Chapter 28 LUCIAN
LUCIAN’S POV
The moment I step into the cottage, the door slams shut behind me and I stagger back against it, breath punched from my lungs.
Aria’s scent hits me like a living thing.
Wild honeysuckle, sweet and feral, threaded through with raw need. Lust. Heat.
It coils around me, seeps into my skin, sinks into my bones until it feels as though it has always been there, waiting. Calling. Claiming. My control fractures instantly, my body reacting before my mind can catch up, before reason can even attempt to intervene.
“Lucian…”
Her voice trembles as she rushes toward me, colliding with my chest as though drawn by something stronger than gravity. She presses herself against me, her scent spiking, her hands fisting in my clothes as if she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“Lucian. Lucian.”
She chants my name like a prayer or a spell and before I can form a single coherent thought, her fingers tangle in my hair and pull me down into her.
Her lips find mine.
The kiss is nothing like the ones we’ve shared before. There’s no hesitation, no softness meant to savor. This is hunger, wild and unrestrained. She kisses me as if she needs me to breathe, as if stopping would break her entirely.
A low sound rips from my chest before I can stop it.
This…this is what the wolf recognizes. The need. The pull. The instinct screaming that she is mine and that I should take her now, without thought, without mercy.
Aria presses closer, chasing friction, her body seeking mine with desperate intent. My blood roars. Varos surges beneath my skin, snarling approval, demanding I stop fighting what is inevitable.
Fill her. Claim her. Mark her.
I tear my mouth from hers with a growl and slam my hands into the wood beside her head, talons sinking deep as I anchor myself there because if I touch her, truly touch her, I won’t stop.
“Lucian,” she whispers again, eyes glassy, lips swollen. “Please.”
The plea fractures something in me.
She reaches for my hands, her fingers brushing my wrists, but I don’t move. I can’t. The heat is rolling off her in waves, her scent thickening until it’s all I can taste, all I can think about.
“You don’t understand,” I grit out. “Aria…”
She doesn’t let me finish.
Her mouth finds mine again, urgent and needy, her hands fumbling as if guided by instinct alone. I feel her desperation in every touch, every shaky breath, and it nearly destroys me.
Varos howls.
Mate her. Claim her. Mark her.
The words pound through my skull, drowning out reason, drowning out restraint. My body responds violently, betraying me, and Aria feels it, feels everything.
She sinks down before I can stop her, reverent and unsteady, her focus narrowing entirely on me.
“Need you,” she murmurs. “Need… this.”
I slam my head back against the door, a broken sound tearing free as sensation overtakes thought. Her presence alone is overwhelming, her scent, her warmth, the way she gives herself without question.
I cling to the door like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“Aria,” I warn hoarsely, my voice shaking. “If you keep going…”
She doesn’t stop.
The pleasure builds too fast, too sharp, magnified by the bond, by the heat, by the wolf clawing to the surface. I lose the battle moments later, the world collapsing into sensation as my control shatters completely.
Her soft sounds ground me even as they undo me.
When it’s over, when I’m barely breathing and the room feels too small to contain what we’ve started, she looks up at me eyes burning, scent flaring even stronger.
“More,” she whispers.
The word hits harder than anything else.
What the hell was happening?
Where was the Aria I knew, the gentle, careful woman who second-guessed every want?
And if this was only the beginning…
How was I supposed to survive the rest of it?
Goddess, I think desperately, gripping the door as Varos stirs again beneath my skin.
Help me.