Chapter 72

Chapter 72
Me: Wow.

I sent the message while genuinely feeling like my heart was breaking inside my chest.

I reread his last text through blurry eyes, and the more I stared at it, the more it felt like a slap across the face. I wanted to scream at him, to demand how he could say something like that after everything we had been through, after everything I had been through because of him. But instead, I simply typed my next message with trembling hands.

Me: How can you say that to me? How can you doubt my feelings for you?

His reply came almost instantly, arriving while I was still typing another message.

Lucien: You have to prove it.

Then another message appeared.

When I opened it, my breath caught sharply in my throat. It was a picture of a black G-Wagon parked directly outside my apartment building.

Lucien: Get down.

My heart pounded violently as I stared at the image, uncertainty and fear battling viciously inside me. Sarah was not home today, and strangely enough, I did not know how to feel about that.

Part of me felt relieved she would not be around trying to insert herself between Lucien and me again, but another part of me was terrified. I was dealing with something supernatural, something I still barely understood, and after the way things ended the last time we saw each other, I could not stop imagining worst-case scenarios.

What if he changed his mind?

What if the witch Javon mentioned was waiting inside that car right now, ready to erase my memories?

What if I forgot my family? My friends? Him?

The thought alone made me feel sick.

Me: Where are you taking me?

Lucien: You have five minutes to get here.

Panic surged through me instantly.

Five minutes?

I rushed into the bathroom and quickly stripped out of my clothes, tossing them into the laundry basket before stepping under the shower. I did not even know why I bothered showering when my nerves were this bad, but somehow the hot water helped steady me a little. I washed quickly, barely paying attention to what I was doing before stepping out again and drying myself in a hurry.

I pulled on a short green gown that stopped high on my thighs, then tied my damp hair into a tight bun and applied only lip gloss before staring at my reflection for half a second. I looked nervous. Too nervous.

Grabbing my keys, I hurried out of the apartment and rushed into the elevator, repeatedly pressing the button for the ground floor like it would somehow make it move faster.

By the time I reached the parking lot, my breathing was uneven from anxiety and rushing.

And there he was.

Standing beside the G-Wagon waiting for me.

Lucien was dressed in an ivory suit that made him look devastatingly handsome beneath the fading afternoon light. His dark hair was slicked neatly back like he had just stepped out of a board meeting, and somehow the sharp tailoring only made him seem taller, colder, more untouchable. Leaning against the black vehicle, he looked almost unreal. Dangerous in a way that made my stomach tighten.

I glanced toward the tinted front windows, trying to see who was inside.

Please do not let it be Javon.

I stopped in front of Lucien, my chest rising and falling unevenly from the run.

“Lucien,” I breathed softly, searching his face for any sign of the man I had fallen for.

But his expression remained distant. Controlled. Cold enough to make my chest ache.

Without saying a word, he opened the back door of the car for me.

A silent command.

I hesitated briefly, every instinct inside me screaming to turn around and go back upstairs, to run from whatever darkness surrounded him before I got dragged deeper into it.

But I could not.

Not when so much still remained unresolved between us.

So I got into the car.

Lucien slid in after me and shut the door quietly behind him.

“Drive, Javon.”

Of course it was Javon.

I could only properly see the back of his long brown hair from where I sat, but even that was enough to make tension crawl through me again as I remembered his glowing eyes from before. Thankfully, he did not even acknowledge me this time. He simply started the engine and pulled away from the apartment complex.

Silence filled the car almost immediately.

Heavy. Suffocating.

My fear returned full force sitting beside Lucien like this. I had never seen him this cold toward me before, and somehow that frightened me more than the glowing eyes or the wolfsbane or any of the supernatural madness surrounding him.

“You’re still not going to talk to me?” I whispered finally, unable to bear the silence anymore.

Lucien said nothing. His gaze remained fixed ahead, his jaw tight with tension.

I hated the distance between us.

The car was spacious, yet somehow it still felt like we were worlds apart even sitting side by side. Maybe because we were. Human and wolf. Truth and lies. Fear and love.

But I still wanted to close that distance. I still wanted to prove to him that I loved him and that I never meant to hurt him.

Desperation clawed painfully through me. Slowly, cautiously, I moved closer and reached up to touch his face, my fingers brushing beneath his jaw before gently turning him toward me.

The second his eyes met mine, I froze. His pupils were glowing bright red.

I instinctively shrank backward against the seat.

“It’s best you move back,” he said quietly, his voice rougher now, almost like a growl.

“Lucien, I…”