CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 75
HIM
The darkness stayed with me long after she drifted off.
Her body had gone soft against mine, her warmth seeping into the hollow places I didn’t know how to fill. Even in sleep, her breath brushed my skin, steady, fragile.
My chest was still damp from her tears. Before she slipped under, she had whispered something—just one word, but it clung to me like it had been carved into my bones.
Lian.
The name burned when it touched me. It caught in my chest, lit something I couldn’t put out. And yet I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
Why did that name feel like it fit somewhere deep inside me, like it was a key turning in a lock I didn’t know I carried? Why did it pull at me, drag me closer to her, make me want to stay?
I don’t remember being Lian. I don’t remember if that was ever me. But she said it with such certainty, like her whole soul believed it—and every part of me ached to believe it too.
I wanted to answer. I wanted to tell her yes. I wanted to belong to her the way she seemed so sure I did.
I wanted to be her Lian.
My throat locked up every time I tried to speak.
The words wouldn’t come.
And I knew that even if I forced them out, they wouldn’t be right. They’d come out wrong, twisted, stripped of meaning—nothing but a broken sound.
A growl.
Something raw and animal that had no place between us. So I kept my mouth shut.
But the pull—the force that kept dragging me to her—was stronger than anything I’d ever known. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t even try to.
All I knew was that every step I’d taken, every breath I’d drawn, had led me here, to her.
Her scent was everywhere.
Sweet.
Fragile.
It wrapped around me, seeped into me, until it was all I could taste, all I could breathe. It drove me half-mad.
My chest felt tight, my body strung taut, as if I might suffocate without it.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to claim her. To sink my teeth into her skin, to brand her as mine so nothing could ever take her away.
The hunger clawed at me, relentless, merciless.
But underneath it all was confusion, sharp and merciless in its own way.
I didn’t know why I wanted her.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t stay away.
I didn’t even know who I was supposed to be to her.
All I had were fragments—fleeting flashes of something familiar. A laugh I almost recognised. The curve of a hand. Eyes I thought I might know. Yet each memory slipped through me like smoke whenever I tried to grasp it.
Why was I drawn to her so completely when I didn’t remember her?
She was mine. I wanted her.
Even without understanding why.
Why did my chest twist as though every line of her body should already be known to me, yet my mind betrayed me with blanks and shadows?
I wanted her.
The beast inside me wanted her.
It growled and clawed at me, urging me to sink into her, to take more than I had, to bury myself so deeply I could never lose her again.
But my hands clenched against the sheets, nails biting into my palms. I had to restrain myself.
Her breath brushed against me even in sleep.
She curled closer, trusting, unaware of the storm raging inside me. I lowered my face to her hair, inhaling one more lungful of her scent, letting it carve itself into me.
I should leave.
I knew I should.
But when I tried to move, her arm tightened around me, small, fragile, desperate.
And I stayed.
Even as my chest split with longing.
Even as confusion tore at me.
Even as I wondered if she would hate me when morning came—or if I hated myself for not knowing why I had come to her at all.
Because I couldn’t remember.
I couldn’t remember why I had been drawn to her, why her presence filled me with a hunger I could not name, why her voice, calling me Lian, reverberated inside me like I had always belonged to it.
Was she thinking of someone else?
Or was it truly me she called?
The doubt gnawed at me, a sharp ache beneath the animalistic pull that surged in my veins.
I pressed closer, low and quiet, feeling her warmth like a tether I didn’t understand.
My hands itched at the thought of taking, of claiming, of merging our worlds in ways reason told me were forbidden.
Yet reason had no foothold here.
Not when she was under my skin, not when every instinct in me was screaming her name, even if the name wasn’t truly mine to answer.
I stayed because I couldn’t leave. Not yet. Not when my body and mind were caught in a force older and stranger than memory.
Aria shifted slightly in her sleep, murmuring softly. I felt her pulse, small and rapid beneath my fingertips. I traced the line of her jaw, the curve of her neck, and restrained myself from leaning forward, from feeding the beast that coiled inside me. Every growl, every twitch of muscle, was a battle I could not fully win.
I stayed.
Because leaving wasn’t even possible.
Because even with the holes in my memory, even with the confusion cutting me open, even with the ache of not knowing who I really was—she knew me. Somehow, she knew me.
Not with answers. Not with certainty. But with the way she pulled me in. With the fire she lit under my skin. With the weight of her presence that crushed everything else, until there was nothing left in the world but her and me.
ARIA
The light leaking through the curtains dragged me awake too soon.
Too bright.
Too sharp.
I squinted against it, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and for one breathless moment I expected to find him there beside me—solid, heavy, those golden eyes glowing faintly in the dark like embers.
But the bed was empty.
Cold.
A hollow ache split open in my chest.
Had it really happened?
Or had I imagined everything again—the heat of his body pressed to mine, the rough tenderness of his hands, the way my name had slipped from his mouth like a plea?
I touched my lips without thinking, half-expecting them to sting from his kiss. But they felt the same.
Normal.
My hair was tangled, my body sore, but that could’ve been from anything—sleep, stress, another long night.
No. It was real. It had to be.
I wanted it so badly that my eyes stung.
And yet the room told a different story.
The walls looked the same as yesterday, the cheap hotel curtains hanging limp. The carpet. The desk. My phone was buzzing faintly on the nightstand. Everything was maddeningly ordinary, as if last night had been nothing more than a fever dream spun out of grief and longing.
I sank onto the edge of the bed and whispered to the empty room, my voice trembling.
“Am I losing my mind?”
“Was it all in my head?”
“Did he even exist?”
The words hung in the air, swallowed by the quiet. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to steady my breathing, but the silence answered me with nothing.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to remember, willing myself to feel it again.
“It was real… it has to be real,” I murmured, almost as if saying it out loud could make it true.
Dragging myself out of bed, I dressed slowly, still caught in the haze of him.
Every movement felt heavy, like my limbs were filled with lead, as if I were moving through water.
By the time I reached the hotel restaurant, the morning crowd had already settled in.
The murmur of conversation, the clatter of plates and silverware, the sharp hiss of coffee machines—all of it swirled around me, but it barely registered.
The smell of eggs and toast was thick in the air, cloying and ordinary, and my stomach churned at the heaviness of it.
My body still felt raw, lingering from the night, as if it hadn’t fully realised what had happened, hadn’t caught up with my mind.
I found an empty table by the window and sank into the chair, staring out at the street below without really seeing it.
Every sense of me was still tangled up in him, in the warmth of last night, in the fire of his presence.
I found an empty table by the window and sank into the chair, staring out at the street below without really seeing it.
My fork hovered over my plate, the scrambled eggs cooling untouched, and I lifted it lazily toward my mouth.
But my mind wasn’t on the food. It was on him—his lips, his hands, the way his name had rolled off my tongue like a prayer.
I blinked, and the world around me seemed to melt into a blur.
The clatter of dishes, the chatter of other guests, even the smell of coffee—it all faded into a dull, distant hum.
My fork still hovered halfway to my mouth, my thoughts trapped in him—his lips, his hands, the way he’d whispered my name like it was the only thing that mattered.
“Aria?”
The voice cut through the haze, sharp and insistent.
My stomach jolted, my heart skipping a beat. Slowly, almost reluctantly, I lifted my gaze.
And that’s when I saw them.