I remembered the exact shape of Nova’s waist under my hands. The way her hips had moved when she rode me—unhurried at first, then deeper, seeking. The soft, broken sounds she made when I gripped her there and guided her. The way her white hair had fallen forward like a curtain when she leaned down to kiss me.

Maris shifted, freeing me fully from my clothes. She rose onto her knees, guided me to her entrance, and sank down in one smooth motion.

My breath left me in a low sound that had nothing to do with the woman above me.

She felt different.

Of course she did.

I knew the weight of her, the rhythm she preferred, the small adjustments she made when she wanted more pressure. I had learned all of it over years of shared nights. None of it matched the memory currently burning behind my eyes.

Maris began to move.

Slow, controlled rolls of her hips. The soft sound of skin meeting skin. Her hands braced on my chest for balance. She looked down at me with half-lidded eyes, lips parted, the picture of a wife reclaiming her husband’s attention.

My hands settled on her waist because that was what the moment required.

My mind supplied different hips.

Fuller. Softer under my grip. The birthmark just within reach of my right thumb if I slid my hand slightly lower. I could almost feel the raised edge of it, the way Nova used to shiver when I pressed there during sex, as though the mark itself were connected to every nerve ending she possessed.

Maris leaned forward, changing the angle. Her breasts brushed my chest. She kissed the side of my jaw, then my mouth, breathing softly against my lips.

“Stay with me,” she whispered.

I made a sound that might have been agreement.

It was not.

I was remembering the color of Nova’s eyes when she came—how they went darker, almost black at the center, and how she looked at me like I was the only solid thing in the world. I was remembering the way her white hair stuck to her damp forehead. The soft, helpless noise she made when I flipped her onto her back and drove deeper.

Maris’s pace increased.

The wet heat of her surrounded me, familiar and entirely wrong. My body chased the physical peak because bodies were simple. My mind refused to follow. Every thrust pulled another fragment of Nova into sharper focus: the curve of her lower back, the way her thighs trembled when she was close, the birthmark dark against her pale skin when my hands held her open.

Heat coiled tighter at the base of my spine.

Maris moaned softly above me, the sound polished, controlled even in pleasure. She leaned down again, mouth near my ear, and whispered my name the way she always did when she wanted me to finish.

My hands tightened on her hips.

My breath fractured.

The memory of Nova’s voice—raw, unguarded, saying my name like a plea—crashed through me at the exact moment release took me.

“Nova—”

The name left my mouth in a broken, involuntary moan, torn from somewhere deeper than thought.

Maris went completely still above me.