Marked by midnight.

Chapter 5: The Voice: Rivers POV.

The heat hadn’t left me.

It simmered quietly beneath the surface now, less like a blaze, more like coals waiting to be stirred. Still, it burned. Still, it warned. Something was wrong.

I’d held it together through the final stretch of the meeting. Barely. I nodded when needed, murmured agreements when expected. But my voice felt foreign in my mouth. My body was here, but I was not. Shade was quiet now too but it wasn’t peace. It was like the quiet before a storm. Still. Waiting.

I glanced over at Bay. He hadn’t stopped watching me. Concern sharpened his gaze, unspoken questions flickering behind his eyes.

“You’re sweating,” he said under his breath, leaning in as he passed me a handkerchief. His voice echoed in my mind “And don’t give me that tired crap again.”

His voice wasn’t harsh, but it grounded me; just enough to feel the sweat clinging to my brow and soaking the back of my shirt. The room was cool, yet I burned.

I looked down. My hand was clenched around the table’s edge, veins drawn like tight ropes along my forearm.

I forced myself to let go.

Wiped my brow. Breathed.

I opened a mind link. “Something’s wrong,” I admitted, the lie too heavy to lift anymore. “Shade’s acting strange. I’m..” I stopped short. I couldn’t say ‘I’m burning from the inside out.’ Instead, I met Bay’s eyes and let the tension speak for me.

He nodded once. His voice returned in my mind, calm but firm. “We’ll talk after. Just hold it together a little longer.” I nodded. But I wasn’t sure I could.

Something in me had shifted. Something old. Something powerful. And the quiet waiting in the air didn’t feel like peace. It felt like prophecy.

I told myself I was being irrational. That this wasn’t me. I was logical. Grounded. Strategic. I didn’t get spooked. Maybe I was just tired. Overworked. Stretched too thin between duty and past regrets.

But then came the knock. A soft rapping on the meeting room door. And with it.. .. a shift.

Not loud. Not magical. But unmistakable.

Something inside me tensed. Shade listened.

The door creaked open. A young waitress stepped in, small and nervous. She looked like she wanted to disappear into the floor.

“Urm.. .. sorry to interrupt, sirs,” she stammered. “But.. .. our manager wanted to invite you all to the show downstairs. It starts soon. Complimentary. Just as a thank you.”

The others muttered in polite surprise. But I barely heard her. Because the air had changed. It prickled across my skin like static. Like thunderclouds brushing just above the trees.

Shade stirred with renewed urgency. His energy pressed against my skin, trying to take control, wild but focused. He wanted to go with her. Wanted to follow. And he wanted to go now.

I stayed rooted in my chair, focusing every ounce of strength I had on holding him back. He needed to remember who we were. Where we were. I needed to figure out what was going on. And I needed to do it fast.

Bay noticed.

“What a kind offer, we would gladly accept”. He said to the waitress. The other Alphas began to gather their belongings as Bay stood. “Maybe it’ll help,” his voice sounded worried in my mind as his eyes tracked the twitch of my jaw. “With whatever the hell’s going on.”

I didn’t answer. Just nodded once and rose to join him.

Or maybe Shade did.

I wasn’t entirely sure who was in control anymore.

We followed the waitress out. Down a dim hallway. Velvet blue carpet underfoot. The scent of aged wood and distant pine drifting in through the cracked windows.

Ahead of us, a set of stairs curved down to the show floor, while a small balcony hidden by velvet curtains overlooked the stage from the right.

I didn’t follow the rest of the Alphas down the stairs. I moved toward the balcony, drawn like a compass to its true north.

Music hadn’t started yet, but something buzzed beneath the surface. A sound too low for humans to hear, but I felt it vibrating in my bones. It wasn’t just in the air.

It was in me.

I stood staring at the deep blue curtains like they were the threshold to forbidden secrets. Maybe they were. Maybe behind them waited truths I wasn’t ready to face. My hand found the carved railing of the staircase, cold and solid beneath trembling fingers. I needed something real. Something unmoving. I gripped it tightly, grounding myself as I tried to remember how to breathe.

And then..

The first note spilled into the room like candlelight.

Soft. Slow. A whisper wrapped in velvet and sorrow.

Her voice.

The world stopped.

My body reacted before my mind could catch up; my lungs forgot how to breathe, my chest tightened, my knees locked.

That voice.

Fifteen years had passed and I still knew it like it had been carved into my soul.

Her.

The girl from the masquerade.

She was here.

And she was singing.

A hundred scents flooded up from the audience below, wine, perfume, sweat, cologne, but through it all, a thread flickered past my senses like smoke on wind.

Rain.

Moonlight.

Forests.

Honey.

Her.

Just a flicker.

Then it was gone.

But it was enough.

Enough for me to know what was calling Shade. What was setting my blood on fire.

I gripped the railing tighter as the heat bloomed in my chest again. Stronger. Deeper. Shade surged beneath my skin, no longer frantic. Now just desperate for her.

He remembered her too.

There was no logic. No confirmation. No name.

But I knew. I could feel her the way the sea feels the moon’s pull.

Below me, the crowd laughed. Chatted. Raised glasses. But I couldn’t move.

Not yet.

Her voice rose and fell like the tide, brushing my soul with every note.

“Love me tender, love me sweet…”

Her voice wavered just slightly on the first line. A tremor like wind through leaves. And it nearly undid me. My fingers curled tighter on the railing.

She had changed.

The tone of her voice was fuller now. Matured. But it was her.

She was alive .

And somehow, the Moon Goddess had brought us to the same place.. ..again.

Bay appeared at my side without a word. He didn’t ask. Just stood with me, silent and steady.

I needed to see her. I couldn’t wait any longer. I reached forward, pulled back the curtain shielding the balcony, and stepped into the open air.

My eyes locked on the stage below as her voice rose and fell.

She stood in a vintage red dress, her blonde hair gleaming under the lights in soft victory rolls. Elegant. Sad. Ageless.

A ghost I had loved for one night and mourned for a lifetime.

And she was here.

Singing.

Her voice spun grief into gold. Every note wound through me, unravelling something I hadn’t realised was still bound tight.

My soul.

I wasn’t sure if she’d sensed me. Her eyes were closed, lost in the music. But I saw her. Felt her.

And suddenly I was twenty one again, standing in the garden under moonlight, holding a girl I didn’t know I would spend years longing for.

The song continued.

I wasn’t ready to be seen.

But I needed to see her.

Because one thing was certain now; the girl from the masquerade had never truly left me.

And tonight, neither would her song.

The question was, could I bare to leave her now I had found her again?