THREAD OF DESIRE

Chapter 9 – Tangled Threads

POV: Lucian Mareis

Lucian walked beside Nareth down the quiet street, the night heavy with the scent of rain. Their footsteps echoed, the silence between them louder than words.

Every second felt like borrowed time.

He wanted to speak—to tell him everything, to beg him to believe. But every glance Nareth threw his way carried weight, sharp and questioning. If Lucian broke the silence now, the truth might cut them both to pieces.

Nareth suddenly stopped walking. Lucian froze beside him.

“You know,” Nareth said, his voice calm but edged with steel, “if you’re hiding something… it won’t stay hidden forever.”

Lucian’s breath caught. His pulse thundered.

But when he met Nareth’s eyes, all he could do was smile—a hollow, trembling curve of his lips. “Maybe. But not tonight.”

Nareth stared at him for a long moment, then turned away, walking ahead without another word.

Lucian’s chest ached. The thread between them stretched thinner, weaker… and he didn’t know how long it could hold.

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POV: Irian Thal

The apartment was too quiet after Daelen left.

Irian sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the door like it might swing open again. His skin still prickled with the weight of the Alpha’s presence, his words echoing like smoke: We could be friends.

Friends. The lie of it made Irian’s chest tighten. He knew what Daelen was. Prideful. Cruel in the way only someone desperate to prove strength could be. And yet… there had been a flicker, a hesitation, when Irian had pushed back.

Like Daelen wasn’t as unshakable as he wanted the world to think.

Irian lay back, closing his eyes, but his thoughts refused to settle. The danger wasn’t in Daelen’s arrogance. The danger was in the possibility that beneath it, there was something else. Something that could pull him closer before he had the sense to run.

He told himself he wouldn’t fall for it. He told himself he was stronger than that.

But when his phone buzzed on the nightstand, screen lighting up with a single message—

> Sweet dreams, Irian.

—his resolve wavered.